New Syrian TV channel – for the opposition called “Syria of the People”,????? ?????

Al-Haqiqa (An frequently unreliable source) and pro-Syrian government sources claim the new station which airs from London is funded entirely by Saudi Arabia and the Association of Muslim Scholars, is connected to Amir Bandar bin Sultan and is close to the Muslim Brotherhood. Its main spiritual inspiration is Said al-Hawwa, who was the general supervisor of the Muslim Brotherhood from 1979 to 1982 and “spiritual father” of the Fighting Vanguard that led the uprising in Hama. They state that all the guests to appear on the channel so far are “Takfiri,” meaning that they espouse Said Qutb’s radical philosophy of declaring fellow Muslims apostates.

Anyone wanting to know more about Said Hawwa should read these two articles about him:

• Itzchak Weismann, “Sa‘id Hawwa: The Making of a Radical Muslim Thinker in Modern Syria,” Middle Eastern Studies 29 (1993), 607-611.
• Itzchak Weismann, “Sa‘id Hawwa and Islamic Revivalism in Ba‘thist Syria,” Studia Islamica 85 (1997), 131-154.

???? ????? ??? A.N.N

???? ????? ????? ?? ????? “??????? ????????” ??????? ?? ???? ?? ?????? ??????? ????????? ???????? ? ???? ???? ???? ???????? ?? ???? ??? ?????? ?????? ??? ??? “????? ?????” ? ????? ??????? ?? ???????? ? ” ????? ??????? ???????? ” ???? ???? ?? ???????? ???? ??? ? ????? ???? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ???? ?? ????? . ???? ???? ?? ??????? ?????? ??? ???? ????? ??????? ???? ??? ?? ???????? ??????? ?????? ” ????? ????? ??????” ? ????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ???? ????? ???????? ?? ?????? ???????? ????????? ??? ????? ???????? ?????? ? ??????? ?? ?????? ???????.

?????? ???? ???? ???? “????? ???????? ???????? ???????? ????????? ????? ?? ??????? ???????? ????????? ??????? ??????????? ????? ????? ?????????? ?????? ????? ?????? ??? ??????? ?? ?????? ???? ?????? ???????????? ?????? ???????? ????? ??? ???? ?????? ????????? ???????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ???????? ?????? ?????? ??????? ?????? ?????? ??????”!

??? ? ????? ?? ?? ??? ?????? ?????? ?? ???? ?? ???????? ???? ????? ? ???? ?????? ?? ????? ??????? ???????? ?????? ??? ????? ???? ?????? ? ??? ” ??? ?????? ??????” ?? ????? ??? ?????? ??? ! ???? ?? ?????? ?? ???? ?????? ????? ????????? ??? ???? ?????? ?????? ?? ?? ????????? ?????????? ? ?? ???? ????? ???? ??? ???? ????? ?????? ??? ???? ??????? ???? ???? ????? ???? ???? ????? ???? ??? ???? ??? ?????? ???? ??????? ???????? ???? ?????? 1979 ? 1982 ? ???? ????? 1985 ??? 1987 ? ????? ?????? ???????? ?????? ?????????? ???????? ???? ?????? “??????? ????????!
? ????????” ?? ????? ???? ???? ??????? ???????? ?? ??????. ??? ??????? ?? ???? ?? ?? ?? ??? ?????? ?????????? ?? ???? ????? 1973 ???????? ??”??????? ????? ????????”…..

In Scarred Syria City, a Vision of a Life Free From Dictators
By ANTHONY SHADID in New York times

In the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, Hama represents the competing visions of the protesters and the government: liberation or chaos…..
“Syria is colonized by its own sons,” one resident quipped.

Hama is bracing for an attack by a government that may regret its decision to withdraw on the first week of June, after an especially bloody Friday. But the authorities seem at a loss over how to retake control of the rebellious city that is Syria’s most religiously conservative. Railing from fences was torn down and stones from sidewalks unearthed to build scores of barricades, which block entrances to most neighborhoods. Refuse has accumulated along streets where every trash bin seems part of a barrier. ….

