The Muslim Brotherhood has issued new Covenant. It is being praised widely on the Gulf TV stations by Christians such as Michel Kilo and others. They say that the Muslim Brotherhood has now embraced the notion that political authority emanates from the people and not from God. Human law should be the arbiter of human affairs and not divine law. Sharia is finished for the Muslim Brothers, who state that they embrace equality of all citizens without distinction between religions or gender. Although they neglect to state it outright, they leave open the possibility that a Christian, Alawi, or Druze could have the constitutional right to be president of Syria.

A dirty “Google translation” of the most important paragraphs of the new charter give this:

This iCovenant and Charter has a national vision, and common denominators, adopted by the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, and provides the basis for a new social contract, establishes the relationship between national contemporary and safe, among the components of the Syrian society, with all its religious, sectarian, ethnic, and intellectual trends and political rights. Adhere to the Muslim Brotherhood to work to be Syria’s future:

1 – A modern civil state, based on a civil constitution, emanating from the will of the people of the Syrian people, based on national consensus, established by a constituent assembly which must be freely and fairly elected, and protect the fundamental rights of individuals and groups from any abuse or excesses, and to ensure equitable representation of all components of society.

2 – State of deliberative democracy, pluralism, according to the highest conclusion reached by the modern human thought, with a republican parliamentary system of government, which the people choose their representatives and governed, through the ballot box, in the elections free, fair and transparent.

3 – State of citizenship and equality, where all citizens are equal, with different ethnic backgrounds and religions, sects and attitudes, based on the principle which shall be the basis of citizenship rights and duties, any citizen access to the highest positions, based on the bases of the election or efficiency. As even where men and women, human dignity and to be eligible, and enjoy the full women’s rights. …

7. A state that respects the institutions, based on the separation of powers, legislative, judicial and executive branches, the officials in the service of the people. ….

9. State of justice and the rule of law, no place for hatred, where there is no room for revenge or retaliation .. Even those who contaminated their hands with the blood of the people, of any class they are, it is entitled to fair trials before impartial judiciary free and independent. …

There are only a few phrases that raise some concern. One is the statement, that the new state will be “committed to human rights – as endorsed by heavenly religions and international conventions – of dignity, equality, and freedom of thought and expression…. equal opportunities, social justice, and to provide basic needs to live decently. …”

Here the covenant defines human rights to be “as endorsed by ‘heavenly religions”  — ??? ?????? ??????? ???????? ????????? ??????? – – The definition of human rights provided by the “heavenly religions” is a bit problematic. The “heavenly” religions are the Abrahamic faiths – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Their divine books were revealed from the heavens by God. The other religions of the world are defined by Islam to be “non-heavenly.” See my article:

“Islamic Education in Syria: Undoing Secularism,” by Joshua Landis in Eleanor Doumato and Gregory Starrett, Eds., Teaching Islam: Textbooks and Religion in the Middle East, London & Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007, pp. 177–196.

Here is a quote from the section of my article that deals with the “non-heavenly” religions of the world as they are defined in Syria’s school texts that are used to instruct all Syrian Muslims in the principles of religion.

Atheists and Pagans

At the very bottom of the hierarchy beneath the revealed religions of the “people of the book,” are the belief systems of the rest of humanity, who are categorized as “Atheists and Pagans.” Only one paragraph is devoted to them in the twelve years of Syrian schooling and it is tucked away in the ninth grade religion text under the subtitle, “Islam Fights Paganism and Atheism.” It explains that “pagans are those who worship something other than God, and atheists are those who deny the existence of God.” Islam must fight these two belief systems because they “are an assault to both instinct and truth.” We are told that these belief systems “contradict the principle of freedom of belief.” This is because “Islam gives freedom of belief only within the limits of the divine path,” which “means a religion descended from heaven.” Because pagan religions were not revealed by God, they are considered an “inferior” form of belief that reflects an “animal consciousness.” How should Muslims deal with these peoples who comprise half of humanity? Students are instructed that “Islam accepts only two choices for Pagans: that they convert to Islam or be killed (9:128).” The Islam of Syrian texts does not have a happy formula for dealing with non-believers. Perhaps in recognition of this failing, the ministry of education has buried a mere six sentences on the subject into the middle of its ninth grade text.

But the new Muslim Brotherhood covenant does not define human rights only by reference to the revealed religions, it also references “international conventions.” If the MB is serious about accepting humans to be the source of national government and laws and not God or Sharia law, this is very important. The Syrian opposition is struggling to come up with a “national” agenda that all Syrians can sign on to. The weakness of Syria’s sense of national political community has been its greatest shortcoming. Maybe Syria is becoming a nation?

Only a few months ago on December 4, 2011 Zuhayr Salim, a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood denounced Syria’s borders and argued that no such state should as it is a “colonial” creation that defies the reality of the Islamic Umma. Here is the interview

“To hell with Syrian [identity]! We do not recognize Syria”
Interview: Zuhayr Salim, Speaker of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria:

KURDWATCH, December 4, 2011—Zuhayr Salim (b. 1947) ….

Zuhayr Salim: We are seeking a state under the rule of law. Every person who lives in Syria or was born there must enjoy the same rights, regardless of whether he is an Arab, Kurd, Muslim, Christian, Sunni or Alawi. This stance will not change. Everyone must be convinced that he is equal. So, for example, an Alawi cannot think that he has more rights than a Sunni. And an Arab cannot think that he has more rights than a Kurd. And vice versa. That is a patriotic approach. ……

Zuhayr Salim: To be Arab is not an expression of citizenship, but rather an expression of identity.

KurdWatch: Why don’t we forgo the label »Arab« and speak only of Syrian identity?

Zuhayr Salim: No, no. To hell with Syrian [identity]! We do not recognize Syria. Who created Syria? Sykes-Picot. Is that true or not?

KurdWatch: Yes, that’s true.

Zuhayr Salim: You and I do not recognize Sykes-Picot. You [Kurds] feel that you have been treated unjustly by Sykes-Picot. We also feel that we have been treated unjustly by Sykes-Picot. Syria is a temporary phenomenon, a state that exists only temporarily. Our goal is the creation of a state for the entire umma. A Kurd will be ruler in this state, for he will be supported by a people that numbers anywhere from thirty-five to forty million.

KurdWatch: Are you talking now about an independent Kurdish state?

Zuhayr Salim: No, about an Islamic state for everyone. Arabs, Kurds, Turks, Circassians, and all others will live there……

The Muslim Brotherhood’s new covenant is an important document that should help make past statements by the Brotherhood about the Umma, Sharia Law, and God’s rule on earth outmoded.

Assad’s emails have revealed many things about the President and first lady of Syria. Those Syrians who were counting on their leaders being exemplary humans are surely disappointed. They turn out not to be above average. Bashar has all the weaknesses of a teenager. Most devastating, however, is the absolute lack of institutions in Syria. It is perhaps not shocking or unusual that a “king and queen” are shown to be so human in their limitations: shopping Armani, listening to saccharine pop lyrics, and feeling sorry for themselves. But to have a doctor living in England, Asma’s father, write the president of Syria telling him not to defend the Syria pound and counseling him to let its value collapse because that is what had worked in Britain! And this is the policy decision that Syria pursued until panic set in and the Central Bank pulled the pound out of its death spiral by defending intervening to buy several million dollars worth of pounds month ago. Syrians saw their life’s saving disappear; businessmen saw their profits evaporate; and most importantly, poor Syrians, which is now the majority of the population, saw the purchasing power of their monthly income swoon. Inflation is rampant and the average Syrian cannot satisfy the hunger of his kids.

Managing the economy is only one aspect of the Syrian government where no institutions exist and no body of experts are consulted regularly or have authority to manage the life of the nation. Security men were proposing to taint heating oil with noxious substances as a counter-measure to rampant smuggling. A Twenty-five year old girl turns out to have more power over appointing officials in Latakia than the Baath Party. Bashar Jaafari, Syria’s ambassador to the UN was reduced to sending important memos to the President through his 20 something daughter rather than through the Foreign Ministry. Murhaf Jouejati told Foreign Policy magazine that

The emails expose the weakness of Syria’s institutions. Influence in the Syrian regime, Jouejati said, is based on “patronage and who you know. It’s not at all surprising that a young lady would be in direct contact with the president, going over the heads of her father and the whole Foreign Ministry.”

Syria’s lack of state institutions presents a dilemma for the opposition and citizens who want to support the revolution because the institutional weakness is a time bomb. If the regime is destroyed very little of the government is likely to survive and Syrians must worry that they will become a failed state like Iraq or the Palestinian authority.

A new book, Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, economists from Harvard and MIT, makes this argument. It is institutions that determine the fate of nations, they argue. Here is a bit of the book review that appeared in the WSJ:

The Roots of Hardship – a review by William Easterly of
Why Nations Fail
By Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
Despite massive amounts of aid, poor countries tend to stay poor. Maybe their institutions are the problem.

Far too much intellectual firepower regarding the global poor these days focuses on the (small) things Westerners can do to help—obsessing about, say, how much money to spend on mosquito-blocking bed nets to fight malaria. The bigger questions—about why some societies prosper and others don’t, about how to improve the lot of an entire impoverished class—are left by default largely to uncritical admirers of China’s growth. The arrival of “Why Nations Fail” is thus a hugely welcome event, since economists Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson take on the big questions and in doing so present a substantial alternative to the dominant thinking about global poverty.

For Messrs. Acemoglu and Robinson, it is institutions that determine the fate of nations. Success comes, the authors say, when political and economic institutions are “inclusive” and pluralistic, creating incentives for everyone to invest in the future. Nations fail when institutions are “extractive,” protecting the political and economic power of only a small elite that takes income from everyone else….

News Round Up

The text of the covenant of the Muslim Brotherhood can be found here

Arab News (SA): What the Brotherhood did in Syria?
2012-03-25

The Syrian Brotherhood proved that they have changed, just like it is said that Syria has changed, but they also sent a clear message to their mother organization, specifically in Egypt, as well as to the rest of the Arab world, and the overt and …

Syria on the Brink, Discussions with Nikolaos van Dam, Robert Fisk and Anas Al Abdah, by Marwan Bishara, Empire, Aljazeera English, 22-29 March 2012

From POMED:

Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and Jim Webb (D-VA) introduced S.2224, a bill “to require the President to report to Congress on issues related to Syria.”  The report should include an assessment of the current military capacity of opposition forces, a description of the composition and agenda of political opposition groups inside and outside of Syria, etc. –

Russia Backs Annan’s Syria Plan: Russia announced support for Kofi Annan’s proposal, and UNSC agreed on a draft resolution demanding Syria immediately implement Annan’splan. The statement gave a “veiled warning of future international action.” Human Rights Watch addressed a letter to the Syrian National Council documenting human rights abuses by the armed opposition groups, and suggested abuses were motivated by sectarian sentiments. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute said Russia supplied the most arms to Syria over the past five years. Jakob Kellenberger, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Syria’s situation would deteriorate. The E.U. imposed sanctions on Assad’s wife, though Elliot Abrams said they are ineffective. Melik Kaylan argued that Russia’s backing of Syria is to ensure Iran’s power in the region. Roger Shanahan considered the possibility of Assad’s regime staying in power. Wadah Khanfar said the main problem facing the Syrian revolution is “the hesitancy of the international community.” 64 percent of Americans do not support military action in Syria. President Barack Obama discussed providing medical supplies and communications equipment to the Syrian opposition with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, published a report titled “Violent Power Struggle in Syria.” The report analyzes four possible scenarios: regime survival, implosion, full-blown civil war, and military intervention.

Bashar Jaafari, Syria’s UN envoy, wrote to United Nations Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon and the president of the Security Council, British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, to say, “There shall no forgiveness for those who support terrorism.” Bloomberg

Independent: Patrick Cockburn: The attempt to topple President Assad has failed
2012-03-25

Severe economic sanctions were slapped on Syria’s already faltering economy. Every day brought news of fresh pressure on Assad and the momentum seemed to build inexorably for a change of rule in Damascus. It has not happened. Syria will not be like …

Shattered residents regroup after Syrian offensive in Idlib

They describe a government onslaught marked by bouts of terror, wanton destruction behind closed doors and strange moments of kindness by soldiers.

U.S. ANNOUNCES TEMPORARY PROTECTED STATUS FOR SYRIAN NATIONALS, 2012-03-23
STATEMENT FROM SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY JANET NAPOLITANO

“In light of the deteriorating conditions in Syria, I am announcing that DHS will be designating Syria for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Syrians currently present in the United States. Conditions in Syria have worsened to the point where Syrian nationals already in the United States would face serious threats to their personal safety if they were to return to their home country. Early next week, the Department will publish a notice in the Federal Register that will provide further guidance about TPS eligibility requirements and registration procedures. All applicants must undergo full background checks and while Syrians in the United States are encouraged to apply, they should not submit their applications before the notice is published.”

Al-Duniya TV on how Free Syrian Army videos are filmed for al-Jazeerah

A leading Priest in Damascus denies that ethnic cleansing of Homs Christians has taken place, as was reported earlier

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Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Turkey Eyes Syrian Crisis Through Lens of Kurdish Stability
By Maria Fantappie
March 23, 2012

The escalation of the Syrian crisis provides an opportunity for the Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party to consolidate its influence within Syria and increase its presence on the Syrian-Turkish border.

Turkey appears to be keeping all options open for intervening in Syria – even arming the opposition. But Ankara’s failure to monitor the development of the Kurdish issue in Syria, and Bashar Al Assad’s struggle for power, have left room for others to instill their agendas there.

In Syria’s Kurdish-populated areas, the Turkish Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK, is expanding its military front against Turkey. Leaders in Iraqi Kurdistan are stretching their political influence and campaigning for the establishment of a Kurdish region in Syria.

The PKK and Iraqi Kurdish agendas in Syria could open a Pandora’s box of the Kurdish issue in Turkey, furthering Kurdish demands for autonomy and bolstering armed struggle. Turkey is in a state of alarm. It is using all means to influence the situation in Syria to avoid a domestic crisis of its own.

Armenian News: An Invented Country, About To Fall Apart
2012-03-24

AN INVENTED COUNTRY, ABOUT TO FALL APART by Geoffrey Clarfield National Post March 22, 2012 Thursday Canada Since the collapse of the Ottoman empire, Syria’s Sunnis, Alawis, Kurds and Christians have been held together by a succession of dictators. …

An Iraq ruled by one – or none
by Michael Bell is a former Canadian Ambassador in Egypt and Israel, as well as “from 2005 to 2007, chair of the donor committee of the International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq”
From Thursday’s TORONTO Globe and Mail

Iraq is headed for another dark age. Next week’s Arab League meeting in Baghdad is nothing but cover for a state collapsing at full force. The surface manifestations are real: 46 people killed and many more wounded this week in apparently co-ordinated attacks in Baghdad, Karbala, Kirkuk and other Iraqi cities on the ninth anniversary of the U.S. invasion. The prevailing mood on the street is one of fatigue, desperation and fear. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government cannot control the chaos; indeed, it may be contributing to it as the façade of democratization and pluralism crumbles, accelerated by the departure of the last U.S. troops last December.

There can be no clearer indictment of the neo-conservatives who dominated the U.S. political process during George W. Bush’s presidency. Their statement of faith, the Project for the New American Century, issued in 1997 and warmly embraced by Mr. Bush as a new and largely inexperienced president, called for the forceful imposition of American values on Third World countries suffering from autocracies. The Iraq intervention shows the flaws in this reasoning. The thousands of deaths and injuries suffered in this imperial enterprise is testament to willful ignorance. Millions of Iraqis have fled the country and the oldest Christian communities on Earth have been obliterated.

