For more than a year, as conflicts between Israel and Iranian-backed forces spread across the Middle East and spilled into his own country, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was conspicuously silent.
With a long civil war still simmering in Syria, the state broken and bankrupt, and the backers that propped up his regime — Russia, Iran, and Hizbollah — all distracted and weakened by their own conflicts, Assad lay low, seemingly hedging his bets.
But this week’s shock assault by Islamist rebels, who captured Aleppo, the nation’s second city, within 48 hours of launching their offensive, has dramatically exposed the instability in Syria, the fragility of Assad’s hold over his shattered country and the scale of opposition to his rule.
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