“Hama is the cemetery of the nation,” say graffiti here. …

The protesters, though, hold little sway with the government, which has negotiated with the city to a surprising degree. These days, Hama is represented by Mustafa Abdel-Rahman, the 60-year-old cleric in charge of the Serjawi Mosque. Residents say he consults with worshipers at his mosque, along with doctors, lawyers and engineers in the neighborhoods, over ways to defuse tension. Under the latest deal, the government agreed to release prisoners if protesters dismantled checkpoints on the main roads. The protesters did, though in the end, only a fraction of the more than 1,200 detainees were freed.

“They will keep taking people, definitely,” said Tarek, a 22-year-old protester. “We can’t trust them. We just can’t trust them anymore.”

A Revolt’s Microcosm

Over these six weeks, Hama has, in a way, emerged as a microcosm of the revolt — what the protesters see as competing visions of liberation and what the government labels chaos. As in other places, the government has spoken of armed gangs and Islamists roaming the city’s streets, though over two days, not a single weapon was seen, save a slingshot. Islamists populate and perhaps dominate the ranks of protesters, and by some estimates, a fourth of the city has fled, fearing a showdown more than the brand of rule the Islamists might impose.

The government has spoken of losing control, though the city still functions. Shops have reopened, people walk the streets, and the municipal administration — from courts to trash collection — began working again Saturday after a two-week strike. Gardeners watered city squares, and cars obeyed traffic signals along streets where not a single government building was damaged beyond a few broken windows. Although the security forces have disappeared — all 16 branches of them, by some residents’ count — the traffic police still come to work.

“You don’t feel secure unless the security forces are gone,” Abu Muhammad said.

But episodes of lawlessness and vengeance have punctuated the city’s experiment. An informer was hanged from an electricity pylon last month; the bodies of three or four others were thrown into the Orontes River, residents say. A week ago, three Korean-made cars were stolen from a dealership, residents said, and some businessmen have complained about the checkpoints and a two-week strike that shut down Hama. Many frowned upon the dismantling of street lights and other infrastructure to build the barriers.

“There was no destruction with the protests, why does there have to be with the checkpoints?” asked a 40-year-old trader who gave his name as Ahmed. “Without a doubt, people are angry. I am myself. There are thugs out there, without question.”

At least anecdotally, his seemed to be a minority opinion.

Festive Protesters

The scenes on Saturday night were less chaotic than festive, as crowds lined the streets to watch a spontaneous protest celebrating the freedom of the few prisoners released. The demonstrators headed to the governor’s building, which was adorned in a slogan that still said “Assad’s Syria.” Youths jumped in their cars, speeding through pulsating streets, trading rumors and news over cellphones that rang incessantly. They joked with one another at checkpoints.

“Next time I see you, we’ll be playing cards together in jail,” one said.

Around midnight, a protester named Obada joined his friends in what seemed to be a cross between a dorm room and a safe house. The coals for water pipes smoldered in the corner, near computers, headphones, a big-screen television, a scanner, sound-mixing equipment and stacks of compact discs documenting protests, arrests and clashes with the security forces.

Each took a turn to celebrate what their uprising meant. “There’s no fear,” said Mustafa, 27.

“You can walk in the streets with security,” added his friend, Mahmoud.

“We’ve come closer together,” volunteered Fadi, typing on his computer. Another friend, Bassem, shook his head. “We’re not free yet,” he said.

Plotting a post-Assad road map for Syria
By David Ignatius, July 20, 2011, Washington Post

……A second White House official summarizes the new approach this way: “The Assad ship is sinking. The most important thing is to get people to realize this, so that, hopefully, they will jump off the ship and get on the lifeboat.” For the United States, this means working with Syrian dissidents, and also with Turkey and other regional powers that can help broker change.

The administration wants to encourage the Syrian opposition inside the country to unite, develop a clear agenda and build an inclusive leadership. Leading that effort is Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador in Damascus; an administration official describes him as a “vehicle for transition.” In meetings with dissidents, Ford is said to have stressed that the opposition must reach out to minorities, such as Christians, Druze and Alawites, who fear that a post-Assad regime will be dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

With U.S. encouragement, the opposition hopes to hold a meeting inside Syria over the next several weeks to frame a unified agenda. It tried to hold such an internal gathering last week, in coordination with an exile meeting in Istanbul of the so-called National Salvation Council, but Syrian authorities blocked it.