The behaviour patterns and governance codes of different societies and communities cannot be changed through the exercise of foreign military force – in this case, by what many came to see as outside predators. Such societal practices are embedded differently in different cultures no matter how much we might wish it were not so. The neo-conservatives chose to ignore this reality. Instead, they have created a system that may ultimately have the same potential for brutality as Saddam Hussein’s.

Despite Iraq’s fractured polity, this seems hard to believe. There has been little focus on Iraq lately, given the international preoccupation with Iran, the Palestinians, the Syrian revolt and the Arab uprisings. But ironically, at a time when there is room for hope that Egypt, Tunisia and others may evolve their political culture, Iraq seems headed back to the bad old days. Despite a representative parliament and on-paper attempts at power sharing, Mr. Maliki consolidates authoritarianism anew.

From 2005 to 2007, I was chair of the donor committee of the International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq – a frustrating endeavour, not withstanding my respect for many of the Iraqis and international public servants I worked with. Despite best efforts, our accomplishments were modest. Given the chaos, they could not have been otherwise. Although they remained publicly positive, many internationals believed they were working in a glass bubble, waiting for the collapse. Some joked about who would be the last ones on the last helicopter out of Baghdad, as with the lifts from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon during America’s final days in Vietnam.

In a literal sense, they were proven wrong. The Americans had sufficient control and influence to prevent a rout in Iraq, but as that control dissipated and their efforts at democratization became increasingly problematic, they changed horses. Since their departure, they have devoted their best efforts to helping Mr. Maliki consolidate Iraq as a viable state player because of its geostrategic importance, despite his increasingly well-documented abuses. Barack Obama’s administration is proceeding, reluctantly, with the sale to Iraq of more than $10-billion in military equipment, much of which is serviceable for control and intimidation.

Mr. Maliki has increasingly used the power of the state to consolidate his own autocracy, accused by human-rights groups of intimidation, corruption, deceit, torture and cronyism. Witness the arrest warrant issued for his Sunni vice-president, Tariq al-Hashimi. Witness his son and deputy chief of staff Ahmed, reputed to be the most powerful person in his entourage. Anyone deemed a threat is at risk for their lives in Mr. Maliki’s Iraq.

Without questioning Mr. Obama’s commitment to human rights and pluralism, there is little his administration can realistically do. Either Mr. Maliki will be successful in consolidating his one-man rule or Iraq will self-destruct, breaking into a series of quasi-independent entities based on religion, ethnicity and tribe. Attempting to put it right through heavy engagement with Baghdad seems like a moral imperative. But the chance of success is virtually nil.

Lessons should be learned from this carnage. Despite the moral umbrage one may feel, don’t involve yourself in the affairs of others unless knowledge, reflection and debate suggest an even chance of success. Gut feelings and theoretical constructs can be strongly felt, but most often lead to catastrophe. The law of unintended consequences should be kept in mind regarding Afghanistan, any intervention in Syria and the thought of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Instead, the United States and Europe need to reach out to Moscow, at the most senior levels, in a private, concerted effort to understand Russia’s bottom lines. Timing for this interaction may be ideal after the Russian presidential elections, slated for March 4 and likely to yield a Putin victory. This dialogue must be genuine in approach, seeking to understand how the Russians view the situation inside Syria, their strategic and security concerns, and opening a joint exploration of how those concerns can be addressed in a post-Assad Syria.

These discussions would then facilitate a Russian approach to the senior Alawite officer corps whose interests do not necessarily align directly with those of Bashar and his immediate family. Not all Alawites have benefitted from the past decade of corruption, and the past several months of unrelenting repression have surely injected an element of fatigue in the military. Anecdotal reporting has also pointed to growing disquiet among retired Alawite officers who fear the president is driving the country off a cliff.

The Syrian uprising is notable for the lack of senior level defections. Syria’s mukhabarat state has virtually assured against internal coups given the atmosphere of deep-seated suspicion and fear. However, Russia’s ties to the Syrian military may provide the necessary mechanism for facilitating what some have described as “brewing defections.” At a minimum, the Russians can use their influence in these circles to explore possibilities of peeling away key elements in the military leadership.

In addition, international economic pressure and diplomatic isolation aimed at Syria must continue and intensify. The latest European Union sanctions freezing Syria’s central bank assets among other measures represent an excellent next step. The Arab League and Turkey should follow suit by implementing previously-promised sanctions and deepening Syria’s diplomatic isolation. Ideally, the cumulative effect of these and previous measures will shift the allegiances of the business elite — the other critical pillar of regime support….

Asma, the EU, and Damocles
By Cicero, for Syria Comment, 3. 23. 2012

The EU has issued the 13th round of sanctions against Syria since the eruption of violence in the country almost one year ago. The latest target the First Lady of Syria, Asma Al Assad by freezing her assets and banning her from travel in EU countries.

This is a senseless act against a person who is not part of the Syrian government, about of whom The French ambassador to Syria, Eric Chevallier, said a mere year ago, “She managed to get people to consider the possibilities of a country that’s modernizing itself, that stands for a tolerant secularism in a powder-keg region, with extremists and radicals pushing in from all sides”.

British -born, and educated, she moved to Syria in 2000 the year her husband assumed the presidency. Those who know her describe her first few years in Syria as traveling incognito throughout the country, visiting the poorest villages, trying to identify what defined Syria and how she in her new role as First Lady, could make a positive impact.

She saw Syria’s strength in its diversity of religion and ethnicity, but was dismayed by the dominant role the government played in the lives of its citizens.

Through a large network of National NGOs like Masar, Shabab, and Firdos, she worked to empower Syrians to take ownership of their future as well as to boost entrepreneurship. She focused her efforts on the young and the poor. With the aim of sustaining economically healthy and independent communities in the rural areas, she promoted micro credit, and in 2007 Syria became the first country in the region to introduce legislation that provided secure regulation for the micro-finance sector. In 2008 the First Lady was awarded the Gold Medal of the Presidency of the Italian Republic for her commitment to inclusive economic growth and sustainable development in the Arab World.

Through another national NGO, Rawafed, the First Lady encouraged Syrian youth to participate in contemporary cultural activities. The last project she embarked upon before the recent unrest was to bring together the public and private sectors, along with the NGOs and international partners to launch a cultural initiative that promised to transform Syria’s museums and its heritage sites into world-class venues.

And in response to the violence and the tragic loss of life, she has for the past year engaged multiple community and NGO groups in an effort to foster a program of reconciliation in the affected areas. And she continues to visit and support the NGOs working in the poorest parts of the country.

Focusing on her alleged recent purchases of fashion and luxury items distracts from the great work she has done, and continues to do today. Even if the e-mail leaks are true, one has to note that in all of the First lady’s public appearances since the break out of violence she was proper in dress and demeanor. Ironically, however, her sense of style, grace and understated elegance were seen by many both inside and outside the Arab World as the embodiment of the modern Arab woman: smart and stylish.

Syria is a complicated country, with a rich cultural heritage that is the result of the intermingling of the many religions and ethnicities, customs, beliefs, habits, ideas and values left behind by all the civilizations that have passed through and made Syria their home over thousands of years. It is at the nexus of the most heated schism our world faces today, between Iran, and Saudi Arabia, between Christianity and Islam, between East and West, and between Arabs and Israelis.

The European diplomats in Brussels are intervening in the affairs of Syria, standing side by side with the autocratic leaders of the Gulf. It would do them well to read the parable of “The Sword of Damocles”. A sense of peril always hangs over the heads of those who wield power, but particularly in the Middle East, where nationhood is so contested. Sanctions, in general, will not help bring peace to Syria. They hurt the most vulnerable and least guilty of oppression hardest. Placing sanctions on Asma al-Assad, who tried to improve Syria for both the poor and women, is also misplaced.

Islamists seek influence in Syria uprising, By LEE KEATH and ZEINA KARAM | AP

BEIRUT (AP) — The gunmen in eastern Syria, wielding grenade launchers and assault rifles, announced on the Internet they were forming the “God is Great” Brigade and joining the country’s rebellion. They swore allegiance to the Free Syrian Army and vowed to topple President Bashar Assad.

But unlike many other rebel bands, they wrapped their proclamation in hard-line Islamic language, declaring their fight to be a “jihad,” or holy war, and urging others to do the same.

“To our fellow revolutionaries, don’t be afraid to declare jihad in the path of God. Seek victory from the One God. God is the greatest champion,” the brigade’s spokesman said in the January video. “Instead of fighting for a faction, fight for your nation, and instead of fighting for your nation, fight for God.”

As Syria’s uprising evolves into an armed insurgency, parts of the movement are taking on overt religious overtones. Islamic movements in and out of the country are vying to gain influence over the revolt in hopes of gathering power if Assad falls.

The Islamists’ role complicates choices for the United States and other nations who say they want to help the opposition without empowering radicals; a string of anti-regime suicide bombings have raised fears of al-Qaida involvement.

The groups diverge from violent jihadi movements to political moderates like the Muslim Brotherhood, which has already used the Arab Spring revolutions to vault to power in Tunisia and Egypt elections.

Their growing influence is seeding divisions within an already fractured opposition. A week ago, several prominent figures quit the Syrian National Council, the body of exiles that has tried to emerge as the opposition’s political leadership. They complained the fundamentalist Brotherhood dominates the group.

The council is “a liberal front for the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Kamal Labwani, a veteran secular dissident, who broke away. He said the Brotherhood was trying to build allegiances on the ground in Syria.

“One day we will wake up to find an armed militia … controlling the country through their weapons,” Labwani said.

The U.S. has rejected sending arms to rebels, fearing a sectarian civil war. U.S. officials also warn that al-Qaida’s militants in Iraq are infiltrating Syria — worries heightened by attacks in Damascus and Aleppo using al-Qaida’s signature tactic, suicide bombings.

An Islamic militant group, the Al-Nusra Front, on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a double suicide bombing that killed 27 people in Damascus over the weekend. The group appears to be a front for al-Qaida’s Iraq branch, said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence…

Some brigade videos feature no Islamic rhetoric, while others are rich with the rhetoric of ultraconservative movements — suggesting they back hard-line agendas.

The Free Syrian Army’s leadership in Turkey is secular-leaning, and there have been reports of frictions with the Brotherhood that have made the army reluctant to work closely with the council.

Ultraconservative Islamists known as Salafis are gaining ground among some factions. Salafis preach a strict doctrine similar to that in Saudi Arabia and contend that no law but Islamic Shariah law is permissible.

Sheikh Adnan al-Arour, a Syrian Salafi cleric based in the Gulf, regularly appears in fiery monologues on Saudi TV channels calling for jihad against the “infidel” Assad regime.

His influence is shown by the open allegiance declared by several rebel brigades. One, called the “Supporters of God Brigade” in Hama, praised him as “the leader of the revolution” in February.

— Finally, there is the Syrian National Council, the 270-member group made up mainly of exiles headed by secular dissident Burhan Ghalioun. It has tried with little success to gather the opposition under its umbrella.

A video posted on YouTube last week showed a former Syrian Brotherhood leader, Ali Sadr el-Din Bayanouni, admitting the Brotherhood nominated Ghalioun as council leader merely as a “front” more easily accepted by the West.

“We did not want the Syrian regime to take advantage of the fact that Islamists are leading the SNC,” Bayanouni says in the video.

A London-based Brotherhood spokesman, Zuhair Salem, denied the group was trying to dominate.

“We joined the revolution to bolster it, not to control it,” he said.

The Brotherhood has had no organization on the ground since the 1980s, when it waged a violent campaign, assassinating regime figures. Assad’s father Hafez Assad retaliated by almost destroying their main stronghold, the city of Hama, killing thousands and sending members fleeing abroad. Since then, mere Brotherhood membership has been punishable by death.

Ex-council member Labwani and others in the opposition say the Brotherhood is using the council to rebuild by distributing money and weapons, key levers for influence. The Brotherhood has a powerful donor network among members in exile and supporters in oil-rich Gulf countries…

Syrian rebels running out of ammunition as government presses offensive,
By Liz Sly, March 22 in Wash Post

ANTAKYA, Turkey — Syrian rebels battling the regime led by President Bashar al-Assad are running out of ammunition as black market supplies dry up, neighboring countries tighten their borders and international promises of help fail to materialize, according to rebel commanders and defected soldiers who have crossed into this Turkish border town in recent days in a quest for money to buy arms.

They describe what appear to be desperate conditions for the already lightly armed and loosely organized rebel force, made up of defected soldiers and civilians who in recent months have banded together in the name of the Free Syrian Army, transforming what had been an overwhelmingly peaceful uprising into an armed revolt.

Protesters opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad face violent responses from security forces, and the United States has closed its embassy in the country as the violence grows.

The rebels have long been appealing to the outside world for military intervention and weapons to help their struggle. But they are acknowledging for the first time that the rebellion, at least the armed portion of it, might be faltering in the face of a concerted government offensive aimed at definitively crushing the year-old revolt.

“Day after day, the Free Syrian Army keeps fighting and fighting, but day after day, we are running out of ammunition, and, eventually, we just have to leave our area,” said Abu Yazen, 26, a defected soldier who joined the rebels in the summer but fled to Turkey this month with five comrades after they ran out of bullets in the northern province of Idlib.

He is living at one of the civilian refugee camps set up by the Turkish government, among scores of dejected fighters who have been showing up on a daily basis in and around the frontier town of Antakya as their ammunition runs out and hope fades that the international community will come to their rescue.

Since the highly publicized rout of Free Syrian Army fighters from the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs three weeks ago, rebels also have been on the run within the country, staging retreats across a swath of territory in Idlib and from the eastern city of Deir al-Zour.

The withdrawals were prompted in part by a realization that the effort to hold ground in Baba Amr had been a strategic mistake for the heavily outgunned rebel force, said Capt. Ayham al-Kurdi, a Free Syrian Army spokesman and coordinator living in Antakya.

“In Baba Amr, the fighters put up a good fight,” he said. “But it caused major destruction, and many civilians died. Now we are strategizing to make sure we don’t make the same mistake again.”

Fighters now are withdrawing at the first sign that the government is preparing an offensive, he said, to spare civilians and conserve resources. They plan to focus instead on guerrilla tactics, such as roadside bombings and ambushes.

Kamal Al-Labwani: Syria’s Revolution at Year One: A Plan for Reorganizing the Opposition Fikra Forum, March 22, 2012

One year has passed since the onset of the Syrian Revolution, caused by the accumulation of continued corruption and authoritarian rule for half a century and from additional instigation by the wave of revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. However, the revolution would not have erupted without two factors: the media and online social networking. This technology gave rise to a new form of alliance, assembly, and information sharing, which the security apparatus failed to prevent…..

Due to the oppressive security apparatus and the military, protesters were forced to adopt a different set of values to defy death and enable themselves to combat the violence and the use of ammunition against them. Some of the values were derived from religious customs, a trend that has now created an inconsistent mixture of beliefs and value systems among the opposition. Therefore, Syrian protestors are now at a crossroads between upholding the values of modernity, freedom, individual rights, democracy and liberalism on one hand and dealing with values of martyrdom, sacrifice, and religious principles on the other. This combination of beliefs is without a philosophical foundation and remains unresolved within mainstream culture.

Consequently, religious movements benefited from this environment and seized on the opportunity to name the protests as their own, while the minorities distanced themselves further from the movement they gradually felt alienated from. The well-organized religious movements, financed primarily from abroad, have been able to represent the revolution to the international community as well as within Syria. They paralyzed the liberal face of the Syrian National Council, taking them out of the equation. The religious movements also controlled the financing of relief efforts, the supply of weapons, and some of the armed battalions. They began buying loyalties from the armed groups in exchange for their support, while gradually ruling out other active actors from the scene.

