Elliott Abrams imagines what Assad’s patrons are telling themselves about the conflict in Syria:

We cannot afford to lose this one. A Sunni government in Syria would align with Turkey or the Gulf Arabs or the West, or some combination of them, against us. The bridge between Iran and Hezbollah would be lost. Hezbollah would be badly weakened, thus weakening our ability to threaten Israel. Israel would be more likely to attack our nuclear sites for this very reason​—​because it would think Hezbollah and Iran are weaker. Our influence in Iraq would fall too. People would say the rise of Iranian and Shia influence in the region was now over. Hezbollah’s enemies in Lebanon, the Sunnis above all, would be energized. People would realize Russia is no match for the Americans. So we must win, and we will dedicate to winning any resources that are needed. As to the humanitarian toll, we don’t care about Sunnis in Syria, or about weakening Turkey or especially Jordan; in fact, those would be nice side benefits from the struggle in Syria. There is only one point here: Do we win or do we lose? We have decided to win.

This might or might not correctly capture the thinking of some or all of Assad’s international supporters. The interesting thing here is that it is a near-perfect reversal of neoconservative arguments about Syria. Abrams has switched the names, but the structure of the argument is virtually identical. Hard-liners insist that the U.S. cannot afford to “lose” in Syria, they fear that Iran and Hizbullah will be “energized,” and they worry that the U.S. will appear to be in “retreat” from the region if it “fails” to intervene. As for the humanitarian toll, hard-liners here don’t care about Shias, Druze, Alawis, and Christians in Syria, nor are they concerned about destabilizing Syria’s neighbors (including Turkey and Jordan) so long as Iran is dealt a setback. One problem with the hard-liners’ argument is that the U.S. stake in the conflict is simply made up. It’s imaginary. The U.S. can’t “lose” in Syria if it isn’t stupid enough to enter the conflict, and in the meantime Iran and Hizbullah fritter away their resources and regional goodwill. At most, a “win” for Iran means a return to something much less than the 2011 status quo, and it is entirely possible that in their determination to “win” in Syria they will inflict far more damage on their regional ambitions than anything the U.S. might do to them.