A road map for the opposition was sketched in an interview by Radwan Ziadeh, a visiting scholar at George Washington University who closely follows the dissident groups. He said he has contacted people who might attend the planned meeting inside Syria, including prominent human-rights activists Riad al-Seif and Walid al-Bunni, as well as Druze, Christian and Alawite figures he named. The aim, said Ziadeh, is “solid leadership that can emerge inside the country” and draft a new “Damascus Declaration” as a platform for transition…..

The Syrian equation is shaped by two “X-factors.” The first is whether the army will split, with influential officers moving away from the regime. …..

The second wild card is sectarian violence between dissident Sunnis and the ruling Alawite minority. ….

Obama’s judgment is that “Assad is a guy who has taken all the wrong steps in response to protest,” says a White House official. The thinking in Washington now is about getting to the post-Assad era, quickly and peacefully.

Turkish FM chides US over its Israel approach Hurriyet

….Assad late to reform

The foreign minister also responded to a question on ongoing revolts in neighboring Syria, whose leadership has so far failed to heed the demands of the people and launch a substantial reform campaign. More than 1,000 civilians have been killed by security forces in recent weeks, resulting in international anger toward Damascus.

“If some of these reforms had been done three months ago, so many lives would not have been lost. If some of the things being done now, such as removing the state of emergency and giving Kurds their identity, had been done in January, there would not have been this much tension,” Davuto?lu said.

Although Turkey sought to be a guide for its neighbor in terms of the reforms, Davuto?lu said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was continuing to seek more time for reforms.

“The prime minister spoke to Bashar al-Assad. We are saying that the situation cannot continue,” Davuto?lu said.

Suggesting that leaders who resist change or only reform slowly risk losing their ability to persuade as they create tension, Davuto?lu said, “[We are] still expecting the Syrian leadership to lead toward a peaceful transition period.”

“But if they say that they will continue the status quo through oppression if necessary, then serious tensions will be unavoidable. Other factors will come into play. We suggest peaceful changes for both the administration and the opposition,” he said….

US-Syrian expats raise concerns during meeting with Assad
21 July 2011, Thursday / CEL?L SA?IR , ?STANBUL – Zaman

Amidst escalating tensions in his country, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met with two groups of prominent Syrian expats from the United States over the past two weeks.

“I was one of some 30 Syrian-Americans invited to go to Syria to meet with President Assad and share with him our thoughts and concerns,” one of the participants, who asked not to be named, told Today’s Zaman….

According to him, “only 10 percent of Syrians, who are beneficiaries of corruption, do not want reform, but the 90 percent majority, who are pro-reform, have managed to sharply split into different groups. One group wants to see reforms happen gradually under President Assad’s leadership, while another first wants him to step down and wants reforms second; those who see continued demonstrations and protests as a must, even with the tension and dire economic consequences they are leading to, and those who see that enough has been achieved already and believe an interruption of protest for a couple of months is what is needed to grant the government the chance to deal with the proposed reforms.”….

In Deir as-Zor, one person was killed on Thursday for refusing to close his shop for a general strike, according to Syria News.

In Hama, armed men also enforced a general strike, according to government sponsored Facebook Sites.

In Homs, all government departments in the city have been closed down and the city has observed a general strike for four days.

New Political Life demands New Parties in Syria

DAMASCUS- In a dialogue symposium under the title “Reform Process…Political, Religious and Legal Vision” at Damascus University, Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Moallem on Wednesday said the new political life in Syria demands new parties to be formed with a political, economic and social program so that each citizen can join whatever party he chooses.

Foreign and Expatriates Minister al-Moallem referred to the currently prepared new information law which will provide press space for to-be-formed parties.

He also pointed out to the new elections law taking, into consideration that the new parties will compete in the elections for the coming parliamentary term. ….

Syrian stock market composite index down 43 percent

Andrew Tabler at WINEP: “Fortunately, cash-strapped Iran does not have the resources to indefinitely bail out Assad if the United States organizes a Western effort to hit Syria in its Achilles’ heel — namely, its energy revenues.