Furthermore, the religious forces have continued to prepare themselves to assume exclusive power after the collapse of the state, monopolizing the revolution in which they had no original role, though they maintain the appearance of a civilian force. Thus, the revolution has been stolen and is no longer a catalyst towards a state of democracy and modernity. Instead, the future state of Syria will head towards a renewed form of despotism with a religious embodiment rather than secularism. This could lead to chaos and civil war should the new regime attempt to stay using forceful means of destruction and organized extermination as they perpetuate societal divides.

Hence, the urgent need has arisen to depart from this volatile scene. Immediate reforms are called upon to properly represent the revolution, its leadership, its slogans, and methods of support. These reforms are coupled with the insistence on the continuation of the revolution in line with its inherent cultural values, mandating the reproduction of religious values to reconcile them with the values ??of modernity, freedoms, and democracy.

We, a group of non-partisan activists writing from within Syria, seek to properly reproduce the political representation in a balanced way that is in line with internal concerns through the establishment of a Transitional National Assembly (TNA). This assembly will adopt a constitutional declaration that will define the powers and functions of the opposition to organize them and determine the new identity of the state and its future system. We also seek to elect a General Secretariat of the Assembly to oversee the formation of a Government in Exile to represent the executive authority, which is responsible for organizing all local and external events abroad and is accountable and monitored by the Transitional National Assembly (TNA).

We submit this request to the Friends of Syria as a clear plan to bring down the current system by adopting an organized armed struggle that is national and non-partisan, with financial, logistical and political support of friends. We are also presenting a general plan for the interim period, including preparation to face the immediate concerns that will impose themselves on the morning of the fall of the regime in terms of constitutional, political, security, economic, and humanitarian issues…..

Syrian Cleric Sheikh Muhammad Badi’ Moussa: We Ruled It Is Permissible to Kill ‘Alawite Women and Children, but Advised the Free Syrian Army to Warn ‘Alawites before Raiding Their Villages – MEMRI

Following are excerpts from an interview with Syrian cleric Sheikh Muhammad Badi’ Moussa, which aired on Al-Hekma TV on March 14, 2012.

Arab Clerics Call to Kill Assad, Fight His ‘Illegitimate’ Regime

Senior clerics across the Arab world have issued fatwas stating that jihad against the Syrian regime is a duty incumbent upon every Muslim, and even permitting to kill Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Some of the clerics also called to support the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is fighting Assad’s regime.

Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi: Assad Must be Opposed and Killed

Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, head of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, told Al-Jazeera that clerics across the Muslim world agree that Assad must be fought against and even killed, because he is using his weapons against the peaceful Syrian people. Therefore, he said, the Muslims must wage jihad against him in their hearts, with their tongues (i.e., with words), or with weapons, as the FSA is doing. He added that it is a duty to fight this arrogant and tyrannical regime that is behaving as though it is God, and that the task of fighting it belongs first of all to the Syrians themselves, though the rest of the Muslims must assist them. It should be noted that in August 2011, Al-Qaradhawi signed his name to a fatwa that was published in the Gulf, which called to sever all official ties with the “heretical” Assad regime.

The Vatican condemns the “ethnic Cleansing in Homs by the Farouq Brigade. This Story in Arabic copied below

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CFR: The Great Syrian Divide, 2012-03-22

Joshua Landis and Interviewer: Bernard Gwertzman discuss the Syrian National Council, led by westernized Syrians, which succeeded in getting sanctions imposed on the Assad regime, failed to get Western military intervention. But it does not trust the more militant Islamists who are actually in combat within Syria, and are refusing to provide them with money and weapons. The chances for the just-passed UN Security Council …

Al Arabiya: EU slaps travel ban, assets freeze on Assad’s wife and his entourage, 2012-03-23

The European Union on Friday banned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s wife Asma, and his mother, sister and sister-in-law, from travelling in the EU, aiming to pressure him into ending a crackdown on popular unrest and restrict his family’s …

One year of Syrian uprising: where is the Arab Spring? by Anthony A. Zeitouni

The Syrian uprising has just entered its second year with two big NO’s: NO political solution and NO military solution. The Military/Security option adopted by Assad’s regime a year ago failed to cool down the uprising, and failed to save the lives of civilians. But, why Assad’s regime look more unified than its opposition? Why The Syrian National Council, SNC has not yet launched a political discussion with the Syrians people, neither with ethnic, religious nor political groups? Assad and SNC are at loggerheads. Also, Assad’s regime and SNC have reached a fork in the road. But, there is still a road not yet travelled…..

From the great new service at Syria Reportkj: the blog Written by: Evelyn Aissa

“Five Syrian Opposition Groups Form New Coalition” – Naharnet – Excerpt: “Five Syrian opposition groups on Saturday [March 17] announced the formation of a new coalition, a sign of how difficult opponents of the Damascus regime find it to cooperate, a year after the start of the protest movement. The five groups, meeting here, said their yet unnamed coalition would act independently from the Syrian National Council (SNC), the main opposition coalition which was set up in August to fight President Bashar Assad’s regime.”

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On the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria

“Self Defense” – Majalla – “In an extensive interview with The Majalla the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Mohammed Riad Al- Shaqfa, insists that compromise with Assad regime is impossible and advocates the arming of opposition fighters.”

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On international intervention, diplomacy & disengagement 

“Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change”  – The Brookings Institution – By Daniel L. Byman, Michael Doran, Kenneth M. Pollack, and Salman Shaikh. Excerpt: “This memo lays out six options for the United States to consider to achieve Asad’s overthrow, should it choose to do so: removing the regime via diplomacy; coercing the regime via sanctions and diplomatic isolation; arming the Syrian opposition to overthrow the regime; engaging in a Libya-like air campaign to help an opposition army gain victory; invading Syria with US-led forces and toppling the regime directly; and participating in a multilateral, NATO-led effort to oust Asad and rebuild Syria…For each course of action, this memo describes the strategy inherent to the option and what it would entail in practice. It also assesses the option’s advantages and disadvantages.”

“What Assad Wants in Syria: Unsanctioned International Military Action” – Brookings Institution – By Salman Shaikh. Excerpt: “The Middle East region has seen too much international military intervention that does not advance the principles of legality, justice, and the promotion of human rights. Now is the time for the international community to act collectively according to such principles. In Syria, it has the ultimate responsibility to protect civilians and to save lives by preventing the most egregious mass violations of human rights in Homs and other towns and cities. Indeed, it is precisely by following these principles that the international community distinguishes itself from the Assad regime.”

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“Advantages of a Syrian War” – The National Interest – By Morton Abramowitz. Abramowitx advocates for waging war in Syria for the purpose of strategic gains over Iran. Excerpt: “Iran likely believes this kind of an American-led attack on Syria will not happen. An attack on Syria, however, could constitute a truly defining moment for the much bigger Iranian nuclear issue. Tehran would find it highly difficult to intervene directly in Syria and would face a humiliating loss and greater isolation in the region. It would be a huge political shock with possibly vast internal repercussions.”

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“Syria’s Crisis and the Future of R2P” – Foreign Policy – By Zack Beauchamp. Excerpt: “As the brutal crackdown in Syria turns one year old with little sign of a solution on the horizon, skeptics and defenders of invoking the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine can agree: Syria has put the doctrine, which obligates states to be concerned about the welfare of those outside its borders, in crisis.”

Malik Al-Abdeh writes: How do we explain the de facto civil war unfolding in Syria today? How do we predict what course it will take? How do we come up with a viable and long-term solution?

A good starting point is to compare Syria with a country that bears a striking resemblance: Lebanon. This may seem surprising because the two countries (and two peoples) appear to be somewhat different.

Women, and particularly minority women, are surprisingly loyal to the Assad regime. The Assad emails leaked to the Guardian and al-Arabiyya demonstrate just how Westernized and “women friendly” the culture at the top has been. The emails showed how much the president preferred to email in English, prefered Western pop music, and liked his assistants young and sexy.   It may be a perverse culture that suffers from the “Rose in the Desert” syndrome, but it has its attractions to the young Westernized upper class women of Syria. The president has surrounded himself with women who are well educated, sexy, professional and competent. Doubtlessly, minority women fear that the next president may cultivate a “Black Robe in the Desert” syndrome…..

Allawi cites ‘dictatorship,’ Iranian control in Iraq, By Ben Birnbaum, The Washington Times, Thursday, March 22, 2012

Iraq’s former prime minister says the United States is ignoring an “emerging dictatorship” in his country, telling The Washington Times that Iran is “swallowing” Iraq and dictating its strategic policies. “To be honest, people speak about Arab Spring,” Mr. Allawi said. “What spring is this?

The Syrian opposition is reshaping itself following its defeat in Homs. A new leadership seems bound to emerge. In all likelihood, in the new phase of the battle the is shaping up to combat the Assad regime, opposition leaders are likely to champion new tactics of militancy and Islamization.

The opposition will have to rebuild itself to be more Islamic, militant and sectarian in order to take on the Assad regime. Opposition leaders on the ground, those who are actually fighting the regime, have already become more militant and Islamized. If the SNC doesn’t scramble to catch up, it will become irrelevant. I suspect that the upcoming opposition meeting in Turkey this Thursday and Friday (March 22-23) will reflect some of that shift. The recent high level defections within the the Syrian National Council suggest the opposition is responding to these pressures and new demands. The SNC is going through a period of soul searching and transformation in response to the government’s classic “clear and hold” operations carried out in Sednaya, Homs and Idlib.

The future strategy of the Syrian opposition will have to follow the outlines of a classic “phase two” insurgency predicated on guerrilla warfare. This phase is reached when the insurgent movement initiates organized continuous guerrilla warfare in an attempt to push government forces into a defensive role. “Phase three” insurgency is a war of movement. In this phase the insurgent can directly engage government forces and hold territory. The Syrian opposition prematurely tried to hold territory and take on the Syrian Army. This was a bad and costly mistake. In the first year of the Syrian uprising the opposition naively believed that the entire Syrian population would embrace it and abandon the regime or that Bashar al-Assad would hand over power. Based on the example of the North African uprisings, Syrian opposition members incorrectly believed a “Tahrir Square  moment” would arrive within months of the uprising’s start, eliminating the need for a coherent military strategy, a defined leadership, or how to parry government counter-insurgency operations. The passions of Syrians who have tasted little but contempt from their own government led them to rise up in an act of incredible courage. Now, however, the reality of just how difficult attaining victory will be is setting in.

The Assad regime remains vigorous and will last longer than many thought. The reason that mass defections have not destroyed the regime are twofold: sectarian anxieties prevent Alawite defections, and the regime turns out to be more sectarian than many thought; and class anxieties are more important as well.

Members of the Sunni middle and upper classes are not defecting in the numbers the opposition hoped that they would. The reason that neither Damascus or Aleppo have become centers of the revolution is usually attributed to their privileged position in Syrian society. Wealthy Sunnis living in the West have joined the revolution, but that may be because they do not fear the disorder and incompetence of the opposition in the same way as those living in Syria. They have also experienced the freedom and dignity afforded by the rule of law. They look at the brutality of the Assad regime and wonder, “how come we  have this?”

The Syrian revolutionaries are largely rural and young, just as were the Baathists in the 1960s. Wealthy and educated Sunnis fear the results of the present revolution could be the same for them as the results of the last revolution, when Syria’s rural poor took power. They will lose money, status and their quality of life, at least temporarily. If the Lebanon and Iraq revolutions are a guide, that decline could last a long time.

The coming “phase II” insurgency will be characterized by:

1. the creation of cell-networks that maintain secrecy
2. Terrorism: these techniques include bombings, assassinations, kidnappings, threats, mutilation, murder, torture, and blackmail. These actions will be used to provoke the government into overreactions that discredit the regime, alienate the populace, and demonstrate its inability to protect them.
3. multifaceted attempts to cultivate support in the general population, by undermining the regime, proving that the opposition must be feared and will eventually win, and by winning gratitude and trust by providing food and shelter to those in need.
4. attacks against the government and security forces, such as car bombings in Damascus and Aleppo and the planting of IEDs as in Iraq and Afghanistan will undermine military moral and its ability to move around the country.

In order for the opposition to organize an effective phase II insurgency, it will have to embrace guerrilla warfare and greater Islamization of the resistance. This means  Sunni sectarian recruitment, Islamic martyrdom operations, and all the aspects of Middle Eastern insurgency that we have seen used so effectively against occupation forces in the recent past, whether used by Palestinians, Afghans or Iraqis. Elements of the SNC who are unhappy with the way the Ghalioun has

The role of Burhan Ghalioun and members of the Syrian National Council closest to him, such as Ausama Monajed and Bassma Kodmadi, is bound to diminish or change in the coming phase of the struggle. They must be prepared to embrace a much more stridently Sunni insurgency. The regime has proven its viciousness.  The secular leaders of the SNC have been very successful at mobilizing the West against Assad. They have gotten sanctions put in place and the regime has been isolated internationally. But they look down on religion and warfare.

Kamal Labwani, a leader of the Syrian opposition who quit the Syrian National Council last week, accused the SNC of being an “autocratic” organization that has sidelined most of its members. “There is no council, it’s an illusion,” he said. Furthermore he accused council chief Burhan Ghalioun of being like Bashar and “running the organization …. [like] Assad’s ruling Baath party.” Haytham Mallah slammed Ghalioun for being reluctant to support the military effort of the Free Syrian Army. Anwar al-Bunni is worried that the Muslim Brotherhood has become too powerful within the SNC. These are all growing pains as the opposition struggles to keep up with the changes on the ground brought on by the Homs crisis and opposition defeat.

In keeping with the Islamization necessary to recruit financial and military assistance for the revolution, opposition organizers in the West are rallying support from the broader Islamic community by presenting the Syrian struggle in clear religious terms. Quoting from the Koran is key to this. Here are selected quotes from a recent Syrian opposition rally held in Australia. Notice the use of Islamic concepts of martydom, khalifa, the umma, rejection of nationalism, angles coming to the aid of Islamic fighters, blood nourishing the roots of Jihad, etc.

Sunni Shaykhs of Australia Speak at Rally to Gather Support against the Assad Regime

This is a video of the Muslim community protest for Syria held on Jan 21, 2012 at Paul Keating Park, Bankstown, Sydney, Australia. This video is of the entire protest, including all talks, chanting and videos. The following are snippets of the talks:

“We Stand United for the Sake of Allah and for our Brothers and Sisters who are Getting Slaughtered – We are all Muslims who are Worshiping Allah.” “We Ask Allah to Destroy the Assad Regime and his army.” The Muslim Umma stands as one. For one hundred years these dictatorships and these animals have reigned. … The Umma is one step closer to realizing the reality… the reality of the Khilafa to come. Put your trust in Allah. Allah ordains that our brothers and sisters in Syria stand firm, brave and courageous in standing against those who have been oppressing them for the past decades. We can see the wings of angles above Damascus. They will destroy Assad and his regime. Allah insists that his life will continue to exist and the light of his martyrs will continue and the only thing that will be destroy is the life of tyrants and the Assad regime and his army and to revive truth as he promised. God has made us one Umma. It is the Umma of God who is one.”

Remember that the blood of the Martyrs will never be wasted. It will continue to feed the roots of the tree. The prophet said that their will remain a group of my Umma who will fight on the command of Allah to suppress evil and uphold the unity of God.  Brothers in Islam, to remember that the outcome is for the beliefs. The outcome is for the beliefs. to remember the stance of the people of tawhiid. We had our Umma and our scholars stand up for belief against these regimes. When the likes of al-Buti and the likes of al-Hassoun, this dog wearing a turban, stood on the side of the tyrants. Remember that victory will only come with adhering to the book of Allah and his Sunna. Victory will NOTcome with the name of nationalism. Lift your fingers in the direction of God and say there is only one God. Oh Muslims of Syria Victory is near.

