A father seeks peace in a place of war

Robert Stokely: My son didn't die in vain

(CNN) -- Robert Stokely fired up his computer and began a journey to a place an ocean and continent away, to a land of parched earth and dusty brush not far from the banks of the Euphrates.

Yusufiya.

It is the Iraqi town where Robert's son Mike was killed on a hot August night in 2005. A place that haunted him.

Robert showed me his Google Earth mapping ritual the first time I met him in his office in suburban Atlanta.

It was almost a year after Mike's death, and he was tortured by the thought that he might die without ever seeing where his son fell.

Sgt. Michael Stokely was killed in Iraq in August, 2005.

Now, when I meet him for lunch at a sports bar more than six years later, it is as though a great weight has been lifted.

The sorrow of losing a child, unimaginable to many of us, never withers.

Robert still wears Mike's dog tag around his neck and occasionally sleeps in his son's bedroom, frozen in time with Mike's Green Day CDs and military memorabilia.

On a shelf in the room sits a round clock that Robert bought for $4.98. He stopped it at 2:20 a.m., the time of Mike's death, and in black marker scribbled the date: August 16.

Robert still does the things that made his grief so visible to me in the aftermath of Mike's death. But Robert's voice is steadier now. He can finish most of his sentences without tears.

I know that it is because of that place -- Yusufiya.

Visible grief

In 2005, I was a newspaper reporter embedded with Mike's National Guard brigade, the 48th Infantry.

His unit, Troop E of the 108th Cavalry Regiment, slept in a rat-infested potato factory in Yusufiya and patrolled the restive town and its outskirts, never knowing who was friend or foe.

The insurgency was raging in Iraq, and Yusufiya lay in a part of the country that gained notoriety as the Triangle of Death as more and more American soldiers lost their lives on bomb-laden roads.

That's how Mike was killed. He stepped out of his Humvee during a night operation, and a bomb sent shrapnel slicing through his body.

I wrote about Mike's memorial ceremony at a forward operating base not far from where he died. His friends occupied rows of folding metal chairs set up in front of a pair of Mike's desert boots. His dog tags hung from an upended rifle.

Robert read that story. And we began a conversation, first through e-mail, and later in person, when I returned from Iraq.

It struck me from the beginning how open he was; few parents of soldiers I'd met were so grittily honest.

We order bowls of vegetable soup and after small talk, I decide to ask him why he chose to be so public with his sorrow.

"I would rather tell the story as it is than have people fill in the blanks," he says.

There's another reason, too, why Robert has been so forthcoming.

"I want people who killed my son to know they failed in their mission," he says. "They wanted to leave us as the walking dead, shells of people. I'm not going to let them have that."

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On the first anniversary of Mike's death, his father had shared so many memories.

Robert was a single dad for a while. Mike came to live with him some of the time in suburban Atlanta.

I learned he was born prematurely and weighed only 4 pounds, 2 ounces. That he grew up with a scar on his chest where a tube was inserted to save his life when his left lung collapsed.

After Mike died, Robert looked at the autopsy reports. He realized his son's left lung had collapsed again.

Robert listened over and over to the last voice mail Mike left on his cell phone. He couldn't bear to close Mike's bank account, even though it held only $29.

He put me in his Ford Escape and took me to all the places in Atlanta that meant something to him as a father.

To the first apartment they shared after Robert and Mike's mom divorced. To the cemetery at Corinth Christian Church in the town of Loganville, where Mike is buried. I remember how he bought 12 gallons of water from a nearby convenience store for the grass around the headstone.

I ask him if he still visits the grave once a month. He tells me he does; that he keeps a watering can, hedge clippers and a bottle of Windex in his car in case of impromptu visits.

"I can't do anything else for Mike other than keep his grave up," he says.

I don't know what to say as silence makes the moment awkward. We both look down at our soup.

Then, he volunteers: "I know some people think I'm over the top."

I know that he's a father in pain.

I think of what he told me six years ago: He couldn't rest until he stood in the very spot where his son took his last breath.

