Shashank Joshi: Assad will not necessarily be "cheering on" US airstrikes

Shashank Joshi, Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, has written in the Daily Telegraph that he doesn't believe the US strikes on the Islamic State will necessarily benefit Bashar al-Assad:

"There is, therefore, an implicit bargain between Obama and Assad. Assad stands down his defences, and he gets to survive. Obama is likely relieved he has had no need to “wipe out” this system, because it included Russian advisers and operators, and US bombs falling on Russian military personnel would probably go down badly in Moscow. But if this campaign stretches on for weeks or months, might Assad find it necessary to mount, at least, some symbolic resistance? The fact that Israel this morning shot down a Syrian fighter jet – the first such interception since 1989 – suggests that the regime may be getting edgy."