Al Arabiya: Al Arabiya declined to publish Assad’s ‘very personal emails’
2012-03-16

None of the “very personal emails” of President Bashar al-Assad or his wife Asmaa al-Akhras were aired or published, Al Arabiya said on Friday. The pan-Arab news channel said that many “private” messages were in their inbox among thousands … Al Arabiya said that none of the emails were exchanged with senior military or government officials in the country. There weren’t any exchange of emails with members of the Assad family as well, but most of emails were exchanged with members of his wife’s family and his close friends who belonged to his inner circle….Hundreds of “scandalous” emails were accordingly deleted by Al Arabiya.

Bashar Al Assad’s Wife ‘Could Face Two Year Prison Term’ for Sanctions Busting After Shopping Spree – March 16 (Telegraph)

Syria: Bashar Al-Assad Email Reveals Mystery Near Naked Woman
by Raf Sanchez, March 16 (Telegraph) —

Mystery surrounds a photograph of an near-naked woman posing provocatively that was sent to Bashar al-Assad by a young female political aide. The undated picture shows the woman, clad only in white lingerie, pressing herself against a wall as her clothes lie discarded in a heap at her feet. It was discovered among thousands of emails from the personal accounts of the Syrian president and his wife after their passwords were smuggled out of Damascus by opposition groups. The photograph was sent to Mr Assad on December 11 last year by Hadeel al-Ali,

John Stewart: Homs Despot: Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad’s hacked emails reveal he’ll taunt NATO in the world community, but he won’t f**k with Apple.

Syria: Songs of Defiance – Al Jazeera.Net

An undercover Al Jazeera correspondent takes us inside the lives of Syria’s anti-government demonstrators.

Syria Puts On Mass Rally in Support of Assad
By ANNE BARNARD in the New York Times

“What happened in Homs is betrayal,” Mr. Labwani said in an interview. “There is a sense of irresponsibility on the part of the council.”

The council, he added, was in danger of causing splits in Syrian society by failing to create a single rebel military command under its control, leaving individual militias to seek their own sources of help. He accused Muslim Brotherhood members within the exile opposition of “monopolizing funding and military support.”

The 270-member council has been plagued by internal disagreements. A member of its executive committee, Samir Nachar, played down the latest frictions, saying the members had not submitted formal resignations. One, he said, was simply frustrated at his exclusion from a meeting with the United Nations special envoy, Kofi Annan. Mr. Nachar said Mr. Labwani had attended few meetings.

Mr. Nachar acknowledged the council needed to improve but said disagreements were inevitable, noting that many members had never met before the uprising and had widely varying backgrounds and opinions.

But this time the departing members include some well-known figures with deep credibility among Syrians both inside and outside the country, including Mr. Labwani and Haitham Maleh, an executive committee member and lawyer in his 80s who served many years in prison after defending Syrian dissidents, including Muslim Brotherhood members.

Mr. Maleh could not be reached for comment, but told Al Jazeera that he had resigned because of chaos within the group and doubt over what it could accomplish, adding, “We have not gotten very far in working to arm the rebels.”

Still, the way forward for the opposition seemed unclear. On Tuesday, the Syrian National Council had taken steps to bring the Free Syrian Army under its umbrella. But Mr. Labwani, the council member who is resigning, said the exiles had few ties to the fighters inside. “The Free Syrian Army is the people who are inside Syria,” he said.

He called the council’s head, Burhan Ghalioun, an autocrat who makes decisions “under our names without getting back to us.” Mr. Ghalioun could not be reached for comment.

Mr. Labwani said he had argued that the rebels should be armed only under a single command with the council controlling the finances, but Muslim Brotherhood members had objected.

“It will lead to disaster, especially if the revolution is turned into militias,” Mr. Labwani said.

The other two resigning members are Walid al-Bunni and Catherine Altalli. “The Brotherhood took the whole council,” Mr. Bunni said in an interview. “We became like extras.”

In a kind of warning, Mr. Labwani and Mr. Maleh last month formed a new group under the council’s umbrella.

Tony Karon in Time

…. Looking at the balance of forces on the ground, it’s not hard to see why [Assad] may be feeling lucky, at least in the near term. In recent weeks, he has sent armored units to recapture rebel-held neighborhoods first in Homs and then in Idlib. Having successfully driven opposition fighters outside of those areas they had held for months, he has turned his forces’ attention back to Deraa in the south, cradle of the rebellion. Of course, these operations have exacted a terrible toll in civilian life and suffering, not sufficient to prompt foreign powers capable of intervening to throw off the restraints they have imposed on themselves out of fear of the consequences of plunging into a messy civil war…..

Syrian rebels lack guns, money after key defeats
By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY | Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — Two significant defeats at the hands of Syrian government troops have exposed the limitations of the country’s rebel forces: They are low on cash, running out of weapons and facing a fiercely loyal military that will fight to the death.

Insisting that their drive to oust President Bashar Assad by force remains strong, the Free Syrian Army says the arms shortage is the main obstacle.

“Send us money, we’re desperate. Send us weapons,” Ahmad Kassem, who coordinates military operations for the FSA, told The Associated Press in an interview. “We don’t need fighters. We have excess men who can fight, but we need weapons to protect our land and honor.”(..)

Saudi Arabia shut down its embassy in Damascus, the Saudi foreign ministry announced Wednesday. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies withdrew their ambassadors in February.

“Assad Tells Annan he has three conditions for Cease Fire,”  Shamlife, Thursday, March 15, 2012

• Armed groups must promise to cease fire
• Neighboring countries must promise to stop the smuggling of weapons into Syria
• Countries must promise to stop financing the opposition

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A Chrisian friend from Homs writes of how refugee families are occupying empty apartments.

My family left Homs because of their fear for their lives, some went to Damascus and some to Lebanon and few families went to Marmarita and Amar AL Huson,

My cousin who went to her Daughter in AL Raga, went back to Homs and found people in her house, it is 2 bedroom house so she told them that she needs the house as it is too small for more than her and her family, so they left, another relative of mine in Hameedia, they left first then when they came back they found people in their home so they asked them to leave, they refused and asked the owners my relative to talk to the office in one of the Hameedia restaurant that is occupied , so they went there and asked for their house back, they complied and the office of the armed militia ( i think) asked the people who were staying in the house to leave and give the house back, apparently they occupied the houses of the people who left, I am not sure if they forced the people out, that is what i heard from my family.

Google Ideas Director Involved in ‘Regime Change’

Explosive news: Ex-State Department employee tuned Google director pushes programs supporting regime change in the Middle East. This comes on the back of news that Avaaz’s campaign manager is also ex-State Dept. This really begs the question whether there is a policy decision to infiltrate social media at the top as well. Disturbing stuff…..

Syria’s rebels will have to deal with Assad
By Julien Barnes-Dacey
Senior Policy Fellow, Middle East and North Africa Programme, European Council on Foreign Relations, www.ecfr.eu

No one wants to deal with dictators. But one year after the Syrian uprising began, the harsh truth is that Bashar al-Assad maintains the upper hand and the opposition – with its international backers – may have little choice but to cut a deal with him if they want to ease the Syrian people’s suffering.

Through brutal suppression, cynical sectarian mobilisation and continued support from Russia and Iran, the regime has maintained its grip on power. Mr Assad has lost most of his legitimacy and Syria’s economy is crumbling but, so long as the regime has internal cohesion and external support, it is unlikely to collapse soon. The headlines accorded the recent defection of a powerless deputy minister have only served to highlight the struggle facing the opposition.

Short of unlikely direct foreign intervention, the worst scenario Mr Assad faces is prolonged civil war, particularly if foreign powers arm the opposition as demanded by the Syrian National Council and Free Syrian Army. But without artillery and air support, the balance of power is unlikely to change quickly. Moreover, while this route could eventually help the rebels to a military victory, it may further empower Mr Assad among his internal and external backers, by providing a justification for regime violence. The one certainty is that an already horrific toll will increase exponentially, as it did in civil wars in Iraq and Lebanon.

From a humanitarian perspective, then, it is urgent to find a political solution….

For Russia – as well as China and even Iran – to change tack and to press Mr Assad to implement a ceasefire, the opposition will have to consent to direct talks with the regime, not preconditioned on Mr Assad’s immediate departure or on that of regime forces from urban centres. In effect, the initial price will be an outcome that favours the regime’s position on the ground. Distasteful as this will be, there is no other way to end the bloodshed. However, if Mr Assad was to agree a ceasefire, even if he remains in power, he will be far more marginalised internationally and under severe pressure to comply. Such an outcome could ease the entry of humanitarian aid and of a new, enhanced team of monitors.

More positively, such a deal could prepare the ground for a political process, however difficult, that could swing the balance in the opposition’s favour. After four decades of repression, a vibrant, politically mobilised population is now intent on seizing its own future. The state of fear has been broken. This is a force Mr Assad is unable to resist except by violence. A political track may therefore be a surer way of ultimately ending the regime.

The regime could of course renew its violence, but commitments by Syria’s protectors – principally Russia and China – to the process, as well as continuing western economic and political pressure, would make it harder for Mr Assad to extricate himself. A political process could also help erode internal support by persuading senior Alawites to support the Arab League transition plan, under which Mr Assad would step down. It should be remembered that Yemen’s transition plan only succeeded on the basis of talks with President Abdullah Saleh.

While the SNC and FSA reject talks with the regime, many Syrians – including activists – already think political dialogue is the best means of averting a devastating civil war. It should be the west’s preference too.

Date: 19 February 2012 07:41:51 GMT
From: CF2R Secrétariat <[email protected]>
You’ll find here attached our latest report, THE LEBANONIZATION OF SYRIA. Report on the actors of the Syrian crisis, Paris, January 2012.

Organised at the instigation of the Centre Français de Recherche sur le Renseignement (French Center for Intelligence Studies – CF2R) and the Centre international de recherche et d’études sur le terrorisme et d’aide aux victimes du terrorisme (International Center for Research and Study on Terrorism and Aid to Victims of Terrorism – CIRET-AVT), an international delegation of experts travelled to Syria from December 3rd to December 10th, 2011, in order to assess the situation in Syria in an independent and impartial manner and to meet with the actors of this nine-month-long crisis. It completed its assessment mission with meetings with various representatives of the Syrian opposition abroad, as well as with a panel of Middle East experts from Europe.

The aim of the present report is to provide objective information on a crisis which is being substantially deformed by the control that Syria’s adversaries have over international media networks.

The media networks of the Gulf states, with support from major Anglo-American press agencies and their European and French counterparts, have become frontline players in this crisis, with « global » coverage aimed primarily at the overthrow of the Damascus regime, similar to what occurred in Libya.

This falsification of the facts seeks to hide from global public opinion the support – often reluctant – that the majority of the Syrian population have for the current regime and the fact that the external opposition is not the most legitimate stakeholder (as opposed to longstanding domestic opposition groups), neither do they espouse democratic ideals that they pretend to promote (given their strongly Islamist character).

…The Arab Spring has periodically been compared to the stirrings of 1848. But with the exception of the toppling of the Orleans monarchy in France, the 1848 revolutions ultimately failed. Dynastic governments reasserted themselves. They did so for a reason that has troubling implications for the Middle East: Conservative regimes in mid-19th century Europe had not only the institutional advantage over their liberal and socialist adversaries but also the moral advantage….

The Assad emails
Exclusive: secret Assad emails lift lid on life of leader’s inner circle
BY Robert Booth, Mona Mahmood and Luke Harding – Guardian

• Messages show Bashar al-Assad took advice from Iran
• Leader made light of promised reforms
• Wife spent thousands on jewellery and furniture

Assad emails: ‘If we are strong together …’

Date: 28 December 2011
A simple supportive message from Asma al-Assad to her husband.

If we are strong together, we will overcome this together…I love you…

 

Syrian National Council is an “Illusion”

(AP) — “Two prominent Syrian dissidents said Wednesday they have quit the main opposition group that emerged from the year-old uprising against the regime in Damascus, predicting more would soon abandon what one of the men described as an “autocratic” organization.

The resignations from the Syrian National Council dealt another blow to the opposition, which has been hobbled by disorganization and infighting …. One of the dissidents who resigned, Kamal al-Labwani, accused the leadership of the Syrian National Council of controlling the body’s work while sidelining most of its 270 members.
“There is no council, it’s an illusion,” said al-Labwani, who worked for years against the Assad family regime before being jailed in 2005. He joined the council soon after being released in November.

He accused council chief Burhan Ghalioun and a few others of running the organization autocratically, even comparing it to Assad’s ruling Baath party….
He said that another council member, Catherine al-Talli, has also quit and said he expected many more to quit soon to pressure the council leadership. Al-Labwani called for an international conference in Turkey to give the council a new charter and make it more democratic.

Another dissident, 80 year-old lawyer Haitham al-Maleh, said he too had quit the council, but did not say why. He has accused the group in the past of being out of touch and not consulting those long opposed to the regime…. “

The Rafiq Hariri brigade demonstrates in this video how many soldiers they killed and captured prior to the military assault of Idlib. It also shows the tanks they captured.

Monastery in Sednayya attacked

Syrian Kurds get cold reception from Iraqi Kurds
By LARA JAKES and YAHYA BARZANJI | Associated Press

QAMISHLI, Iraq (AP) — Kurdish Syrians fleeing their nation’s bloody uprising are all but prisoners in northern Iraqi refugee camps, though they seek shelter in a region that was created specifically as a safe haven for ethnic Kurds.

Local Kurdish officials in the Iraqi province of Dahuk, which borders Syria, voted Wednesday to open a second refugee camp for the growing number of Syrian Kurds who are arriving every day. But they are not allowed to leave the first, spartan camp at Qamishli, and have been told they must apply for residency before they may live freely in the region widely referred to as, simply, Kurdistan.

It’s a twofold irony: Kurds are Syria’s largest ethnic minority but long have been considered illegal immigrants there. Moreover, Iraqis used Syria as a safe haven during the worst of the sectarian violence that nearly plunged their nation in civil war just a few years ago.

“We can’t move or work freely, and our family can’t send us money,” Qamishli refugee Radhwan Nadhum al-Ali said in an interview this week. He compared the small camp to “living in a big prison cell.”

“I’m mulling whether to go back and face death rather than staying here,” al-Ali said.

Iraqi Kurdish soldiers guard the camp at Qamishli, about 60 kilometers (30 miles) from the border. Dahuk provincial immigration director Mohammed Abdullah Hammo said its Syrian Kurdish residents “are not allowed to leave the camps.”

“They need security approval and residency permission to be in Kurdistan, just like anyone else,” he said Wednesday. He estimated that process would take a month. (…)

The big rumor today is that Mustapha and Firas Tlass fled Syria and are in Paris. Mustapha Tlass is ex-Defense Minister. His son is a major businessman and his second son, Manaf, is  a current top officer in the Syrian Army, born in 1964.

Both Tlass and opposition members in Paris reject these allegations, claiming, “Syrian regime stalwart and former defence minister Mustafa Tlass has arrived in Paris with one of his sons but they are not defecting, opposition representatives told AFP on Monday.”

The Tlass family has long been one of the highest placed Sunni families of the Assad regime. If there is any truth to the defection story, it would indeed be a blow to the regime. Firas Tlass has been flirting with the opposition since the uprising began. He frequently writes on the Facebook sites of “friends” who are opposition members, congratulating them on their stands. Most people laughed at this sort of thing because the Tlasses are considered to be pillars of the regime and always trying to play all sides.