He was like any other person who felt a need to see the place where a loved one died. Only this was not the scene of a car accident along a lonely Georgia highway. It was a place far away -- one of war.

The journey of his dreams

Robert bookmarked the spot where Mike died on Google Earth. Every day, he studied the images of green and taupe parcels of flat land.

He'd always been fascinated by geography. GPS, his family called him, because he memorized maps and never lost his way, even in an unfamiliar town.

He figured out that Yusufiya is about the same latitude as Sharpsburg, the town south of Atlanta that he calls home.

Robert Stokely always wears his son's dog tag around his neck. It's one way that he honors Mike.

Even before Mike died, Robert sat on his front porch at night, listened to crickets and gazed at the moon. He found solace in knowing that it was the same moon Mike saw only eight hours earlier.

Robert is the Coweta County solicitor and well connected in his community. He launched a scholarship foundation in Mike's name and spoke at veterans' events. He lobbied to have a highway honoring his son and invited me to the inauguration. I still have a plastic replica of the green road sign announcing "Sgt. Michael Stokely Memorial Highway" in my house.

But with every year, his yearning to see Iraq intensified.

He wrote about his desire in blogs pounded out on his computer on sleepless nights.

"It is important to me to go to the place where my son fell the night he died, kneel, and touch the soil and breathe the air," he wrote.

"Maybe, just maybe, I might even be able to do it even as the moon over Yusufiya rises."

Eventually, the people who run the nonprofit service group Soldiers' Angels saw the blog. They, in turn, contacted James Reese, a retired Delta Force officer who co-owns the security firm TigerSwan, to see if he could escort Robert to Yusufiya.

Reese wanted badly to help a father find his peace. But to take him to a war zone? Reese knew the risks were huge, but in the end, he agreed.

On Halloween night a year ago, Robert boarded a Delta flight at the Atlanta airport. He had never been aboard a plane as big as a Boeing 777 or traveled so far.

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He carried with him a marble plaque bearing Mike's name, date of birth and date of death. It also bore a Bible verse: "Thy sun shall not set, nor thy moon wane. The Lord almighty is your everlasting light."

Robert worried about placing the plaque on Muslim soil. He didn't want to offend anyone. But, he thought, it was small enough and it would be OK if he put it off the side of the road.

Robert took his seat and looked out the window. The moon wasn't as bright as the night Mike died, but Robert saw its glow. As the engines roared and the jet began its sprint down the runway, Robert began to cry.

"I'm coming, Mike," he whispered.

Almost there

Robert flew to Dubai and Amman and then to Baghdad. TigerSwan put him up at the firm's villa.

A few days later, he put on a helmet and a bulletproof vest and climbed clumsily into an armored Toyota Land Cruiser. Robert pauses his story to tell me that Mike -- always one for humor -- might have laughed at the sight of his dad's awkwardness.

I feel silly after I tell Robert that Mike would have been proud that his aging father had the fortitude to travel all that way. Of course, he knows.

Robert made sure his flak jacket vest bore his son's nametag. The Army only uses last names. "Stokely," it said.

Robert with Mike at Fort Stewart before Mike's National Guard unit left for Iraq in the summer of 2005.

One of Mike's friends had ripped it off his uniform when he died and held onto it for the rest of his yearlong tour. He'd given it to Robert when the grieving father met his son's unit at Fort Stewart.

That was the only piece of Mike's military uniform Robert had ever worn. Sometimes, he wore Mike's old polo shirts. But he had always told me he didn't deserve to wear anything that represented Mike's service.

As TigerSwan's convoy of five vehicles made its way south on the main highway from Baghdad, Robert sat calmly in the back seat of the Land Cruiser, a pocket-sized, camouflage-covered Bible in his hands. Inside, he shuddered.

TigerSwan personnel were on high alert after reports of violence that morning during a Shiite pilgrimage. They had intelligence that a suicide bomber was in the area.

