U.S. convinced Assad will be overthrown, prepares for aftermath: report

The United States is increasingly convinced that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will eventually be overthrown by the ongoing public uprising but fears a civil war after his ouster, which is why it is quietly working with Turkey to deal with any eventuality, according to The New York Times on Tuesday.

The Obama administration has not withdrawn U.S. Ambassador Robert S. Ford from Damascus in order to maintain contacts with the opposition and with Alawite, Druse, Christian and Sunni sects, the report said.

President Obama’s call last month for President Assad to relinquish power came after months of closed-door discussions, with intelligence offices saying Assad had reached the point of no return.

“There’s a real consensus that he’s beyond the pale and over the edge,” a senior Obama administration official told The New York Times. “Intelligence services say he’s not coming back.”

The Obama administration fears that, unlike in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya where revolutions imploded internally, the revolt in Syria could explode and engage Hezbollah, Iran, Iraq, and possibly even Israel.

“The Sunnis are increasingly arming, and the situation is polarizing,” the report quoted Vali Nasr, a former Obama administration official in the State Department and the author of “The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future,” as saying.

“Iran and Hezbollah are backing the regime,” he said. “There’s a lot of awareness across the regime that this is going to be pretty ugly.”

The fear of post-Assad era violence and Iraq-style mayhem is prompting the United States to make preparations. “Nobody wants another Iraq,” the report quoted an administration official as saying.

President Obama is expected to discuss Syria with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.