It should be expected that Sunni defections from the regime will travel up the ranks as the civil war in Syria becomes ever more overtly sectarian in nature. It must be remembered that it took Iraq three years to launch its civil war in earnest. That was after the bombing 2006 of the Askari mosque in Samara’. It takes a long time for people who have lived together in relative harmony for decades to stop associating with each other and put hate in their hearts, but that is what we are seeing. It is what happened in Lebanon and Iraq.

Rumors are rife that Adeeb Mayaleh, the head of the Central Bank, is out or on his way out, and that he has been stripped of his authority. Rumors are also rife, of course, that he defected. I don’t know if any of this is true.

This is a note from a Syrian in Latakia:

Dear Joshua, I am a christian Syrian living abroad. Last month I went back to Syria and spent a week with my parents in Lattakia. Here are some observations.

“The son of my 2nd grade teacher is in prison. He was caught distributing pro opposition fliers. A few days ago, his flat burned down and his 3 kids died in the fire. His wife is in a critical condition.

A relative of my family lawyer, a university student was arrested couple weeks ago in Damascus. She was released the day I arrived.

Another guy from our neighborhood, though known to be pro regime, was picked up by the secret police at the university as he was leaving his mid term exam room. He disappeared for 2 weeks. He was just released…. Some name miss match they explained.

I was stopped at the airport. Was called to Damascus for questioning by an officer in one of the security branches. Without my father’s connections I am sure I would ve not been able to get the travel permission and to leave on time. I still don’t know what they wanted from me.

We hear stories about kidnappings taking place in the eastern part of the country near Deir Ezzor, in Homs and on the outskirts of Damascus in exchange of ransom.

Lattakia is one of the cities the least affected by the events. It’s kept under tight control by a strong pro regime presence. The government is doing all it can to show that it’s business as usual. They do amazing cleaning job after each Friday clashes. As I hang out with some friends at a coffee shop in the afternoon, life seems to go on as usual in the busy streets… but something weird is felt in the air… a thick layer of pessimism and anxiety is hanging over the city… everybody feels that it is boiling and it might explode at any moment. You can’t miss the signs:

My high school has become an army base. The main city square, less than 1000 yards from my parents flat and a center of protests in the early days, is now filled with soldiers and sand bags. “Al Assad soldiers” they proudly painted on the walls.

My friends drove me by the Ramel neighborhood. One of the hot areas in town. Army check points with sand bags control all streets entering the neighborhood. “POLICE” is painted on them. We all know it is the army who controls them and not the police.

Gunmen in civilian clothing are present at all hospital entrances. They are there to arrest wounded protesters seeking treatment.

4×4 trucks with armed men and mounted machine guns pass by every now and then.

Electricity is cut off 6 hours a day, 3 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon. It is setting the rhythm for business hours. – Today Electricity is off 12 hours a day. it’s on and off every 3 hours.

The price for heating fuel has sky rocketed. The price for cooking gas has doubled. It s cold in my parents and my friends flats. It’s been one of the coldest and rainiest winters in Syria. People wear many layers indoors and sleep with thick wool covers- these are still the privileged neighborhoods. I can’t imagine the living conditions in rebelled areas.

I have just come back from a week stay in Syria. I left as the bombing of Homs was about to begin.”

Rescued journalist Paul Conroy describes the situation in the Syrian city of Homs as ‘systematic slaughter’

Paul Conroy, the British journalist injured in an attack on the Syrian city of Homs says the situation is not a war, but a “systematic massacre”.

World News: UN End Visit in Syria With No Deal

Syria attributes currency depreciation to speculation
03-10-2012

DAMASCUS, March 9 (Xinhua) –Syria’s minister of finance attributed the depreciation of the Syrian pound to speculative traders’ manipulation in the black market, the state-run SANA news agency reported on Friday.

“The decline in the Syrian pound over the past two days was not caused by supply and demand issues. Rather, it was caused by speculative traders’ manipulation in the black market. These traders were after brisk and outrageous profits,” Mohammad Julailati was quoted by SANA as saying.

“Those manipulators are enemies of our people,” said the minister, charging that some Arab TVs have used the currency depreciation to deceive the Syrian people that the nation’s economy is in a bad shape.

In the past few days, the U.S. dollar was gaining value against the Syrian pound every passing hour and reached above 100 pounds in the black market on Wednesday, according to Julailati.

However, the central bank intervened on Thursday by officially announcing the exchange rate of the U.S. dollars at 80 Syrian pounds, forcing the black market to sell the dollars at the same rate, the minister said.

Since the eruption of unrest in Syria in March 2011, people have been rushing to change their Syrian pounds into U.S. dollars or gold to protect their wealth against the instability, bearing in mind what had happened in neighboring Lebanon after the eruption of civil war in 1975.

The intervention waiting game: a window for a new opposition?
11 March 2012 / NOAH BLASER , ?STANBUL – Zaman

As the international community remains hesitant about military intervention and Syria’s largest political opposition group remains divided, the likelihood for a new opposition leadership to develop amidst the country’s strengthening rebels may be growing.

“As the military opposition in Syria grows, a central leadership could emerge from the battlefield,” said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies and associate professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “If it can begin to coordinate the military resistance effectively, it might gain recognition as the Syrian opposition’s legitimate leadership,” he said in a Wednesday interview with Today’s Zaman.

Landis’ words come as the US, European, Arab and Turkish “Friends of Syria” alliance remains hesitant about military intervention or channeling arms to opposition groups, leaving Syria’s rebels to face Damascus’ military without outside aid for the foreseeable future….

One of the biggest unknowns in Syria has been whether or not the country’s fragmentary opposition, represented by the umbrella of opposition groups known as the Syrian National Council (SNC) will be able to pull together a coherent political and military opposition with a firmly established leader. So far, the SNC has remained fractured and doubts have grown about the leadership of Burhan Ghalioun, the group’s present leader. The SNC’s relationship with Syria’s armed opposition has also been tenuous, with rebel leaders criticizing the group for failing to provide them with money and arms.

“If Turkey and the international community see that the military and political opposition matures into a more unified, cohesive group, they will be more willing to help,” said Orhan. “That isn’t the situation right now.”

A new leadership on the ground?

With the influence of outside powers and opposition groups at a minimum, the question of opposition leadership may be left to Syria’s rebel forces. According to Landis: “If the conflict is left in the hands of local forces, the leadership question is going to be settled on the battlefield. A successful commander might emerge as the Washington or Atatürk of the resistance, and possibly of a new Syria.”

Presently, the country’s loosely coordinated group of anti-regime militias, known collectively as the Free Syrian Army (FSA), act independently. The present leadership of the FSA, headed by the defected Col. Riad al-Asaad from the Turkish border province of Hatay, has largely been ineffective at coordinating the FSA’s patchwork forces, while the unofficial center of the country’s opposition, the devastated city of Homs, was lost to the rebels this month as security forces pressed resistance hot spots across the country.

But as the brutality of Damascus’ crackdown has grown, defections to the FSA have sharply increased, with senior rebel leaders claiming that a record number of 50 officers — allegedly among them six brigadier-generals and four colonels — defected to the ranks of the anti-regime FSA last week. The number of low-level defections is also reportedly rising, with scores of newly posted online videos showing small bands of soldiers proclaiming their own revolutionary brigades.

Rising defections, says Landis, are only one sign that the regime is losing its grip in the country. The economy has been hard hit by sanctions, with the Syrian pound losing 90 percent of its value in recent months. Meanwhile, the use of indiscriminate violence in majority Sunni areas, says Landis, has succeeded in turning much of the country against the minority Alawite regime. “I don’t see Homs as a lethal blow. More and more Syrians are coming to the understanding that it has no future. Syrians are hungry and cold,” he stated.

While other analysts have speculated that the opposition will nevertheless remain a mild nuisance to the Syrian military, Landis says Damascus will be gradually less and less able to keep up with a growing insurgency. “Even if there are several different, uncoordinated militia groups, they are going to attack in a classic guerrilla strategy. Insurgent improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and snipers are going to snap the military’s morale pretty quickly and, if it can’t move on the highway because of IEDs, whole chunks of the country will fall out of its control.”

Last week, a Pentagon report stated that IED usage by the opposition has more than doubled since December. If such tactics do win Syria’s militias independent territory, it might allow room for them to meet and coordinate the resistance under a single leadership.

Managing the opposition from abroad?

As questions abound regarding the ambitions of Syria’s militias and Western fears grow about al-Qaeda’s potential influence on the resistance, the anti-Assad “Friends of Syria” alliance may wish to exert its own influence over the opposition through arms transfers, argues Steven Heydemann of the United States Peace Institute.

Heydemann, who told Today’s Zaman that peaceful political opposition groups like the SNC have been sidelined by the military opposition, believes that outside powers would be wise to stem the potential rise of a strictly military leadership by channeling arms to the opposition through the SNC. “The issue here is managing the militarization of the opposition. If we allow armed groups to form their own leadership without any command and control flowing back to civilians, we will see the proliferation a ‘guys with guns’ form of leadership,” Heydemann said. “Instead, the ‘Friends of Syria’ group could use arms to strengthen the SNC’s relationship with the Free Syrian Army. If the SNC could offer militias badly needed arms and supplies, I suspect that the odds are fairly high that they could reach a deal.”

However, the probability of such assistance seems slim in the foreseeable future. “We really don’t know who [the opposition] is that would be armed,” US Secretary of Sate Hillary Clinton told the press last month as she noted al-Qaeda and Hamas’ recent endorsement of the FSA….

The broader point may be that outside powers now have little control over the course of the conflict and the opposition that fights it. “The US and other ‘Friends of Syria’ nations won’t be able to hand the keys of the government to an opposition of their choosing when the conflict is over. They’ve raised the rhetorical bar against Assad, but there’s not much else they can do,” Landis said.

Fresh Fighting in Syria, Assad Backs ‘Honest’ Peace
by Edward Yeranian | Cairo March 10, 2012 – VOA

….Joshua Landis, who is head of the Middle East Studies program at the University of Oklahoma, says the Assad regime thinks it is winning the battle against the opposition, and that both sides’ unwillingness to compromise paves the way for a bleak future in Syria.

“This is a zero-sum game. There isn’t a compromise that can come out of this that I can see. Once Assad steps aside, the entire edifice of the regime is going to crumble. … There’s very little that can take the place of the Syrian Army or the Syrian government, and that has people wringing their hands in Syria. They don’t see a way out of going down a very dark tunnel, which is in the direction of what happened in Iraq or what happened in Lebanon during the darkest period of the civil war,” he said.

Landis foresees a growing cascade of defections from the upper echelons of the Syrian regime, but argues that President Assad’s Alawite allies are not likely to desert him. “They understand,” Landis says, “that they need to hang together or be hanged apart.” He also paints a somber picture of an increasingly sectarian conflict: “It takes a long time for people who’ve lived together in relative harmony for decades to stop associating with each other and put hate in their hearts, but that’s what we’re going to see.”

Video: Syrian forces launch massive assault on Idlib – al-Jazeera – Youtube: 11 Mar 2012

Legislation from POMED

The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee approved “The Syrian Freedom Support Act”, H.R. 2106, introduced by Committee Chairwoman lleana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY). The bill imposes new sanctions on Syrian energy and financial sectors.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced “The Syria Democracy Transition Act of 2012”, S. 2152, to promote U.S. objectives in Syria and the departure of President Bashar Al Assad.

Syria’s Bashar al-Assad firmly in control, U.S. intelligence officials say
By Greg Miller and Karen DeYoung, Friday, March 9, 7:15 PM

A year into the uprising in Syria, senior U.S. intelligence officials described the nation’s president, Bashar al-Assad, on Friday as firmly in control and increasingly willing to unleash one of the region’s most potent militaries on badly overmatched opposition groups.

The officials also said Assad’s inner circle is “remaining steadfast,” with little indication that senior figures in the regime are inclined to peel off, despite efforts by the Obama administration and its allies to use sanctions and other measures to create a wave of defections that would undermine Assad.

Assad “is very much in charge,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official responsible for tracking the conflict, adding that Assad and his inner circle seem convinced that the rebellion is being driven by external foes and that they are equipped to withstand all but a large-scale military intervention.

“That leadership is going to fight very hard,” the official said. Over the long term, “the odds are against them,” he said, “but they are going to fight very hard.”

The comments, provided by three intelligence officials on the condition of anonymity to share candid assessments, were the most detailed to date by U.S. analysts on the status of the uprising, which began last March.

The officials said the regime’s tactics have taken a more aggressive turn, and newly declassified satellite images released Friday show what officials described as “indiscriminate” artillery damage to schools, mosques and other facilities in the beleaguered city of Homs in recent weeks.

Overall, they described Syria as a formidable military power, with 330,000 active-duty soldiers, surveillance drones supplied by Iran and a dense network of air defense installations that would make it difficult for the United States or other powers to establish a no-fly zone.

“This is an army that was built for a land war with the Israelis,” said a second senior U.S. intelligence official. After the regime hesitated to attack civilian population centers earlier in the conflict, its “restraint .?.?. has been lifted,” the official said.

Syrian forces continued their month-long shelling of the opposition stronghold of Homs, in the west-central part of the country, on Friday, according to news reports. Thousands demonstrated in other parts of the country in anticipation of the scheduled arrival of Kofi Annan, the special envoy of the United Nations and Arab League, in Damascus on Saturday. He is expected to meet with Assad.

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, who visited Homs this week, said she was “devastated” by what she saw in the ravaged city. “There are no people left,” she said.

Amos, speaking in Turkey after visiting refugee camps along the Syrian border, said the Assad government had agreed to a “limited assessment” of humanitarian needs but had refused “unhindered” access for aid organizations and “asked for more time” to consider U.N. proposals for extended assistance for civilians.

In Washington, the intelligence officials cited a number of factors protecting the regime from collapse. Not least among them is the level of motivation in an inner circle convinced that yielding power will mean death or life imprisonment.

U.S. intelligence has also detected an escalation in lethal support from Syria’s closest ally, Iran. Officials said that Iran had previously been supplying mainly training and equipment to suppress opposition forces but has recently begun sending small arms and sophisticated equipment for monitoring and penetrating rebel groups.

Iran has shared equipment and expertise developed during its efforts to put down its own internal rebellion in 2009. Syria also has a small fleet of unarmed drones that appear to have been supplied by Iran before the uprising began, the officials said.

They portrayed the political opposition to Assad as disorganized and hobbled by a lack of experienced leadership. The officials described efforts to unify and attract a broader following among Syria’s minority groups — another objective of U.S. policy — as having limited success. The Syrian National Council, dominated by exiles who are mainly Sunni Muslims, has been trying to attract Christians, Druze and Kurds away from Assad.

Fears that the opposition will oppress minorities or worse have been regularly stoked by the regime, which is dominated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The intelligence officials also echoed concerns expressed by U.S. military leaders in congressional testimony this week about providing weapons to the armed elements of the opposition. They are equipped mainly with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, giving them little firepower compared with Assad’s formidable forces.

An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers have defected and form the bulk of the Free Syrian Army. It is organized loosely, without effective command and control, and it has few links to the political opposition, according to U.S. intelligence accounts.

Protecting those forces would be a daunting task. One of the officials said that Syria’s air defenses include hundreds of surface-to-air missile sites and thousands of antiaircraft artillery installations.

Describing the dimensions of the challenge, this official said that Syria, barely one-tenth the size of Libya, has an army four times as big with five times the air defense assets, most of it supplied by Russia.

So far, the officials said, the bloodiest attacks against the regime appear to have been carried out by al-Qaeda elements seeking to slip unannounced into opposition groups that do not seem eager to have any affiliation with the terrorist network.

The U.S. officials said that al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq has reversed the flow of a pipeline that once carried fighters and weapons through Syria to battle U.S. forces at the height of the Iraq war.