Robert's convoy started running into Iraqi checkpoints. Soon, they had been diverted off their route. Robert had studied the maps and grid coordinates so many times that he knew exactly where they were: a mile and half away from the potato factory.

"Are we at about the 30-grid mark? We should be six, seven, eight miles to the east of Yusufiya," Robert said.

The security team marveled at Robert's knowledge of every road, every alley. He was determined to help get them to Yusufiya.

But after being turned away several times, TigerSwan's Reese felt it was too dangerous to go in. They would have to give up. They would have to return to Baghdad.

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Robert felt sick to his stomach. He was dry-heaving, so heartbroken that tears began flowing down his face.

He eyed the tree line and thought for a moment that he would gently open the car door and make a mad dash.

But he didn't. He had promised his family there would be no more tragedy.

He shakes his head as he finishes his story. "I was so close."

Making peace

I ask Robert how he lives with the thought that he missed the chance to see the place that haunted him. Is it worse that he tried and didn't make it?

He tells me he might have regrets except for what happened next in his journey to Iraq.

He met an Iraqi man who'd lost his son and nephew in a bombing. A trip across Baghdad was fraught with danger for him and his family.

That Iraqi father, Robert says, wants the same things in life that he does. But the Iraqi man's days are far more daunting.

At the Baghdad airport, Robert felt lucky to be going home to a safe place.

"I remember thinking that when we buried Mike, our war was over. But that father? He lives in uncertainty every day."

It was eerie hearing Robert's words. It's exactly how I had felt on my trips to Iraq. That word, uncertainty, had appeared in so many of my stories. I could not imagine how wretched it would be to live with that feeling all the time, to not know whether you'd survive a trip to the market and back.

I tell Robert that he looks more at ease now. He pauses and takes another sip of his water.

"I talk too much, you know," he says, smiling.

He still looks at the map. He still gazes upward at the moon. But he assures me he can go through an entire day now without thinking about Yusufiya.

It used to be a place on the map where Robert's son died. Now he thinks of it as a place that people call home.

The very first time I interviewed Robert, he told me that after his son was killed, he was no longer afraid to die. I realize now, after all these years, he is no longer afraid to live.

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Xi Jinping: From 'sent-down youth' to China's top

Who is Xi Jinping?

Hong Kong (CNN) -- When Xi Jinping, 59, and his "Fifth Generation" of leaders assume power, it will mark a first for China's post-1949 generation and those who spent their formative years during the Cultural Revolution.

In a series of steps, Xi, the current vice president since 2008, is expected to be named general secretary of the Communist Party during its 18th Congress, which opens Thursday, and then president next March, succeeding incumbent Hu Jintao.

As with all Chinese leaders, details of Xi's life are tightly controlled by the government, creating a gap that biographies -- some written under pseudonyms, given the political sensitivities -- have sought to fill. China watchers meanwhile try to discern how he would lead.

"Chinese leaders don't rise to the top telegraphing what changes they'll do," said Bruce J. Dickson, a political science professor at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. "They rise to the top showing how loyal they are to the incumbent. What they'll do when they rise to the top -- that's the big question."

Xi was born in 1953, four years after the Chinese Communist Party defeated the ruling Nationalists and established the People's Republic of China. He is the son of the second marriage of Xi Zhongxun, a revolutionary hero whom then-paramount leader Mao Zedong would appoint minister of propaganda and education.

Xi Zhongxun would later become vice premier under Zhou Enlai and secretary general of the State Council, China's highest administrative body, before being purged in 1962.

Until then, Xi Jinping had grown up a "princeling" in the enclave of power, Zhongnanhai, with other children of China's first generation of leaders. One childhood peer was Bo Xilai, son of Bo Yibo, the first finance minister who was also purged during the Cultural Revolution. Life was comfortable and far removed from the mass starvation during Mao's disastrous "Great Leap Forward" campaign (1958-1962), which was designed to transform the nation into an industrial society.