Shenkar at WINEP:

….no matter how much most Americans might detest a government that has helped kill American troops in Iraq, while supporting attacks against U.S. allies in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories….. it is tempting to expel Moustapha, but for the time being patience may be the best counsel. As for the U.S. envoy in Syria, so long as Ford continues to be effective on the ground, he should stay in Damascus. If, as promised, the Assad regime curtails his activities or movement, however, Washington should recall him. If and when this occurs, the administration should also take the opportunity to expel Moustapha.

Netanyahu said that Israel hopes to establish peace with Syria and that he believes that the young people of Syria deserve a better future.

Britain’s foreign minister William Hague said today that “more pressure is needed to stop the government’s crackdown on pro-democracy activists”, and “the situation remains very serious and if anything is deteriorating. Certainly there will be a time for further sanctions and we need to be discussing now what those would be.”

“Cyprus to revoke citizenship for Assad’s cousin placed on EU blacklist”

The World’s Biggest Problem? Too Many People, By: Mary Ellen Harte and Anne Ehrlich | Los Angeles Times

Our unsustainable population levels are depleting resources and denying a decent future to our descendants. We must stop the denial.

A Call to President Assad to Launch Democratic Reform before Syria stumbles toward Sectarian Conflict Iraq-Style
by Inhabitant of Damascus (A retired diplomat, living in Damascus)
for Syria Comment July 20, 2011

There have been a number of developments in the last few weeks which have provided a little more clarity on the situation here in Syria. The first event was the conflict at Jisr al-Shagour in which many Syrian soldiers were killed. After this, the existance of Salafist (and perhaps other) insurrectionists in Syria, intent on destabilising the regime and stirring sectarian tensions/hatreds, cannot be denied. This important and dangerous element in the Syria mix was aptly described by Alistair Crooke in his ‘Unfolding the Syrian Paradox‘ article earlier this month. The killing of security forces continues. Three were buried yesterday, killed in Homs.

Prayers in Homs during a demonstration, April 18, 2011

The second development was the visit of the US and France ambassadors to Hama to ‘support’ the opposition. This visit underlined the point that outsiders have an agenda in destabilising the Assad regime. The US has been funding exiled opposition groups for years, and after 2003 have sought to undermine the regime through sanctions. The ambassadors’ action has simply deepened divisions in an already increasingly divided and angry nation.

The third development was the Istanbul conference of exiled opposition figures. Although some 350 turned up, there was little sense of cohesion, and those attending seemed out of touch with the situation on the ground. Most (there are exceptions) have little credibility inside Syria, and no influence on what is happening on the ground.

The fourth event was the two-day conference in Damascus involving a number of opposition figures, independents, Baath party members and regime representative. This was a positive undertaking. Unfortunately it seems likely that this was part of the tactic of ‘let’s talk and set up committees to talk about reform’ of the regime, perhaps to buy time while the streets are cleansed of protest. There are grave doubts about the sincerity of the regime while civilians are dying.

The fifth observation is that regime has stepped up the organisation of pro-government rallies. On Umayyad Square in Damascus on Monday hundreds of thousands of pro-regime people turned up to celebrate the president and the regime with singing and dancing and a huge fireworks display. This lengthy, televised and gross waste of public funds, at a time when Syrian civilians are dying in the streets, seemed bizarre and out of touch. Giant flags have been deployed to parade in pro-regime territory. As I write this I am watching Syria TV’s coverage of a very large rally in Sueida, between Damascus and Deraa, with a 2.3km flag draped through the city. This is very well organised with helicopters overhead filming the tens of thousands who turned out for the party. Sueida is mainly a Druze and Christian area. I saw very few veiled women attending, and to my relatively uninformed eye, the gathering seemed heavily dominated by these two minorities which fear a Sunni ascendancy in Syria.

The sixth and most worrying event has been the deterioration of the situation in Homs, and what has been reported as a sectarian conflict between Alawis and Sunnis, taking the lives of 30 or so people. The further killing of perhaps up to 16 civilians at the funerals of 10 people near the Khaled ibn Waleed mosque further adds to the tensions there. Who did the funeral killings? YouTube footage provides no evidence. Salafists? Alawi Shabiha? Regime security forces? Who knows?

