After Aleppo

Now the battle for Aleppo is as good as over. With all its tragedy's and as yet unknown faith of the rebel and civilian survivors in the eastern part, I haven't seen much analysis on what Assad's next step and endgame will be. So I will give it a go.

First of all it is the question who is actually calling the shots here. Assad? Putin? Iran? The allies do not seem to be on the same page all the time.
Russia makes deals with Turkey that Iran and Assad are not part of, aware of or don't agree with. First on Operation Desert Shield and the faith of Al-Bab. Assad seems to oppose the Turks taking the city, although that may be token resistance for interior consumption. And now about the evacuation of eastern Aleppo which the Iranians seem to oppose.

Now Aleppo has fallen, what was a national rebellion has downgraded to provincial rebellions.
-Salafists of Ahrar and jihadist of AQ/Nusra(now Jabhat Fatah al-Sham)pretty much calling the shots in Idlib province. 
-FSA/Western-supported rebels running the south around Deraa.
-Turkish proxy on the northern border also calling themselves FSA but not clear what their role will be beyond keeping Kurds from Afrin and Manbij separated.

Meanwhile the Kurds have set up a de facto independent area in the north and seem at least to have a sort of non-aggression pact with Assad. For the time being, that is. They may have had promises from Assad about future autonomy.

IS should be considered a foreign occupation. They are no party in any political solution for Syria. Assad may be happy to leave them to the Coalition, Kurds and possibly Hashd (popular mobilization militias) from Iraq after they've finished the Mosul battle. Recapturing Palmyra may be a matter of pride though. I hear rumors the Russians are pretty pissed off about it.

Assad will ideally want to reconquer his entire country but it very much remains to be seen if that's a viable option. He won't be able to do it without Russia and Iran and it is highly unlikely they will be committed for the duration of such a struggle.

More likely is, what I've already written in October 2015, that Russia will want to go for a political solution once they've reached a position of strength. The question is if we've reached that point now Aleppo has fallen.

I think the Russians thought they already reached that point before. In Februari when they closed the A'zaz corridor and they negotiated a cease-fire. Successive talks in Vienna didn't work out so the war commenced.

Now, with Aleppo, there is a new moment they might use to get a political solution. The big question is whether Iran and Assad himself will be on board.
My guess is that Russia will at one point force Assad somehow to accept a political solution including the FSA. Probably the ones in the south. Maybe a token form of democracy so Putin will look good in the West. Assad's own role in a post war scenario has always been the biggest stumbling block. But a Western weariness of the war and continuing wins by Assad are already caving the resolve against him staying

But where IS is definitely no party to any political solution for Syria on the account of being a foreign entity, Ahrar and Nusra are native Syrian. 
I doubt though Assad/Russia/Iran will want to include them into a post war scenario but they might have no choice.
Getting them out of Idlib will be one hell of a fight. A fight I'm not sure the Russians and Iran are willing to take on.

Strategies in Syria

Looking at the developments in the last few months...


Russia/Assad.
The strategy I wrote down in October in this blog still seems valid. 
Rebel momentum was stopped and even turned around. It started out with what apparently were either probing attacks, north of Hama, or genuine attempts that failed. Eventually they became successful south of Aleppo around Al-Hadir. Slower, and probably costlier, but necessary for the regime was the offensive in Latakia province to push the rebels away from Latakia city and its Russian bases.
Notable was the corridor to Kweiris airbase and successive cleansing of the area east of Aleppo of IS forces.
Biggest stunt of course was the offensive north of Aleppo that closed off the road to the Azaz border crossing. 

As I predicted this put the regime in a perfect position to start negotiating. If and how long the ceasefire will hold remains to be seen but the different sides look confident enough about it to start offensives on other fronts now. Meaning IS. (Even the rebels continued their attack along the Turkish border and took Dudiyan)
Regime is currently active east of Homs and towards Palmyra. (Update: They're also moving further east from Aleppo towards Jirah airbase as we speak)
The thing I notice most since October is that the regime troops are operating more organized and like a real Army. Before the Russian entrance in the conflict they were operating more like a militia. Central organization seemed lacking. Iranians were apparently not able or willing to do that. Could be they were more focused on creating a Hezbollah type parallel power structure in Syria. Could also be because Iran hasn't got a lot of experience with this type of warfare. Iran-Iraq war was quite different and they may be good in insurgency warfare but that's not the same as counter-insurgency.
Meanwhile regime troops are undoubtedly preparing for when the ceasefire collapses. Cutting of the rest of Aleppo the most likely scenario.
They'd probably also would like to clear the rebel enclave between Hama and Homs but it is always hard to fight against a group that has no way to flee.


Rebels.
Have been on the receiving end since October and were not able to do anything else than hanging on. Yesterday I heard a rumor that they were massing troops south of Afrin near Darat Izza but if and when an offensive materializes remains to be seen.


IS.
IS days of big offensives are long gone. Apart from Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra their momentum was broken at Kobane. In that sense Kobane really was their Stalingrad. There they lost a lot of fighters in what was essentially a flank cleaning operation. I bet their real goal was Aleppo.
18 months of coalition airstrikes deprived them of the economic means. The only attacks we've seen from IS recently were disruptive attacks on the regime supply road to Aleppo an against the Kurds in Tell Abyad(Gire Sipi). Disruptive since there was now follow up and the only intended effect was to slow down and redirect the opponent. It didn't work with the Kurds.


Kurds.
The Kurds are basically just interested in liberating Kurdish areas but it looks like the US have convinced them to go beyond that and continue against IS in Arab areas. To justify this they've gold plated the YPG with some Yezidi, Assyrian and Arab units and renamed it the SDF. US also seem to disown the YPG in Afrin who apparently have some form of coordination, not to say coorperation, with regime/Russian forces.
Kurds/SDF went south from Kobane and took Tishreen dam and crossed the Euphrates river. For a while it looked like they were aiming of Manbij, maybe even move further west to connect with YPG in Afrin but the offensive stopped after creating a safe perimeter around Tishreen dam.
Big question is if the Kurds wanted that connection with Afrin but were stopped by the US or if they figured it would aggravate Turkey too much and thought the better of it.

Since the ceasefire the Kurds started a offensive in eastern Syria, south of Hasakah. They took Shaddadi and went further south towards Merkada.
Now they are clearing the area west of Shadaddi up onto Ayn Issa. They are closing in on Deir ez Zor and Raqqa (We've just heard through the Sky news intel leaks that IS is moving its HQ from there into the desert. For what it is worth)
It might just be possible they are aiming for the Euphrates as a natural border. The Kurds too want a good position if they need to negotiate a deal with the regime about an autonomous Rojava. The way things look now that might not be a bad bet.