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However, a few years later, Xi -- his father by then deposed -- would be among 30 million "sent-down youth," forced to leave cities for the countryside and mountains under another of Mao's policies. From 1969-1975, or most of the Cultural Revolution, Xi was an agricultural laborer in Liangjiahe, Shaanxi, his ancestral province.

"That generation went through a lot of difficulties," said Cheng Li, director of research at the John L. Thornton Center at the Brookings Institution. "Idealism and pragmatism in a very unique way combined in this generation."

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The experience had a positive influence on Xi's view of China and the world, according to Guo Yanjun, chairman of CNHK Media, the publisher of "China's Future: A Biography of Xi Jinping." "Even after he became a leader, he helped farmers," Guo said. His favorite story was of the Tsinghua University-bound Xi in 1975 being accompanied by villagers who walked 60 li (30 km) to send him off at a train station.

Mao died in 1976, and Xi's father was subsequently rehabilitated and became party secretary of Guangdong, where he oversaw China's first special economic zones near Hong Kong -- reforms that would define then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's economic legacy.

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The elder Xi's connections proved critical. After graduating from Tsinghua with a chemical engineering degree in 1979, Xi Jinping became the personal secretary to his father's former comrade-in-arms, Geng Biao, and became an active military servicemember. As vice premier, a member of the Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee and secretary general of the Central Military Commission, Geng "dominated the Party, government and the army," according to "China's Future," affording Xi a rare vantage point.

Such military ties -- familial and professional -- give him what neither Hu nor his predecessor Jiang Zemin had, said Chi Wang, president of the U.S.-China Policy Foundation.

"The military takes him as one of the family members."

It was around this period that Xi was married to his first wife, Ke Lingling, the daughter of Ke Hua, China's ambassador to Great Britain and a former underling of Xi Zhongxun, according to "China's Future."

Idealism and pragmatism in a very unique way combined in this generation
Cheng Li, Brookings Institution

Not much is known about the marriage except that it ended in divorce within a few years. (In 1987, Xi would marry his current wife, Peng Liyuan, a popular folk singer for the People's Liberation Army.)

In 1982, when his father entered the ruling Politburo and the Secretariat, Xi became county deputy secretary in Zhengding, Hebei province, his first experience in rural politics.

In this role, he took his first trip to the United States -- as part of an agricultural delegation in 1985 to Hebei's "sister state" of Iowa -- and brought back knowledge of farming technology as well as tourism.

This trip had a great impact on Xi, who stayed with a family in Muscatine, said Pin Ho, chairman of Mirror Books, which published a separate "Biography of Xi Jinping" this year.

"Vocally, he's a nationalist. Psychologically, he greatly hopes to keep good relations with the West, especially the U.S.," Ho said, noting that Xi's daughter, Xi Mingze, studies there -- at Harvard -- under a pseudonym.

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In a major policy speech in Washington in February Xi called for increasing strategic trust and reducing suspicions while respecting each other's core interests, such as the "one-China policy" that opposes Taiwan and Tibetan independence.

In an indirect reference to the Obama administration's "rebalancing" strategy toward Asia, Xi said, "We hope the United States will respect the interests and concerns of China and other countries in the region."

Nonetheless, Xi got high marks for his desire to engage with the United States, and his trip included meetings with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Also not overlooked was the fact Xi chose to make a nostalgic stop in Iowa, in addition to Los Angeles, during his five-day U.S. tour.

"From my conversations with people in the United States, the reigning understanding is, 'This is a guy we can work with,'" said David Lampton, director of the China Studies Program at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Wang of the U.S.-China Policy Foundation echoed the sentiments, calling Xi "relaxed, very at ease to talk with people" and a departure from Communist leaders who tend to be "very cautious" when talking.

Meanwhile, "Xi's leadership experience [after Zhengding] in running Fujian, Zhejiang, and Shanghai, three economically-advanced regions, has prepared him well for pursuing policies to promote the development of the private sector, foreign investment and trade, and the liberalization of China's financial system," wrote Cheng Li of Brookings for the Washington Quarterly in its winter 2012 edition.

The run-up to Xi's ascension as China's next leader has nonetheless been bumpy.