So where does this leave Syria? We may now be observing the beginning of a slow gradual process of a complete breakdown in Syrian society – an internal disintegration. I doubt that the regime can retrieve the situation – they have lost control of the situation of the streets – the armed gangs, including Salafists, are showing a determined ability to embarrass regime forces at will. Ineptitude, poor discipline and fragmentation in the security forces has resulted in the growing number of civilian deaths. The regime cannot protect its citizens. Every week this situation goes on, Assad loses respect, particularly on the part of his Sunni support. And every week, the sectarian divisions deepen. The army is coming under severe pressure – how long can it sustain current regime policy?

The only way I believe that Bashar can retrieve the situation is to announce a clear process of governmental reform culminating in elections in say 8 months time. This should include a rewrite of the constitution. He should call in the UN to assist in the electoral process, and call on friends like Brazil, Turkey and South Africa to provide assistance (through the UN) in formulating a new constitution. Bashar needs to gain the confidence of the protest movement very quickly to stop the rot. Only by convincing protesters to stay off the streets for a time will the Salafist insurrectionist threat be exposed and dealt with. The protest movement is currently providing cover for the armed gangs to stir sectarian conflict Iraq-style. If the situation continues to drift – then I fear for the future of all Syrians. Kilometres-long flags and fireworks just won’t do the trick.

Burned car on the streets of Banyas in April. It reads, “Be careful… You are in Banyas, not Israel. Down with the regime. Shabbiha (The name for the irregular, loyalist troops, mostly Alawi, who have become the symbol of the regime for the protestors)

Syrians everywhere are praying that their country is the regional exception and will not slide down the road to sectarian bloodletting as anger grows.  Homs, the meeting place of Syria’s religious communities, is the flash point.

The Istanbul Opposition Conference selected a leadership different from the Antalya conference six weeks earlier. Lack of unity among the opposition threatens to lead the uprising astray even as it accuses the government of following the Sampson option.

16 killed in Homs on Tuesday – the site of Syria’s first overtly sectarian clashes on Sunday. Tuesday’s dead included three mourners at a funeral for 10 people who were killed by security forces on Monday, according to the Guardian. “Rami Abdulrahman, director of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Homs had seen intense battles since security forces stepped up a crackdown on Monday. Fighting erupted after three regime supporters who were kidnapped last week were killed and their dismembered bodies returned to their relatives.”

NPR – Deb Amos

This ad offers some of the public responses to the initial “I am with Syria” campaign. At the top, the ad says, “The goal of the initiative is to raise awareness and to accept different opinions.” The campaign encouraged public interaction and criticism.

The red image illustrated with blood says in Arabic: “Arrests or bullets: I do not believe it.” Another, in blue, says: “I am with the law, but where is it?” The text illustrated with camouflage reads: “My way is your way, but there’s a tank in the way.” The orange image with a group of hands says: “I am those millions: thugs, thieves, lackeys — call me whatever you want.”

“We thank all the brave Syrians who broke the silence and expressed their views,” the ad reads at the bottom………………..

“Actually I have friends in the same family that are polarized now, brothers,” Alani says.

“This polarization is like, ‘Yes, we are going to crash, but it’s your fault,’ ” Omran adds. “That doesn’t matter if it’s your fault or my fault; we are crashing all together, so let’s stop the crash first.”

The crash, as they see it, can come from the economy, or the sectarian divide. That was dangerously displayed in a bloody weekend in the city of Homs. There, an Alawite minority, backed by security forces, clashed with the Sunni majority protesting on Friday.

The crash can come also from a government that plays up those sectarian fears and after years in power seems unwilling to tolerate dissent, says Alani.

“It’s not for the public, by the way — the public is getting this. We are having more [problems], actually, with the regime,” Alani says. “They are the ones that we are trying also to include in the campaign. [They], as well, have to adopt this philosophy.”….

Sectarian violence in Syria raises fears

BEIRUT — A spate of sinister killings in the central city of Homs is fueling fears that the popular uprising in Syria could descend into a version of the sectarian strife that has long destabilized neighboring Iraq and Lebanon.

The violence erupted over the weekend at a time when attention was focused on the huge and overwhelmingly peaceful anti-government demonstrations staged in many other cities around the country, including the largest protests yet to take place in the capital, Damascus.

