US President Barack Obama has reportedly signed a secret order, authorizing more support for the insurgents fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The decree broadly permits the CIA and other US agencies to aid the insurgents in Syria against the country’s army. Press TV has conducted an interview with Joseph Zrnchik, a political commentator, to further discuss the issue. The following is US President Barack Obama has reportedly signed a secret order, authorizing more support for the insurgents fighting against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government. The decree broadly permits the CIA and other US agencies to aid the insurgents in Syria against the country’s army. Press TV has conducted an interview with Joseph Zrnchik, a political commentator, to further discuss the issue. The following is a rough transcription of the interview. Q: First of all, what is your assessment of the present situation in Syria? Zrnchik: What I’ve been seeing from very credible sources on the internet, on Youtube itself, the Syrian forces are fighting a good battle. In fact, they’ve been commended for the fact that they’ve been trying to watch out for civilians. They haven’t been using extremely heavy weapons against civilian areas. However, the rebels, from what I’ve been reading, have captured a couple of tanks in some areas and are firing tank rounds indiscriminately. To me it looks like it’s going to be a tough battle. From what I’ve been reading, the Syrian military is ready for some major operation and, in fact, right now the US is running around saying we need to stop the killings…and the army’s getting ready for a major push to try and take back some of the towns that were seized by rebel forces. Q: There are a number of actors involved in the Syria scenario. Can you tell us, who is after what? Zrnchik: Right now it looks like the United States has decided they’re going to hit something with a sledgehammer and then just see how everything scatters. I don’t think they have any endgame whatsoever. As far as Syrians, I think that they have a very good chance of winning this battle provided that they continue to get outside support from Russia…from Iran. And if that’s the case, I think that they can keep this battle on for as long as it takes to be able to hold off the rebel forces. I think that the Syrians are fighting, really, an existential battle for their existence; and if they lose, there’s going to be some major losers. I mean, there’s going to be some cases of ethnic cleansing; there’ll be some cases of genocide. So, they’ve put a large portion of the Syrian population in a position to where they’re fighting for their very lives. I don’t really see any end to it because there is no end once you’re fighting for your life. It’s just going to be a matter of if the Syrian army is going to have to win this battle, they’re going to have to secure an area where they’re going to be able to operate from; and then I think that once they do that, they’ll be able to hold on indefinitely. That’s why it’s such a tragedy for the United States, for Bahrain and for Saudi Arabia to continue to fund what’s going to be just a disaster. Q: What role does the Iraqi Kurdistan region play in this scenario? Zrnchik: That’s kind of interesting because Erdogan from Turkey, he kind of started this chaos. He decided that he wanted to fund these rebels and build bases for them inside of Turkey. Now we’ve got a situation where he’s worried about the Kurds being able to establish a homeland for them and a base of operations inside Syria that would allow them to operate in Turkey. You’ve got to remember now, there’s going to be an area that’s not controlled by Syria. So you can’t blame Syria for what is going on and what the Kurds are doing. Now, Turkey’s constantly threatening invasion, and to me that’s ridiculous, because this is a disaster that they’ve created.