“That network is still there,” said the first U.S. intelligence official, who acknowledged that the size and composition of the al-Qaeda presence in Syria is unclear. Some al-Qaeda members may be Syrian, others Iraqis.

The officials said their judgment that AQI — as the Iraq affiliate is known — was behind vehicle bombings that killed dozens of people in Damascus and Aleppo in December and January is based more on the nature of the attacks than independent evidence of al-Qaeda involvement.

The greatest damage done so far to Assad’s regime has been economic, intelligence officials said. Sanctions imposed by the United States and the Arab League, as well as European curbs on importation of oil, have caused spikes in unemployment, fuel prices and budget deficits in Damascus.

Over the long term, the officials said, economic hardships may be the most effective tool for unseating Assad. Still, the first U.S. intelligence official said, “to this point, we have not seen that having an effect on the regime’s ability to prosecute the war.”

W(h)ither Syria?
Brian Stoddart, March 11, 2012

Syrians were focus of NYPD surveillance
Saturday, March 10, 2012
BY HANNAN ADELY

Muslims of Syrian descent were the targets of surveillance by the New York Police Department — to the surprise of members of that community who said their ancestors have been here for generations and they consider themselves “Americanized.”

The report was the latest in a series of revelations that the NYPD had done extensive surveillance on Muslims in New York and New Jersey, including mosques, student groups and businesses. The surveillance has sparked an outcry from Muslim groups and civil rights advocates who charge the department was monitoring people based on religion and without any link to criminal activity.

On Friday, The Associated Press reported the NYPD compiled a report that listed “locations of concern” including businesses owned by Syrian Muslims in New York City.

The NYPD report points out that the largest concentrations of Syrian Muslims were in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn and in Paterson. The U.S. Census Bureau counted 295 people of Syrian ancestry in Paterson in the 2005-09 American Community Survey.

Mazen Tinawi of Wayne said Syrians generally do not live together in neighborhoods as do other newer immigrants from Arabic-speaking countries and have fanned out across the region and the U.S.

“It’s surprising to me that we’re talking about this,” he said. “We don’t live in a community. We’re very Americanized.”

Tinawi said he felt the same loyalty to the U.S. as do other Americans.

“I will not allow anyone to harm my neighbor and my children or anybody,” he said.

The NYPD’s report notes that the majority of Syrians that police officers met were second or third generation.

A widening rift between the NYPD and federal law enforcement seemed to intensify this week when Michael Ward, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Newark division, criticized New York police spying during a press conference, saying it has compromised trusted sources in the Muslim community. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called reports of NYPD surveillance in New Jersey “disturbing” during a Senate subcommittee hearing.

New York’s mayor and police commissioner have steadfastly defended the secret surveillance on New Jersey college campuses and in Newark and Paterson as legal and constitutional.

Syrians immigrated in large numbers to the region in the late 1800s and early 1900s and many of them came to Paterson, drawn by its thriving silk industry, said Matthew Jaber Stiffler, a researcher at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Mich.

Museum exhibit

The museum is documenting the experiences of early Syrian immigrants in the region in an exhibit called “Little Syria” that is scheduled to open in New York this fall. The “Little Syria” refers to the thriving Syrian neighborhood in lower Manhattan from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century.

The earliest Syrian immigrants were mostly Christian. Muslims started to arrive in the 1920s and 1930s, Stiffler said.

Some Americans may have Syrian ancestry that’s just a quarter or an eighth of their total heritage, Stiffler said.

“It’s a diverse community and some have been here for decades and decades,” he said.

Tinawi noted that Syrians had not been tied to terrorist acts. “I think all Muslims feel the same,” he said. “We are good Americans and we respect the law.

The report about Syrians instructs police to focus only on Muslims and not on the large population of Syrian Jews. No mention is made of Christians, who make up a large number of Syrian-Americans.

Jamal Laham, a Syrian immigrant from Garfield, said it was unfair for the NYPD to single out only Muslims. “Why do you want to go after me just because I was born a Muslim?” he said.

Sami Moubayed, “If Annan were to walk out on the Syria Mission, who would care?” on the front page of www.mideastviews.com

Kathimerini (EN): Athens-based firm keeps heating fuel flowing to Syria
2012-03-12

By Jessica Donati & Emma Farge Oil traders arranging millions of dollars worth of fuel shipments to Syria sit in the office of a little-known firm in Greece. The fuel, liquid petroleum gas for cooking and domestic heating, is not covered by …

The first wine from Syria is about to be released onto the UK market
Monday 12 March 2012
by Adam Lechmere

Domaine Bargylus, near the town of Lattaquie, or Latakia, in the north-west of the country, is a 12ha vineyard planted to Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.Bargylus is a part of an enterprise started in 2003 by the Lebanese-Syrian Saadé family, which bought land in Syria, and also in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, in order to make wine ‘which has everything to do with the land’.

Saadé businesses include marine and land transport, wine, tourism, property development and finance. Although the Romans made wine here 2000 years ago, this is now the only commercial winery in Syria, Sandro Saadé, who with his brother Karim directs the company, said. ‘It is the only recognised wine produced to international standards.’

The Central Bank has managed to bring the Syrian pound back down into a manageable trading range. It had plunged to an exchange rate over 100 pounds to a dollar. It is now below 100 to a dollar. How did it do this?

Reports are that the central bank sold only 2 million dollars. Yes, only 2 million dollars in order to calm the market. One friend reported paying 113 pounds for a dollar in Aleppo on Wednesday 7 March. On Thursday morning, the pound had risen to a range between 89 and 91 per pound. Six hours later it hit 103. The rate was bouncing all over the place between 85 to 113 per dollar; there was no real price.

If the Central Bank can hold the price of the pound below 90 per dollar, it will be doing very well. That is where it really belonged before the revolution. Syria had been pursuing a suicidal strong-pound policy for years. The artificially high rate of 47 pounds to a dollar ignored imbalances in the economy. It undercut Syrian exports and inflated the cost of doing business in Syria, which has too many impediments and too few attractions for foreign investment.

Most important, however, was that the strong currency encouraged Syrians to buy foreign goods well beyond their means. In effect, the government was giving Syrians free foreign currency to buy cars and other goods that the country could ill afford. This made Syrians feel good, but it ignored the real costs. The strong currency ignored the decline of oil revenues. The government was ignoring its costs which were rising. The government needed to down size and let go of workers, but it refused to do so, preserving the bloated and inefficient public sector industries.

Government costs of expanding subsidies were also draining the treasury. Fuel and food subsidies were sky-rocketing with the growing population and rising commodity prices.

The government has cut its expenses by half in allowing the currency to fall to 89 pounds to a dollar.

Traditionally economic bubbles are followed by a fall of asset prices by roughly 45%.  The Syria currency has fallen by 45%, should it stay at 89 pounds to a dollar. Of course, Syria is not going through a tradition economic bubble because it has a broad-based social revolution on its hands, but one should not ignore the economic causes of the Arab Spring. Economic failure underpinned this revolution.

If the Syrian revolution succeeds, it will be important for the revolutionary government not to repeat the bad economic choices of the Assad regime. Of course opposition parties have been almost silent on their economic prescriptions and plans, if they in fact have any. The cause of this silence is because most Syrians know precious little about economics, but more importantly opposition parities do not want to tell Syrians the bad news. They will have to cut government jobs and expenses.

If the Assad regime is forced to cut government jobs, stop subsidies, and allow the currency to trade at a more manageable rate, it will be blamed for the collapse. The new government will escape much of the blame for the terrible shape of the Syrian economy and will escape the necessity of imposing an austerity plan, which must be done by someone.

The new Egyptian parliament faces a gargantuan task in dealing with the economic troubles bequeathed it by Husni Mubarak. Few believe that it will be able to swiftly guide Egypt down the road of significant belt tightening and the rationalization of a public sector and monopoly industries that are not competitive.

The Syrian uprising is being driven largely by political factors, but one should not ignore the numbers. Ehasani, who has been writing for Syria Comment for over five years, has consistently warned us that Syria’s economic numbers do not add up. Eventually, reality would mug Syrians.

News Round Up below

Private sector’s hands tied as Syria sinks to its knees,  by Michael Karam, Mar 8, 2012

Syria Opposition Leader Rejects Dialogue
By AP / ZEINA KARAM Friday, Mar. 09, 2012

(BEIRUT) — The leader of Syria’s main opposition group rejected calls Friday by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan for dialogue with President Bashar Assad’s government, saying they were pointless and unrealistic as the regime massacres its own people.

As the prospects for diplomacy faltered, Turkey’s state-run television TRT said two Syrian generals and a colonel defected to Turkey on Thursday.

If confirmed, the military defections would be significant as most army defectors so far have been low-level conscripts. On Thursday, Syria’s deputy oil minister announced his defection, making him the highest-ranking civilian official to join the opposition.

In a telephone interview from Paris, Burhan Ghalioun, who heads the opposition Syrian National Council, told The Associated Press that Annan already has disappointed the Syrian people…..

Burhan Ghalioun of the Syrian National Council dismissed such talk as naive. “My fear is that, like other international envoys before him, the aim is to waste a month or two of pointless mediation efforts,” he said. He added: “Any political solution will not succeed if it is not accompanied by military pressure on the regime.” Ghalioun also criticized Annan for not putting the blame for the violence squarely on the regime.

Following yesterday’s defection of a senior oil ministry official, Turkish television today reported that two Syrian generals and a colonel had defected to Turkey.

Islamism and the Syrian uprising
Posted By Nir Rosen
Thursday, March 8, 2012

James Clapper, the United States Director of National Intelligence, warned last month of al Qaeda taking advantage of the growing conflict in Syria. The Syrian regime and its supporters frequently claim that the opposition is dominated by al Qaeda-linked extremists. Opposition supporters often counter that the uprising is completely secular. But months of reporting on the ground in Syria revealed that the truth is more complex.

Syria’s uprising is not a secular one. Most participants are devout Muslims inspired by Islam. By virtue of Syria’s demography most of the opposition is Sunni Muslim and often come from conservative areas. The death of the Arab left means religion has assumed a greater role in daily life throughout the Middle East. A minority is secular and another minority is comprised of ideological Islamists. The majority is made of religious-minded people with little ideology, like most Syrians. They are not fighting to defend secularism (nor is the regime) but they are also not fighting to establish a theocracy. But as the conflict grinds on, Islam is playing an increasing role in the uprising.

Mosques became central to Syria’s demonstrations as early as March 2011 and influenced the uprising’s trajectory, with religion becoming increasingly more important. Often activists described how they had “corrected themselves” after the uprising started. Martyrs became important to a generation that had only seen martyrs on television from Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon. “People got more religious,” one activist in Damascus’s Barzeh neighborhood explained, “they got closer to death, you could be a martyr so people who drank or went out at night corrected themselves.” Some Arab satellite news stations have also contributed to the dominance of Islamists by interviewing more of them and focusing on them as opposed to more secular opposition figures or intellectuals. In Daraa activists complained that satellite networks were marginalizing prominent leftists….

Rosen’s other articles can be found found here:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/spotlight/insidesyria/

Syria’s Alawite activists stuck in the middle – By Nir Rosen
Despite fears of sectarianism if the regime falls, some in the Alawite minority are speaking out against Assad.

Journalist Nir Rosen recently spent two months in Syria. As well as meeting members of various communities across the country – supporters of the country’s rulers and of the opposition alike – he spent time with armed resistance groups in Homs, Idlib, Deraa, and Damascus suburbs. He also travelled extensively around the country last year, documenting his experiences for Al Jazeera – including articles about the Alawite community.

The Syrian opposition has been stepping up efforts to get religious minorities involved in the year-old uprising. The exiled opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) recently issued a statement announcing that it “extends [a] hand to the Alawite community”, the sect which President Bashar al-Assad belongs to.

Although a minority, Alawites dominate Syria’s various security agencies, its army’s officer corps and key positions in the government. Western backers of the SNC and opponents of the regime often say the Damascus leadership will only fall when the Alawite community is persuaded to abandon it.

An older Sunni opposition intellectual who spent time in prison before and during the current uprising agreed with this analysis when I spoke to him in Damascus. “The system will fall only when Alawites believe they are headed in the wrong direction,” he said, adding that “Alawite intellectuals must realise that if they want to live in this country, they must be against the regime and with the revolution.”

Historically, Alawites have played a prominent role in the opposition. But in the ongoing uprising, there are few prominent Alawite voices. Many members of the community fear they will be marginalised if the Sunni majority gains power. Given their experiences of oppression before the Baath party took over in 1963, some statements by the opposition have only encouraged their fears.

When Maamun Homsi, a prominent exiled opposition figure, gave a rant threatening to exterminate all Alawites, he was not condemned by the SNC. Homsi urged the “despicable Alawites” to either renounce Assad, “or Syria will become your graveyard”. Shortly after his remarks, I spoke to a senior Western diplomat with influence over the SNC. He was outraged and urged SNC President Burhan Ghalioun to condemn the statement.

A recent SNC statement, urging communal tolerance, seems to be a response to pressure from American and European backers of the SNC.

“The regime has tried, since the beginning of the revolution, to fragment Syrian society and drive a wedge within mixed communities by dividing cities along military and security lines,” the February 26 statement said. “The Alawites remain an important component of Syria, and will continue to enjoy the same rights as other citizens as we build one nation of Christians, Muslims, and other sects. The regime will not be successful in pitting us against one another.”….

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR: The Perils of Piecemeal Intervention
The New York Times: By JONATHAN TEPPERMAN, March 8, 2012

In Syria, we should go in big or stay home….

let’s not pretend that half-measures are preferable. Choosing policies just because they are cheap, gratifying and politically palatable is rarely a good idea, especially when they could well make matters worse. Those of us unwilling to tolerate more slaughter in Syria must confront the true nature of the military choices facing us.

We must now accept the hard facts and make an honest decision about what standing up for our interests and values will entail. If that means a major armed intervention, we should do it, but with no illusions.

Jonathan Tepperman is the managing editor of Foreign Affairs magazine.

Out of Syria’s Carnage: A Survivor’s Testimony of Bab Amr’s Last Stand
Time.comBy VIVIENNE WALT | Time.com

….At that instant, a rocket exploded at the front of the building, killing Colvin and Ochlik instantly. The space was filled with dust. In the chaos, Daniels heard Bouvier scream, “William, William! I can’t move!” Her left leg was crooked. He pulled her out by the shoulders. She was bleeding heavily. Carrying his colleague, Daniels staggered to the doorway. As he glanced down, he saw his friend Ochlik, just 28, lifeless on the floor. “Edith,” he gasped to Bouvier, “Rémi is not with us anymore.”

6 civilians killed by armed groups in Syria’s Hama – 2012-03-08

DAMASCUS, March 8 (Xinhua) — Armed groups fired Rocket- Propelled grenades (RPGs) at a civilian bus in central Hama province Wednesday, killing six people instantly, state-run SANA news agency reported Thursday….

Opposition to the Syrian Opposition: Against the Syrian National Council
As`ad Abukhalil

The opposition to the Syrian National Council (SNC) can be predicated on several factors, primarily relating to matters of credibility, consistency, and honesty.

