SAA Secures Khalidiya District in Homs

A particularly good assessment of the current military situation in Syria can be found this morning on BBC's website. Written by Paul Wood reporting from Beirut, it stands out because it is not twisted, like so many stories that appear in the Western press, to fall in line with U.S. foreign policy. This policy demands that atrocities by rebel forces be downplayed, ignored, excused, blamed on the Syrian government while battlefield gains by the Syrian Arab Army be downplayed, ignored, explained away.

In "After Khalidiya, Syria conflict goes on," Wood reports that the main rebel-held neighborhood in Homs has fallen to government forces. The focus will now shift to securing Aleppo. Wood's assessment for the near future is difficult to dispute:

Some analysts are already speculating that this is the beginning of the end of the armed rebellion. 

Western diplomats dealing with the armed opposition believe the government may be able to establish a "secure area" running from Damascus all the way up to Hama, a city 45km (28 miles) to the north of Homs, or even to Aleppo. 

What happens now may depend on the extent of foreign intervention. 

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been sending weapons to the FSA for some time. The US is moving towards sending small arms. The UK is contemplating such a step, but would only do so after a vote in Parliament. 

It would probably take a very large influx of weapons to break the government's momentum.

However, that does not mean that the armed uprising will be extinguished. 

President Bashar al-Assad has had to use his own foreign fighters, from Hezbollah, to pursue his offensive. 

He does not have enough loyal manpower to chase the rebels into the countryside, the mountains and the deserts. 

Even if the government takes back the big cities and the main roads, Syria will remain divided, the conflict far from over.

There was nothing in today's New York Times about the SAA victory in Khalidiya. In the Gray Lady, for the most part if not always, the only news coming out of Syria that is fit to print is the horror and suffering of war caused entirely by a brutal dictator named al-Assad. It's a cold war, cartoon version of ongoing events, and the news is sculpted to fit that perspective. In other words, it's propaganda.

Worrisome is the presence of Robert F. Worth reporting from Cairo in the absence of David Kirkpatrick. Hopefully Kirkpatrick is just taking some time off -- he's still listed as the Cairo bureau chief on the NYT website. Worth's writing has that spooky quality ("spooky" in the Langley sense), while Kirkpatrick and Kareem Fahim have been consistently excellent reporters going back to the first days of the Arab Spring.