In Homs, the weekly protests also went ahead, but under a cloud of sectarian tensions between the majority Sunni residents of the town, who constitute the bulk of the protest movement in the majority Sunni country, and the minority Alawites, the Shiite sect to which President Bashar al-Assad and most members of his regime belong. Read full article (Liz Sly)

Medvedev: Syria must not go the same way as Libya – Associated Press

Homs return to calm Le Monde (in french)

Security forces intervene in Homs and have stopped the violence, declared The chief of the Syrian league for human rights, Abdel Karim Rihaoui. He estimated that the confrontations that has started Saturday between the inhabitants gave a “dangerous signal to the collapse” that threatens the Syrian society, is a solution is not found to the crisis ‘born from the protest movement that started four months ago.

Time – Rania Abouzeid, “As Assad Hangs Tough, Syria’s Opposition Seeks Unity — and a Viable Strategy”

The opposition — a disparate group of aging intellectuals, exiled Islamists and the youths driving the protests — is trying to create a united front to present a viable alternative to the Baathist regime; but its divisions are many and varied, not least of which is the split between longtime exiles and those now shedding their blood in Syria’s streets. Those differences were on display at a conference attended by some 350 Syrian dissidents last weekend in Istanbul.

The assembly had intended to elect 50 members from inside Syria and 25 exiles to serve on a National Salvation Council, but the Damascus gathering (which was to be held simultaneously) was called off after security forces targeted the venue ahead of the event. Instead, the Istanbul meeting elected the 25 exiles, but there was discord, according to Radwan Ziadeh, a visiting scholar at the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University, who attended the Istanbul gathering and declined appointment to a position on the board of exiles. A group of Kurdish delegates walked out, he said, angered by the use of the term Syrian Arab Republic, which they felt failed to acknowledge the country’s long-marginalized ethnic Kurdish population. Tribal representatives also left the meeting. (See how Syria’s government plans to conquer the opposition.)

Even if the opposition does get its act together, its plans to unseat the regime are unclear. Right now it appears to be relying on street protests and waiting for the sputtering economy to collapse, a danger of which even Assad has warned. “The opposition is counting on the economy causing elite members to defect and the country to fall out of government control progressively,” says Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma. “So long as the military and state elites stick together to fight the opposition, it will be very difficult to bring down the regime.”

Andrew Tabler at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy says waiting for the economy to bring down Assad will be too slow to guarantee success. Instead, he advocates economic siege tactics by the U.S. and its allies, like targeting Syrian oil and natural-gas exports, which account for about a third of state revenue. Damascus needs the vital foreign-exchange earnings to help fund its security forces, “maintain market subsidies and deliver payoffs to patronage networks,” Tabler told a U.S. House of Representatives committee last week. Choking energy exports would also force the regime “to borrow more from the Damascene and Aleppine business elite that support it, which in turn could lead to elite defections as the cost and risk of doing business with the Assad regime dramatically increases,” he said. (Iran has reportedly offered Damascus $5.8 billion in aid to help bolster its economy, according to French reports last week.)

Excerpted from the Final Statement of the Consultative Conference on National Dialogue: (Thanks Will)

The Consultative Meeting paved the way for the convening of the National Dialogue Conference, stressing on keeping the contact with all parties, social figures, and political Syrian powers within and outside the country, to prepare jointly for the National Dialogue Conference, which will be held immediately after completing these contacts and with the utmost speed, emphasizing that this Consultative Meeting cannot replace the Comprehensive National Dialogue Conference, and considering all what was presented or proposed orally or in writing, to be documents and general trends that will be presented to the National Dialogue Conference.</I>

The National Salvation Conference in Istanbul selected 25 people to serve as a National Salvation Council for the revolution. The names are as follows:

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Off the Wall writes of the Istanbul Conference:

It was clear to many that the external opposition attending especially the organized one is of the Islamist shade albeit not all MBs, but other smaller parties as well. I do not think that they will have as much weight within the internal opposition and the coordination committees who have kept their own distance from most conferences. The regime’s prevention of the meeting in Syria through the Qaboun Massacre, ended up helping the internal wing of the Salvation movement. By making the effect of what heppens in Istanbul sink for a while and allow the internal group to balance out the external after seeing it all. The conference exposed some of those meeting in Istanbul as power-hungry and unreliable and as authoritarian of their own right. I heard that after delivering his speech, Burhan Ghalyoun left to his room and never returned. Opposition activists, especially younger ones and the few females who attended were greatly disappointed, and are now asking the internal group !

not to rely much on this branch and also asking those who have contributed money to these conferences to stop doing that and to send the money to support those activists on the inside, especially the coordination committees and/or to support the young activists who had to flee the country because of the regime’s murderous campaign.