In September, his nearly two-week "disappearance" -- and canceled meetings with Clinton and other foreign officials fueled speculation over his health and factional infighting.

This is a guy we can work with
David Lampton, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, former Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa said Xi had suffered a back injury while swimming.

Even so, the Chinese media's "default mode" of not speaking about its leaders, coupled with the lack of a constitutional basis for the regime's transfer of power, left people wondering, "What's the Plan B if something were to happen?" Lampton said.

Also of note were two reports released by Xinhua on September 28 within three minutes of each other: the Congress' November 8 opening date. after much speculation it would fall in October -- and the expulsion of Bo Xilai from the Communist Party. Bo now faces criminal prosecution in the wake of a scandal that saw his wife convicted of murder.

Given the turbulent lead-up to the Communist Party Congress, Lampton says he, like other China watchers, will be trying to glean clues as to China's political direction. He says a longer-than-expected Congress could hint at an inability to reach decisions. Also important will be the make-up of the Politburo Standing Committee, what happens to the key portfolios and crucially, whether Hu will relinquish his chairmanship of the Central Military Commission to Xi.

"Having two centers -- the predecessor heading the military and the new leader second-in-command -- is not a healthy signal to the world," Lampton said.

The flipside of having a more collective leadership as opposed to a dominant leader like Mao or Deng is that the "system has been set up to prevent a strong leader," Dickson of George Washington University said. All the more reason that the charismatic Bo, who had been tipped for the Standing Committee and is said to have led a ruthless anti-crime campaign in Chongqing, drew some concern before his downfall.The clean reputation of Xi -- who had become Shanghai's leader after his predecessor, Chen Liangyu, was dismissed over a social security fund scandal -- took a hit in June when Bloomberg reported on the wealth of his extended family.

Although no assets were traced to Xi, his wife or daughter, Bloomberg found that his extended family had business interests in minerals, real estate and mobile-phone equipment, with assets in the hundreds of millions.

Last month the New York Times gave a similar treatment to Premier Wen Jiabao, reporting on the staggering wealth of his relatives -- a review that found assets of at least $2.7 billion.

Xi and the new leaders will have to demonstrate to the public how serious they are in fighting widespread corruption, Lampton said, or face "huge problems."

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After the election, a new push on Syria

Smoke rises after Syrian aircraft bombed the strategic border town of Ras al-Ain, killing at least four people, wounding many others and sending panicked residents fleeing across to Turkey on Monday, November 12. View photos from November in this gallery.

 

(CNN) -- The United States and its allies are gearing up for a new push to unify the Syrian opposition and topple President Bashar al-Assad. They are looking to exploit battlefield gains by the rebels and change the trajectory of the conflict before Syria collapses into a patchwork of local fiefdoms -- and the violence explodes rather than seeps beyond Syria's borders.

With the U.S. election out of the way and growing concerns about the rise of jihadist groups within Syria, Western powers are now engaging groups fighting inside Syria, rather than the exiled and ineffectual Syrian National Council. The ultimate goal may be to create a safe zone -- a slice of liberated Syria -- where the opposition can form an interim government.

U.S. and British diplomats are concerned that over the last year, the initiative has been yielded to countries like Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and to "nonstate actors" from countries like Libya. They have been picking sides among the diverse brigades of the Free Syrian Army, paying the salaries of FSA fighters and sending weapons.

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There is also great anxiety about a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis, with food and fuel shortages compounded by colder weather and inadequate access to those most in need.

Here are five signs that the landscape of the Syrian conflict is changing:

1) The U.S. has finally abandoned the Syrian National Council

After 18 months of internal squabbling and little coordination with groups inside Syria, the exiled SNC is finally surplus to requirements.

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At a news conference days before the U.S. election, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: "We've made it clear that the SNC can no longer be viewed as the visible leader of the opposition. ... That opposition must include people from inside Syria."

She also disclosed that the U.S. had helped smuggle out some leaders of the internal opposition to promote their role. State Department officials say there have already been contacts with the Free Syrian Army.

