A ruler with no kingdom left

The predominantly Kurdish town of Kobani is devastated after months under siege by Islamist forces and airstrikes by a United States-led coalition (Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse – Getty Images).

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You can find Bashar al-Assad's history on Wikipedia and you can find thoughts about his motivations in the Atlantic Monthly, but his kingdom is mostly gone because of chemical weapons, barrel bombs, and other attacks on his people.

It should be noted that Syria has become a war zone and, while Assad is responsible for much of the damage, the Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS), a United States-led coalition, and Russian forces enlisted by Assad have contributed. Wondering what's left for Assad to rule, I went searching.

The picture of Kobani above was found at From Syria, an Atlas of a Country in Ruins, March 2015. The same article gives a graphic representation of  the building damage level in Aleppo. It's worse now, since the Russians began bombing. (Legend: RED Destroyed; ORANGE Severe; OCHRE Moderate)

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An analysis of 210 sites in the city’s old quarters concluded that about half were
damaged and one-fifth were destroyed. New York Times

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The New York Times said of Syria After Four Years of Mayhem:

Half of Syrians Displaced (Mar 2015)
The war has displaced 7.6 million people inside Syria and pushed 3.9 million more — half of them children — to seek refuge in other countries, according to figures collected by United Nations agencies.

Lately, Assad's tactics have been bombing schools and hospitals. Foreign Policy reports Syrian MSF Hospital Kept Location Secret to Avoid Being Bombed. The Médecins Sans Frontières-supported hospital was destroyed anyway (Feb, 2016).

For an idea of how the Syrian Free Press on Wordpress sees it all, take a look at the Real SyrianFreePress Network (not sure this is an 'official' site).

If Bashar wins, he will have few people left to rule and little infrastructure to support civilized living. So what's the point of winning?

-- Marge