Here is a harsh critique of the Istanbul Conference by Iman Albaghdady (writer and poet, and opposition activist)

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by Iman Al-Baghdady on Monday, July 18, 2011 at 5:10pm
?????? ?????? ????? ?????? ????? ?????????? ????? ? ????? ?????? ???? ? ????? ????? ???? ?? ?????? ????????? ?????? ???? ? ???? ?? ????? ???????????? ????????… ???? ?? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ????? ?? ????? ???? ????????? ????? ??? ???????? ??? ??????? ???????..???? ?? ???????? ???????? “?? ??????? ???? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ?????? ?? ??? ?????? ??? ?? ????? ??????? ??? ???? ?????? ???????? ? ???????” ???? ?? ??? ?????????? ?????? ???? ?? ??? ????????? ???? ???? ?? ???? ?????? ?? ????..

?????? ????? ??????? ??? ? ??????? ?? ?????? ???? ????????? ???????? ?? ????? ?????? ? ??? ??? ???? ?????? ?? ?????..?? ???????? ?? ????? ?? ????? ????? ..??? ??? ??? ?? ??? ????? ??? ???? ?????? ??????? ?? ?????? ???????? ????? ???? ?? ???? ????? ?????? ?????? ?? ?????? ??? ?????? ???? ?? ????? ????? .???? ??? ?? ????? ??? ??? ?????..???? ? ????? ?????? ???????? ???????? ..?????? ????? ????? ????? ??? ??????? ??????? ? ??????? ????? ?????? ???? ????? ?????? ????.. ? ????????? ??????? ?????.. ? ???? ??????? ???????? ?? ????????? ????? ?????

Revlon Responds:

152. Dear OFF THE WALL, Thank you for the link. Ms. Iman Albaghdady showed highly needed courage in speaking up her mind on the latest Salvation meeting in Istanbul. Her attendance was successful if only for exposing its deficiencies. Having learnt from this experience, she is urged to take every opportunity to attend every such meeting. Her fresh and honest voice would be most needed to promote the example of freedom and power sharing that she is so passionate about.

The disappointing, negative image that she witnessed had to do with subjective and objective elements that can and should be addressed. Elder activists are good fathers and mothers, like yours. You may not agree with how they go around doing things but you always trust their good will. They need young ones like you with energy and spunk to stay the course, and the young need their guidance and experience. From historic perspective, holding the salvation meeting succeeded in widening the base of representation of the Syrian opposition in exile, to add to the earlier Antalia meeting.

Her recount of the proceedings have enlightened us about the presence of significant deficiencies in the planning and running of such meetings. I urge the youth organizing the facebook pages to recruit young volunteers with professional experience in planning running, and concluding meetings. This is a specialized field and should not be left to the veteran activists to handle by themselves. The elite huddled instead of queued for what eluded them for years, namely the right to participate and represent in the political life in Syria. Their behavior brought to me the all familiar images of crowding (instead of queuing) for bread, subsidies, and at all government offices for Mu3amalat, by ordinary citizens.

This behavior has become part of our subconscious mannerism. Apparently the center for manners in the brain is closely linked to language. For once we speak another language we tend to assume manners of its culture! Should these elite try to use English or German as the medium for communication? Just kidding!

Petroleum Ministry: Iranian Financial Support for Syria is Baseless
(Dp-news – Sana)

DAMASCUS- An official source at the Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ministry on Monday said that media reports saying Iran is supporting Syria with money and oil are false and baseless.

Some media reported that Iran has approved a financial support estimated at USD 5.8 billion to boost Syria’s economy in addition to granting Damascus 290 thousand barrels of oil for free during the coming nine months.