British Prime Minister David Cameron chimed in last Wednesday.

"There is an opportunity for Britain, for America, for Saudi Arabia, Jordan and like-minded allies to come together and try to help shape the opposition, outside Syria and inside Syria," he said during a visit to Syrian refugees in Jordan.

The UK is reviewing whether U.N. sanctions prevent it from supplying weapons to the rebels.

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2) The opposition has gotten a makeover

During several days of meetings in Qatar that ended Sunday, the Syrian opposition only reinforced its reputation for bickering. At first, the SNC elected a new executive of 40 members (all men) with a more Islamist complexion -- a sign to some observers that it was increasingly a vehicle for the Muslim Brotherhood. But eventually, after badgering from the Qataris, the Saudis, the Arab League and Western diplomats, it agreed to join a new structure that gives activists inside or recently departed from Syria a bigger say, just as Clinton had demanded.

One driving force behind the new body -- inelegantly called the National Coalition of the Forces of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition -- has been Riad Seif, to whom foreign governments (and especially the United States) look as someone who can unite the opposition.

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Seif, a former member of the Syrian parliament who has spent much of the last decade in jail, escaped from the country in June. He will be one of two deputies to Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, a moderate cleric who was imprisoned several times by the regime before leaving for Egypt in the summer. The other deputy is Suhair al-Atassi, a well-known women's rights activist. Her election to such a prominent role is a signal of the new leadership's secular complexion.

The Syrian opposition leadership now has credibility. But the emir of Qatar, who was instrumental in pushing for the new structure, quickly warned: "This work has ended, but the next step is more important."

The United States also welcomed the new body.

"We look forward to supporting the National Coalition as it charts a course toward the end of Assad's bloody rule and the start of the peaceful, just, democratic future that all the people of Syria deserve," the State Department said.

Much time has been lost. The Turkish and Qatari governments have championed rebel brigades close to the Muslim Brotherhood, and those brigades have emerged as powerful and independent entities, especially in the north. Washington's hope, analysts say, is that a broadly representative leadership will regain control of the opposition without more direct and possibly counterproductive U.S. involvement.

3) Islamist influence is gaining

Driving the sense of urgency in Washington, London and Paris is this: The lack of cohesion in the resistance was, and is, opening up space for jihadist groups such as Jabhat al Nusra, which has stepped up its campaign of suicide bombings and joined Free Syrian Army units to capture military bases.

In the most detailed assessment yet of Islamist factions among rebel groups, the International Crisis Group reported last month that "the presence of a powerful Salafi strand among Syria's rebels has become irrefutable."

Al Nusra units are said to have taken part in the assault on the one of regime's main airbases in the north at Taftanaz. It's from there that regime helicopters launch deadly raids across Idlib and Aleppo provinces.

Al Nusra is attracting recruits because it is better equipped than many FSA factions. Foreign fighters may number no more than 1,000, but their experience -- in Iraq, Libya and even Chechnya -- makes them valued recruits. And with the regime losing control of many border crossings, they can get into Syria easily.

Writing in Sentinel, which is published by the Countering Terrorism Center at West Point, James Denselow says "a marriage of convenience between secular and Salafi-jihadi fighters against the Bashar al-Assad regime could lead to a bloody divorce along the lines of the Afghan mujahidin in the 1980s."

Only a more activist approach by Washington and its European allies will reverse the trend of lethal aid getting into "the wrong hands" and marginalize Islamist militant groups.

4) Turkey talks Patriots

To change the dynamics on the ground, the rebels need a sanctuary within Syria. At some point, the Free Syrian Army has to control part of Syria if they are to succeed.

NATO and its individual members have ruled out enforcing a no-fly zone because of the risk to aircraft from Syrian missile batteries, which makes the talk by Turkish officials about installing Patriot missiles along the border with Syria all the more intriguing.

"No official request has been made, but talks are continuing as part of contingency plans," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said at a news conference Friday.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters in Prague, Czech Republic, on Monday: "If such a request is to be forwarded, the NATO council will have to consider it."

