BEIRUT: The government of Syrian President Bashar Assad will fall by the end of 2012 and regional events should be enough to convince Hezbollah that “the game is over” concerning their weapons, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea was quoted as saying in an Arabic daily Friday.

“In my opinion, events in the region, starting with Syria and ending in Iran, are capable of creating an appropriate atmosphere for the brothers in Hezbollah to be convinced that the game is over and they have to surrender their arms to the state ,” Geagea told the Egypt-based Rose al-Yusef newspaper.

Geagea, along with his allies in the March 14 coalition, has repeatedly called on the resistance group to disarm, saying that Hezbollah’s arms present an obstacle to the establishment of a state capable of defending itself.

However, Hezbollah has maintained that its weapons are necessary to defend Lebanon from Israel and says the tripartite formula of the “army, people, and the resistance,” supported by Prime Minister Najib Mikati and previous governments, is the only means to defend the country.

Geagea also said that the collapse of President Bashar Assad’s government might take several months but that it would nonetheless.

"According to my estimates, [the government in Damascus will collapse] no longer than the end of 2012,” Geagea, a staunch critic of Assad, said.

Geagea said that the ruling Baath party had managed to withstand growing uprisings in the country, unlike Syria’s contemporaries in the region where protests movements have toppled autocratic leaders, because the Syrian army remained thus far loyal to Assad. The LF leader said that if the army had remained neutral in the crisis, the government would have collapsed much sooner.

Geagea noted that the Egyptian and Tunisian armies did not comply with the oppressive measures of their governments.

He also voiced optimism about what he regarded as the progress in “Syria’s revolution.”

Syrian government tanks pulled back from an embattled mountain near Damascus Thursday, according to activists and witnesses in Syria, leaving the town under the control of the opposition composed of Syrian army defectors.

The uprising against Assad, which began in March 2011, has turned increasingly militarized as more frustrated regime opponents and army defectors arm themselves and fight back against state forces.