The Syrian National Council has already lied to the Syrian people repeatedly. There are many examples that can be summarized below.

a. It started as a movement that strictly adhered to non-violent struggle and now it has a military council to coordinate the violent overthrow of the regime by force (and this without in any way detracting from the right of the Syrian people—and all other Arab people—to overthrow by any means necessary the regime under which they live and suffer). Worse, the SNC now wants violence to be done by Syrians and by whoever else (Israelis too?) interested in overthrowing the regime.

b. The SNC first categorically rejected any political preferences in the Lebanese political conflict. Burhan Ghalyun famously said: keep us out of your conflicts in Lebanon. Now, the SNC is a close ally of the March 14 movement and it has issued political statements in support of this Hariri movement.

c. The SNC said it strictly opposed foreign intervention while it now begs for foreign intervention from any side—preferably allies of the US and Israel.

d. The SNC leadership said on a few occasions that the percentage of the Ikhwan in the SNC is no more than twenty percent. Yet, Ghalyun in several private meetings (including an off-the-record session with an Arab journalist) complained about Ikhwan domination of the SNC and said that he would not agree to serve as another Mahmud Jibril…..

Head of Israeli intelligence has a message for Syrians – see video

The NeoCon Propaganda Machine Pushing “Regime Change” in Syria – Counterpunch – by AISLING BYRNE

“War with Iran is already here,” wrote a leading Israeli commentator recently, describing “the combination of covert warfare and international pressure” being applied to Iran.

Although not mentioned, the “strategic prize” of the first stage of this war on Iran is Syria; the first campaign in a much wider sectarian power-bid. “Other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself,” Saudi King Abdullah was reported to have said last summer, “nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria.”

By December, senior United States officials were explicit about their regime change agenda for Syria: Tom Donilon, the US National Security Adviser, explained that the “end of the [President Bashar al-] Assad regime would constitute Iran’s greatest setback in the region yet – a strategic blow that will further shift the balance of power in the region against Iran.”

Shortly before, a key official in terms of operationalizing this policy, Under Secretary of State for the Near East Jeffrey Feltman, had stated at a congressional hearing that the US would “relentlessly pursue our two-track strategy of supporting the opposition and diplomatically and financially strangling the [Syrian] regime until that outcome is achieved”.

What we are seeing in Syria is a deliberate and calculated campaign to bring down the Assad government so as to replace it with a regime “more compatible” with US interests in the region…..

Syrian Kurds Flee Into Iraqi Refugee Limbo – By: Jack Healy | The New York Times

Syria’s Armed Opposition by Institute for the Study of War
Download the PDF

Syrian deputy oil minister Abdo Hussameddin announced his resignation from the Syrian government in a YouTube video, becoming the highest-ranking civilian official to join the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad. Hussameddin had worked for the Syrian government for 33 years, and had served as deputy oil minister since August 2009.

“I am joining the revolution of the people who reject injustice and the brutal campaign of the regime,” Hussameddin said in his filmed statement. “I tell the regime, which claims to own the country, you have nothing but the footprint of the tank driven by your barbarism to kill innocent people.”

I presume this is only the beginning of high level defections. So far upper-level Sunnis have stood by the regime, whether out of self interest, conviction, or fear. But that is not likely to remain the case for ever. The brutality of this war will drive them out of the regime as Syria’s sectarian divide widens. Syria’s sectarian communities have the habit of living together peacefully.

It will take time for Syrians to put hate in their hearts and become fully sectarian, as the Iraqis and Lebanese did. It took Iraq three years before the sectarian, civil-war began in earnest — that was in 2006 with the bombing of the al-Askari Mosque bombing in Samarra. The process of sectarian alienation is likely to happen more rapidly in Syria. High level defections will become more frequent as the regime weakens.

Leon Panetta pushes back on calls for military intervention in Syria
Defence secretary cautions call by Senator John McCain and others to launch airstrikes against Bashar al-Assad’s regime
Associated Press,Wednesday 7 March 2012

US secretary of defence Leon Panetta, left, and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin E Dempsey testify at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Photograph: Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images

The US defence secretary, Leon Panetta, has pushed back against fresh demands for US military involvement in Syria to end President Bashar al-Assad’s deadly crackdown on his people.

“What doesn’t make sense is to take unilateral action right now,” Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee Wednesday about advising President Barack Obama to dispatch US forces. “I’ve got to make very sure we know what the mission is … achieving that mission at what price.”

The panel’s top Republican, Senator John McCain, said the estimated 7,500 dead and the bloodshed calls for US leadership that a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, displayed during the Bosnian war in the 1990s and that Obama eventually showed on Libya last year.

“In past situations, America has led. We’re not leading, Mr Secretary,” McCain told Panetta.

The Pentagon chief later added that the United States is not holding back and is leading in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and fighting terrorism.

Testifying before the committee, Army General Martin Dempsey and Panetta offered a cautionary note to the call by McCain to launch US airstrikes against Assad’s regime.

“This terrible situation has no simple answers,” Panetta told the panel.

Obama has resisted calls to step into the turmoil in Syria to stop Assad’s crackdown on protesters. He told a news conference Tuesday that the international community has not been able to muster a campaign against Syria like the one in Libya that ousted Muammar Gaddafi last year.

“For us to take military action unilaterally, as some have suggested, or to think that somehow there is some simple solution, I think is a mistake,” Obama said. “What happened in Libya was we mobilised the international community, had a UN Security Council mandate, had the full cooperation of the region, Arab states, and we knew that we could execute very effectively in a relatively short period of time. This is a much more complicated situation.”

Obama’s strategy has been to use sanctions and international diplomatic isolation to pressure Assad into handing over power.

The Pentagon chief said the United States is currently focused on isolating the Assad regime diplomatically and politically, arguing that it has lost all legitimacy for killing its own people. He left open the possibility of military action, saying the Obama administration continues to assess the situation and would adjust its strategy as necessary.

Dempsey said among the military options are enforcement of a no-fly zone and humanitarian relief. He said a long-term, sustained air campaign would pose a challenge because Syria’s air defences are five times more sophisticated than Libya’s. He said Syria’s chemical and biological weapons stockpile is 100 times larger than Libya’s.

He said suppressing the Syrian air defences would take an extended period of time and a significant number of aircrafts, an effort that would have to be led by the United States. One complication, Panetta and Dempsey pointed out, is the location of the sophisticated air defences: populous neighborhoods. If the US unleashed its military power, that could mean scores of unintended deaths.

“We also need to be alert to extremists, who may return to well-trod ratlines running through Damascus, and other hostile actors, including Iran, which has been exploiting the situation and expanding its support to the regime,” Dempsey said. “And we need to be especially alert to the fate of Syria’s chemical and biological weapons. They need to stay exactly where they are.”

IRIBWorldService: Wikileaks reveals: US-led NATO troops operate inside Syria
2012-03-07

A document released by the WikiLeaks website has revealed that undercover US-led NATO forces are operating inside Syria against the Syrian government. According to Press TV, WikiLeaks released a confidential email from an analyst working for the US …

The following email is from the Stratfor emails posted on wiki leaks:

Re: [alpha] INSIGHT – IRAN/US/SYRIA – Iran reaching out to US on post-Assad set-up? – ME1 and ME1386
Email-ID 102355
Date 2011-12-13 17:09:09
From [email protected]
To [email protected]
List-Name [email protected]

What does the source think about the possibility of a palace coup that isn’t accepted by the SNC, FSA, people in the street or some combination thereof? Also does source know what the Iranians think about such ascenario (assuming they have considered it)

———————————————————————-

From: “Reva Bhalla”
To: “Alpha List”
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 6:07:16 PM
Subject: Re: [alpha] INSIGHT – IRAN/US/SYRIA – Iran reaching out to US on
post-Assad set-up? – ME1 and ME1386
my bad, that should read HZ politburo

———————————————————————-

From: “Michael Wilson”
To: “Alpha List”
Sent: Tuesday, December 13, 2011 10:00:59 AM
Subject: Re: [alpha] INSIGHT – IRAN/US/SYRIA – Iran reaching out to US on
post-Assad set-up? – ME1 and ME1386

You say HZ source but notes say member of Hamas politburo

On 12/13/11 9:29 AM, Marc Lanthemann wrote:

Reva’s note – this is extremely interesting, especially the bolded part below. DOes Iran really think it can convince the US to collaborate with them on regime change in SYria in such a way that will end up in Iran’s favor? the whole point of the US focusing in on Syria is to contain Iran in the first place. This sounds like the Iranians are getting to be in

an increasingly desperate position. Always be wary of source bias, but why would a HZ source want to spread info on the weakness of the Syrian regime and the lack of options for Iran? I do believe the part about Iran preferring a palace coup over the Turkish strategy of building up an opposition via FSA.

SOURCE: ME1 and ME1386
ATTRIBUTION: STRATFOR source
SOURCE DESCRIPTION: ME1 and member of Hamas politburo
PUBLICATION: Yes – worth a tactical analysis
SOURCE RELIABILITY: B-C
ITEM CREDIBILITY: B-C
SPECIAL HANDLING: Alpha
SOURCE HANDLER: Reva

Marhaba Reva,

I strongly believe that Asad’s regime will fall in 2012. The conventional wisdom that Asad will survive, because both Iran and Israel view him with favor, is a thing of the past. The situation in Syria has reached the point of no return. It is true than nine months of demonstrations have not brought down the regime but, by the same token, regime brutality and heavy handedness have not quelled the uprising. If anything, the level of hostilities and army defections is on the rise.

The breaking point will come when the military establishment realizes that Asad must go. There are signs that the military establishment is beginning to disintegrate. I talked to [ME1386] and he told me that Alawite officers and enlisted men are beginning to join the ranks of the FSA. This represents a major development. Alawite officers are divided since many of them are unhappy about the use of excessive force against Sunni protesters. Alawite officers are aware that Asad is trying to find an asylum for himself and his family should his regime become unslavageable. This is upsetting many Alawites who are coming to realize that Asad will abandon them. If so, they reason that it would be suicidal to continue to win the wrath of the Sunnis. Walid al-Muallim offered to resign but Asad turned down his request. This is a clear indicator that many of Asad’s men are realizing that they are putting a vain fight against the burgeoning uprising.

The Iranians are weighing in the situation in Syria very carefully. One must read beyond the public statements of the Iranians, especially ayatollah Khamenei. Both Khamenei and Ahmadinejad have concluded that Asad’s regime cannot be rescued. It is perfectly understood that the regime in Damascus will fall along lines similar to the  Libyan model.

There will have to be a coup in Damascus, be it a military or political one.

One must not dismiss the pragmatism of Khamenei. Iran appears to be willing to use its influence in Syria to stage a coup, provided that it is able to ensure that the new leadership will continue to pursue excellent relations with Tehran. The Iranians have approached the Americans on this. In the past, Iran collaborated with the U.S. on the ouster of Saddam Hussein and Iran won big in Iraq. The Iranians would not mind working again on ousting Asad if they can secure good results in Syria. Syria’s contiguity to Iraq allows Iran to play a direct role in the affairs of Damascus.

The Iranians feel they need to act on Syria soon because the Turks have their own plans for Syria and are not coordinating with the Iranians. He says the Turks are moving slowly but systematically. Iran does not want to allow Turkey to take over Syria. Whereas the Turks are coordinating with the Brotherhood and the FSA, the Iranians prefer a palace coup in damascus in order to maintain their ties with Asad’s successors. What is delaying action in Syria is the fact that the U.S. has not yet decided on the shape of the post-Asad political system. Nevertheless, he insists that Asad’s regime will fall, although the future of Syria after the regime change remains nebulous.

—
Michael Wilson, Director of Watch Officer Group
STRATFOR, 221 W. 6th Street, Suite 400, Austin, TX 78701,T: +1 512 744 4300 ex 4112, www.STRATFOR.com
—

Nick Grinstead, Regional Monitor, STRATFOR, Beirut, Lebanon, +96171969463

See more of these emails, here (Thanks Mina)
“The Turkish plan is centered on civil war in Syria”
http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/60428_-alpha-insight-turkey-syria-az-us-vz-russia-taiwan-erdogan-s.html
SOURCE: TR325 and his business partner
ATTRIBUTION: STRATFOR source
SOURCE DESCRIPTION: Former NSC official in Turkey, adviser to Erdogan, energy expert negotiator
2011-12-10 20:04:53

On Syria – the conversation centered on how far Turkey is actually going to go. TR325 explained that the Turkish plan is centered on civil war in Syria. Officially, it’s Turkey providing the main training,a rms and support to FSA. Unofficially, US and TUrkey are doing this together in deploying SOF for this mission. Notice all the talk in the press now about civil war breaking out in Syria. This is the narrative Turkey and US want to build. I pointed out that creating the conditions for civil war – actual neighborhood to neighborhood fighting – is still pretty difficult considering that the Alawite forces are still holding together, but he seemed to think that this can escalate within 2 months time. He also said without saying that they’re working on making that happen. He acknowledges it’ll be messy and it will take a lot of blood and time for a Sunni power to emerge in syria, but that this is the Turkish obligation.

The Turkish plan to preempt the instability that would result from civil war conditions is to implement the buffer zone 5-40km into Syrian territory and set up refugee camps. I asked what levers Iran and Syria have to get Turkey to back off in relation to PKK. He said (half-jokingly) that Karilan is Turkey’s man (ie. turkey can actually negotiate with him.) But he said PKK third-in-command (still need to get this guy’s name) answers to Syria and Iran. Turkey knows this very well and he says Syria and Iran are already making moves to threaten attacks via this faction.

I’m left with a lot of questions —

Given the instability that is likely to result within AKP over Erdogan’s health, would Turkey really be making bold foreign policy moves, such as helping to create a civil war in Syria? Turkey appears very confident that Syria/Iran have the means to play the PKK card. Why risk that?

Turkey knows they’ll be dealing with a massive refugee crisis in Syria – why propel that situation?….

http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/185945_re-alpha-s3-g3-israel-iran-barak-hails-munitions-blast-in.html

From: “Emre Dogru”
To: “Alpha List”
Sent: Tuesday, November 22, 2011 4:35:07 PM
Subject: Re: [alpha] INSIGHT – TURKEY/SYRIA -Turkey mobilizing forces for Syria? – ME1461

Here is what I talked with Faruk:

He says he just got back from an official meeting in Ankara. He didn’t hear of such a deployment. He says Turkey has no plan to intervene in Syria in a specific time-frame or before a deadline. But Turkey has a very-well developed contingency plan that may be implemented should the need arise according to the events that take place in Syria. The plan was elaborated back in March 2011, and revised in June 2011. Turkey’s allies, including the US, are aware of this plan. The plan includes creating a buffer-zone in northern Syria (I sent specifics of this plan in another insight before – pasted below) only if the unrest or civil war in Syria 1) Creates a massive refugee crisis 2) Threatens the border security 3) Provides PKK with an opportunity to attack on Turkey more easily. But Turkey does not have any intention to take an action on Syria unless these conditions occur. Turkey will not act without US/NATO involvement anyway….
http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/204627_re-insight-military-intervention-in-syria-post-withdrawal.html

Syria’s Armed Opposition an Irritation Not a Threat to Assad, Says IISS
By Francis Harris – Mar 7, 2012

Syria’s armed opposition is an irritation rather than a threat to the survival of President Bashar al-Assad’s government, according to the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

The lightly armed rebels of the Free Syrian Army cannot control the country’s largest centers of population, and assisting them from abroad would be very difficult, according to the 54 year-old London-based research institute.

The rebels are “no direct threat to the regime,” Toby Dodge, IISS senior fellow for the Middle East, said at a press conference in London today. Meanwhile “there clearly is not the momentum needed” to break the deadlock over international action at the United Nations Security Council, he said. Fighting inside the country continues as a form of “bloody attrition.” ….

Guardian (GB): Can the Syrian regime crush the uprising? Yes, suggests history
2012-03-05

There is an assumption that Bashar al-Assad’s military solution to the current crisis in Syria is hopeless – that no matter how many centres of resistance like Baba Amr he brutally crushes, the opposition won’t be quelled and the fall of his …

Zbigniew Brzezinski on Syria: The US must allow Turkey and Saudi to decide what the right policy is and support them.