It's been emphasized in Ankara that the Patriots would be a defensive deployment in case Syrian ballistic missiles should be fired into Turkey.

But they could be used to deter Syrian air power, which has pounded rebel-held territory in Idlib and Aleppo provinces. While designed to bring down missiles flying at five times the speed of sound, and with a limited range, Patriots could certainly threaten Syrian MiGs flying within about 50 miles (80 kilometers) of the border. Missiles can be armed in less than 10 seconds and reach supersonic speed within a second of being launched.

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5) The regime's grip on northern Syria is slipping

Right now, a buffer zone within Syria looks most feasible in the northwest, where the Assad regime has lost wide swaths of countryside along the border with Turkey and strategic towns. In addition, military bases in Idlib and Aleppo provinces are under siege or have been overrun, and the regime has lost control of the main M5 highway that links Damascus and Homs with the major northern cities.

One example: For almost a month, rebels have laid siege to a major military base: Wadi al Deif. It is close to the town of Maraat al Nouman, which sits on the main highway. Regime forces inside the base have been hanging on, according to opposition activists, receiving supplies from the air.

Rebel units have also begun attacking a military airport in Idlib and have cut the road linking Aleppo with the coast. The regime has responded with more attacks by air -- many of them indiscriminate bombings of towns the rebels now hold. Maraat al Nouman and other towns and villages in Idlib have been devastated.

The number of deaths in Idlib province more than doubled in October to 720, according to opposition activists, as the rebels tried to expel government forces from a wide swath of northwestern Syria.

Better coordination among rebel units, more reliable supply lines and an improved supply of weaponry might tip the balance against a regime that is gradually being worn down by its inability to suppress the insurgency. In recent months, a pattern has emerged as Syrian forces batter one suburb of Damascus only to see rebels regroup and surge into another.

That coordination may be a step closer with the announcement by the Free Syrian Army's military council that it is restructuring. It is creating five distinct geographic commands. Mustafa Sheikh, who heads the council, told the French news agency AFP last week: "We are getting closer and closer to becoming organized, so that we can get to a stage that is accepted by the international community."

More critically he added: "When this happens, the international community will know where these weapons are going."

Senior figures within the FSA are said to be moving from Turkey back into Syria to impose greater discipline on brigades that are becoming notorious for human rights abuses.

... But it's late in the day

This injection of urgency into defeating the Assad regime is unlikely to yield results before winter, and is it not likely to allow about 400,000 Syrian refugees the chance to return home. More than 9,000 crossed into Turkey in one day last week. Cold and hunger could worsen their already precarious situation, and millions of Syrians still at home are sure to face shortages of fuel and food.

According to the United Nations refugee agency, there are at least 1.2 million internally displaced Syrians and a total of 2.5 million that need help.

Nor will the latest initiatives soon put a stop to the wholesale destruction across Syria. From the suburbs of Damascus to the central cities of Homs and Hama to the heart of Aleppo and Idlib in the north, whole neighborhoods have been razed. One video posted last Wednesday showed a wrecked school in Douma, a suburb of Damascus; another set of photographs published in the Atlantic includes scenes reminiscent of Stalingrad or Dresden.

It is extremely difficult to estimate the cost of reconstruction in Syria -- to repair homes, schools, hospitals, pipelines and highways, but also to fund post-revolutionary institutions.

One study by economist Walid Jadaa, published in September, estimated the cost of the upheaval so far at $36 billion, which includes lost remittances from Syrians overseas and an end of tourism as well as physical damage. The Syrian government recently put the cost of the conflict at $34 billion.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights has estimated money that nearly 600,000 buildings have been affected and put the cost of rebuilding or replacing them Money at about $40 billion.

The changes in and beyond Syria in the last few weeks do not mean the imminent end of the Assad regime. Perhaps a better way of putting it is to recall how Winston Churchill described the defeat of Axis forces in North Africa in November 1942: "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

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