Smuggling Weapons Into Syria: On The Job With Iraq’s Gun Runners – Niqash
Guns are being smuggled across the Iraqi-Syrian border to arm Syrian rebels. To find out how and why the Iraqi smugglers are doing it, NIQASH went to Rabia and joined a group of gun runners on their trading route. By Special Correspodent / Mosul

….He tells me that he first smuggled guns into Syria in April last year. Then there were only 20 guns. But since then things have changed. “Since then,” Hamid says, “a huge amount of weapons has gone across the border. That first time we smuggled the guns and we didn’t tell anyone what we were doing. But when the revolution got bigger and changed [it has become more violent], almost everyone in our village – and the villages nearby – have become involved.”

I ask Hamid if I can accompany him on a smuggling trip and he agrees, as long as I don’t tell anybody who I am. Two days later, at sun rise, we begin our journey. We drive a dusty Toyota pickup through arid agricultural land for ten minutes until we sight a blue saloon car. The driver of this car motions to us, to park beside him. Some tools are taken out of the vehicle and the two men begin to act as if they are fixing the blue car, stretching out on the ground and fiddling with various pieces of equipment.

While they are doing this they ask me, to my chagrin, to keep watch. This was hardly dangerous; it was easy to do as all the land around us was completely flat. However I definitely felt conflicted, as all of a sudden, I had become complicit in the weapons smuggling business.

By now, the men are removing weapons, wrapped in plastic, from the blue vehicle. By the time they are done, Hamid had hidden 40 Kalashnikovs and 50 containers of ammunition in his own vehicle. He asks me to help cover the guns with a tarpaulin and together we fasten ropes around them.

We then began to drive back to the village. “So where do all these guns come from?,” I ask Hamid. “And how do they get them through all those military checkpoints?” Because often, security personnel at the checkpoints will not just check IDs, they’ll also search the vehicles.

“They come from Baghdad and from Erbil,” Hamid replied. But he said he didn’t really know much more than that. The driver of the other car was Kurdish – when I tried to ask him the same question, he didn’t answer. Back in the village the rest of the day was relatively peaceful. However at sunset, things started getting busy again, as the smugglers headed toward the border crossing points by the dirt barrier and barbed wire. Mobile phones are used to fix times for crossing the barrier and Hamid and I, along with six other men carrying burlap bags filled with guns and ammunition, head for the same area.

When we can’t drive any further, we park next to the border zone. It’s a chaotic scene as large groups of people, carrying cartons of cigarettes and bigger bags, rush around. There are also gunmen who fire their weapons into the air. “That’s to warn the border guards not to interfere,” another smuggler told me.

After less than half an hour, we see the first of the smugglers returning from the border. He is herding cattle! As he came closer, Hamid was exuberant: “Tonight we’re winning,” he exclaims.

Then together with the group of young men, we run across the dirt barrier in the dark. The bags are handed over to Syrians on the other side and they leave as quickly as we came. Not far from us, another delivery is being made. I believe there were many others but because it was so dark, I couldn’t really see what was going on.

Later, I asked Hamid what he had meant when he had spoken about “winning”. “Tonight we felt really safe,” he said. “Because there were so many of us, and because people were firing warning shots, the border guards didn’t dare interfere. A few days ago the soldiers tried to stop us and one of them was shot and injured. After that, they’ve been avoiding us.”

Interestingly, like many weapons dealers around the world, Hamid and his fellow smugglers were not particularly well informed about what was going on in Syria. While discussing this with them, it was hard to tell where their sympathies lay – or if they even had any sympathies for either the Syrian revolutionaries or the current Syrian regime.

However when it came to weapons and money, they could tell me anything I wanted to know. “When the conflict in Syria changed, the prices increased,” one of the other smugglers, Saeed, told me. “A year ago we were selling a machine gun for US$450. Today they pay us US$800. We also smuggle medium sized weapons from here. The price of an RPG-7 [rocket propelled grenade launcher] is US$1,100. We also sell hand grenades, sniper guns, silencers and ammunition and prices vary.”

Saeed estimates that during the past year, his group of smugglers has traded around 1,500 Kalashnikovs, 1,000 boxes of ammunition and hundreds of other weapons.

???? ??? ??????? ????? ???? ??????? ??????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ???? ?????? 2012 3 5 This is an group of Alawi soldiers declaring that they have defected and joined the opposition against Bashar al Assad. They are from the Jabal al-Zawiya reagion 40km (25 miles) south-west of the provincial capital Idlib. There was a reported massacre there in January.

Syria Censorship at AOL-Huffington Post?
By Sharmine Narwani – Tue, 2012-03-06

Let me be clear that this blogpost is not about sour grapes.

But the media cacophony on Syria has just become too shrill – reporters, too reluctant to raise obvious questions – to just sit back and let this one slide.

Especially when it is taking place under my nose at the place I have blogged for two and a half years. There’s no other way to look at this: by refusing to publish all but one of my seven Syria articles, AOL-Huffington Post is censoring a viewpoint that challenges the dominant narratives on Syria in the mainstream media.

Op-Ed: The Obama Domino Doctrine: Pro-Iran/Anti-Saudi
Mark Langfan: Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Obama has his own Domino Doctrine for the Muslim world. As a consequence of this doctrine, Obama’s Iranian Nuclear policy can be summed up as “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” and Saudi Arabia is in even more danger than Israel.

ARM THE FREE SYRIAN ARMY NOW
By David Schenker
Weekly Standard
March 8, 2012

…Rather than leading from behind and delegating the task of equipping of the FSA to less-discriminating states, like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the Obama administration should take a lead role in supplying the FSA and mitigate potential leakage of weapons to nihilistic Islamists. At the same time, by providing materiel to these forces in a systematic manner, Washington can help transform these disparate franchise opposition units into a more disciplined and united force tied to a centralized command. Moreover, working closely with the FSA now will establish relationships that can help avoid a Libya scenario — where independent militias continue to run amok — and potentially enable Washington to better shape the post-Assad environment….

This is not going to be a quick fix, but the longer the status quo persists, the higher the risk that Syria will degenerate to a failed state ripe for al Qaeda inroads and sectarian conflict….

The exchange rate of the Syrian Pound has reportedly plunged to the 103 range against the dollar at mid-day Wednesday, March 7th, 2012 in Damascus. This is a loss of over 50% since the beginning of the uprising. Over the last month, the pound has begun to weaken significantly which has received little attention. The 100 mark is an important psychological barrier.

Syrian businessmen are taking large losses. Most rely on account receivables when they sell their goods. This means that traders who have sold goods over the last half year in Syrian pounds are taking heavy losses when they are paid back.

One businessman I spoke to this morning reports that he sold three-hundred thousand dollars of car parts several months ago in Syrian pounds. He is to be paid at the end of this month. Due to the decline of the pound over this time period from 57 to 100 pounds per dollar, he will lose close to $150,000 dollars. This is a crushing blow to business.

No one is trading the Syrian pound today because its price is decreasing every hour. No one has any idea where this might end.

The Central Bank had continually threatened that it would punish black market speculators by intervening in support of the Syrian currency, but it has not actually done this over the last few months. People have come to understand that Central Bank threats are empty. Hence the currency is collapsing. The Central Bank has not committed its reserves to defend the pound.

Most of the savings of Syrians were in Syrian pounds because the Central Bank offered high interest rates compared to the more liquid currencies which were offering rates near zero. Syrians placed confidence in the pound because it had been stable for many years. The public has been hit hard by the decline of the pound. Most Syrians are losing their life savings. Many have neglected to move out of Syrian pounds because it is against the law and because they calculated that the political climate might improve.

People are talking about an impending resignation of the head of the Central Bank, Adib Mayaleh. There has been no official confirmation of this. One cannot be sure whether changing the head of the central bank would improve the situation, unless the Syrian leadership decides to support the pound with the country’s remaining reserves. [by Joshua Landis]

News Round Up follows

The UAE has stopped issuing visas to Syrians.

China begins evacuating its workers from Syria

Demonstration in Abassiyiin, a  Damascus downtown neighborhood adjoining the Christian district. The demo was hels in front of the “Lady of Damascus” church. A new policy is to hold demonstrations near churches to impress on Syria’s Christians that they will be losers if they continue to support the regime.

INSIGHT – military intervention in Syria, post withdrawal status of forces
On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor.
Email-ID 1671459
Date 2011-12-07 00:49:18
From [email protected]
To [email protected]

A few points I wanted to highlight from meetings today —

I spent most of the afternoon at the Pentagon with the USAF strategic studies group – guys who spend their time trying to understand and explain to the USAF chief the big picture in areas where they’re operating in. It was just myself and four other guys at the Lieutenant Colonel level, including one French and one British representative who are liaising with the US currently out of DC.

They wanted to grill me on the strategic picture on Syria, so after that I got to grill them on the military picture. There is still a very low level of understanding of what is actually at stake in Syria, what’s the strategic interest there, the Turkish role, the Iranian role, etc. After a couple hours of talking, they said without saying that SOF teams (presumably from US, UK, France, Jordan, Turkey) are already on the ground focused on recce missions and training opposition forces. One Air Force intel guy (US) said very carefully that there isn’t much of a Free Syrian Army to train right now anyway, but all the operations being done now are being done out of ‘prudence.’ The way it was put to me was, ‘look at this way – the level of information known on Syrian OrBat this month is the best it’s been since 2001.’ They have been told to prepare contingencies and be ready to act within 2-3 months, but they still stress that this is all being done as contingency planning, not as a move toward escalation.

I kept pressing on the question of what these SOF teams would be working toward, and whether this would lead to an eventual air campaign to give a Syrian rebel group cover. They pretty quickly distanced themselves from that idea, saying that the idea ‘hypothetically’ is to commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of the Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within. There wouldn’t be a need for air cover, and they wouldn’t expect these Syrian rebels to be marching in columns anyway.

They emphasized how the air campaign in Syria makes Libya look like a piece of cake. Syrian air defenses are a lot more robust and are much denser, esp around Damascus and on the borders with Israel, Turkey. They are most worried about mobile air defenses, particularly the SA-17s that they’ve been getting recently. It’s still a doable mission, it’s just not an easy one.

The main base they would use is Cyprus, hands down. Brits and French would fly out of there. They kept stressing how much is stored at Cyprus and how much recce comes out of there. The group was split on whether Turkey would be involved, but said Turkey would be pretty critical to the mission to base stuff out of there. Even if Turkey had a political problem with Cyprus, they said there is no way the Brits and the French wouldn’t use Cyprus as their main air force base. Air Force Intel guy seems pretty convinced that the Turks won’t participate (he seemed pretty pissed at them.) There still seems to be a lot of confusion over what a military intervention involving an air campaign would be designed to achieve. It isn’t clear cut for them geographically like in Libya, and you can’t just create an NFZ over Homs, Hama region. This would entail a countrywide SEAD campaign lasting the duration of the war. They font believe air intervention would happen unless there was enough media attention on a massacre, like the Ghadafi move against Benghazi. They think the US would have a high tolerance for killings as long as it doesn’t reach that very public stage. They’re also questioning the skills of the Syrian forces that are operating the country’s air defenses currently and how significant the Iranian presence is there. Air Force Intel guy is most obsessed with the challenge of taking out Syria’s ballistic missile capabilities and chem weapons. With Israel right there and the regime facing an existential crisis, he sees that as a major complication to any military intervention.

The post 2011 SOFA with Iraq is still being negotiated. These guys were hoping that during Biden’s visit that he would announce a deal with Maliki, but no such luck. They are gambling on the idea that the Iraqis remember the iran-iraq war and that maliki is not going to want to face the threat of Iranian jets entering Iraqi air space. They say that most US fighter jets are already out of Iraq and transferred to Kuwait. They explained that’s the beauty of the air force, the base in Kuwait is just a hop, skip and jump away from their bases in Europe, ie. very easy to rapidly build up when they need to. They don’t seem concerned about the US ability to restructure its forces to send a message to Iran. They gave the example of the USS Enterprise that was supposed to be out of commission already and got extended another couple years to send to the gulf. When the US withdraws, we’ll have at least 2 carriers in the gulf out of centcom and one carrier in the Med out of EuCom. I asked if the build-up in Kuwait and the carrier deployments are going to be enough to send a message to Iran that the US isn’t going anywhere. They responded that Iran will get the message if they read the Centcom Web Site. STarting Jan. 1 expect them to be publishing all over the place where the US is building up.

Another concern they have about an operation in Syria is whether Iran could impede operations out of Balad air force base in Iraq.

The French representative was of the opinion that Syria won’t be a libya-type situation in that France would be gung-ho about going in. Not in an election year. The UK rep also emphasized UK reluctance but said that the renegotiation of the EU treaty undermines the UK role and that UK would be looking for ways to reassert itself on the continent ( i don’t really think a Syria campaign is the way to do that.) UK guy mentioned as an aside that the air force base commander at Cyprus got switched out from a maintenance guy to a guy that flew Raptors, ie someone that understands what it means to start dropping bombs. He joked that it was probably a coincidence.

Fearful of a nuclear Iran? The real WMD nightmare is Syria:
Charles P. Blair of the Federation of American Scientists has a rather frightening article about what he feels is the real WMD threat: Syria.
By Charles P. Blair | 1 March 2012
Article Highlights

• Syria has one of the largest and most sophisticated chemical weapons programs in the world and may also possess offensive biological weapons.
• Longstanding terrorist groups and newly arrived Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters from Iraq have been active in Syria during that country’s recent insurgency.
• The United States and regional powers — including Saudi Arabia and Iran — need to start planning now to keep Syria’s WMD out of terrorist hands if the Assad regime falls.

As possible military action against Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program looms large in the public arena, far more international concern should be directed toward Syria and its weapons of mass destruction. When the Syrian uprising began more than a year ago, few predicted the regime of President Bashar al-Assad would ever teeter toward collapse. Now, though, the demise of Damascus’s current leadership appears inevitable, and Syria’s revolution will likely be an unpredictable, protracted, and grim affair…..

Syria ‘Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better,’ U.S. General Says
By Tony Capaccio, 2012-03-06

March 6 (Bloomberg) — The conflict in Syria “will get worse before it gets better,” General James Mattis, head of the U.S. Central Command, said today. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad will be in power “for some time,” Mattis said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The Marine Corps general also said Iran has a “full-throated” effort to back Assad….

Will there be a Kremlin U-turn on Syria?
Mar 06, 2012
By Sami Moubayed

Whenever the world seemed to start caving in around them, Syrian politicians have leaned on the Russians for support. Moscow, both now and during the Soviet era, has always been Syria’s “security blanket”. Syrian leaders, however, have almost equally misjudged how far Russia was willing to go to help them.

In 1956, then-president Shukri al-Quwatli visited Moscow seeking Russian support for Egypt in the infamous Suez War. He roared at the Kremlin: “Syria wants you to send in that big Red Army that defeated [Adolf] Hitler!”

A few years earlier, president Husni al-Za’im threatened at a press conference: “If the Americans continue to provoke me, I will extend my hand to the Russians. Yes, I will do that. I will go to Moscow and let a Third World War erupt from right over here, from Damascus!”

Today, 63 years later, there are many in Damascus who, like Husni al-Za’im, wrongly believe that Moscow would indeed ignite a “Third World War” for the sake of Syria.

Exclusive Channel 4 News footage shows medical staff torturing patients in their beds at the military hospital in Homs. Tuesday, March 06, 2012

Is the Wind Turning in Favor of Assad?
March 6, 2012 by Jacques Neriah, Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, a special analyst for the Middle East at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, was formerly Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Deputy Head for Assessment of Israeli Military Intelligence.

The Baba Amro district of Homs may now become the turning point in the year-long bloody battle between opposition forces and Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.