Syria has begun letting a few Lebanese papers into the country: As-Safir and al-Akhbar, both papers that are usually friendly to Syria.

Amal Hananu, “To Die For.” Jadaliyya. This is her seventh story about Aleppo. Here is a bit

….The next night I met a small group of friends at a popular restaurant in the predominantly Christian, al-Aziziyyeh area in downtown Aleppo. They spoke candidly about the recent atrocities and the atrocity of silence that has infected our community. They were distressed about the absent namoos, conscience, of the Aleppian people we had grown up with. They wondered, how many people needed to die before the loyalists change their minds? They asked, what we were supposed to do with the blood on our hands? They knew the government was plotting the ultimate mu’amara against their own people. Finally, this was the conversation I had expected to have since I arrived. I asked them if they understood how important they were, as influential people from an affluent society, insiders untainted by the west. They looked at me blankly, doubt and skepticism clouding their blue eyes, as if they didn’t understand what I was asking of them, or maybe they didn’t want to.

Even these young, educated, wealthy, privileged Sunnis, were cursed with limited perspective; the graveyard had not spared them. In America, we live by “impossible is nothing,” in Syria, “everything is impossible” is the standard. The regime “cuts our wings” and dictates the limits of our dreams. By fear, oppression, ignorance, corruption, the “system” has become the only possibility, the only way to exist. Syria, the graveyard of ambition, of ideas, of innovation, of hope. Our country, a panopticon that infinitely watches, judges, punishes, and worst of all, limits. Suhair Atassi was right, inside was the same as outside, but only because we have become prisoners of our limited selves….

LIGHTS OUT, By Andrew J. Tabler, ForeignPolicy.com, July 19, 2011

Four months into Syria’s uprising, the violence wracking the country is bad and getting worse. The restive city of Homs witnessed sectarian clashes over the weekend that reportedly left dozens dead, while forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad converged on the eastern town of Abu Kamal. As the Assad regime’s iron-fist-in-a-velvet-glove approach to the uprising continues to fail, all eyes are focused on the Aug. 1 start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when the minority Alawite regime’s killing of predominately Sunni protesters could transform the uprising into a sectarian bloodbath.

This bloodshed, which is tragic in its own right, is also causing the sputtering Syrian economy to grind to a halt. Such a development would be particularly dangerous for Assad, as it could cause the business elite in the commercial hubs of Damascus and Aleppo to finally break ties with the regime and join ranks with the opposition. Iran, Assad’s staunch ally, is no doubt aware of the threat; Tehran is reportedly mulling a $5.8 billion aid package to Syria, as well as providing a daily supply of 290,000 barrels of oil for the next month. Fortunately, cash-strapped Iran does not have the resources to indefinitely bail out Assad if the United States organizes a Western effort to hit Syria in its Achilles’ heel — namely, its energy revenues.

The Syrian uprising has been marked by a growing number of killings in the last week, as armed civilian groups have fought each other. According to Syrian authorities and Facebook websites, such as the Hama News Network, Hama is peacefully coming back under government control; whereas, Bu Kamal on the Iraqi border has fallen out of government control. In Homs, Syria’s third largest city, civilian groups (Alawis versus Sunnis, according to one account) attacked each other causing some 30 deaths. Both sides remain confident of their ability to control the eventual outcome of the uprising. Qatana has also been troubled by inter-communal fighting.

In Homs, AFP reports:

“More than 30 civilians have been killed over the past 24 hours in Homs in clashes that broke out late on Saturday between the opposition and supporters of the regime,” said Rami Abdel Rahman of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He said the clashes in the city 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of the capital came after three regime supporters kidnapped last week were killed and their dismembered bodies were returned to their relatives on Saturday.

“These clashes are a dangerous development that undermines the revolution and serves the interests of its enemies who want it to turn into a civil war,” he added. “The two sides started out beating each other with sticks, but then firearms were used.”

Abdel Rahman said a large number of the dead were killed by gunmen lying in ambush, and that security forces did not intervene. “Their duty is to maintain national security and protect citizens, not stand idly by when faced with clashes, as this can encourage even more violence,” he charged.

A witness who spoke to AFP in Cyprus said the clashes were between Sunni Muslims and Alawites, Assad’s sect, and that they occurred overnight in the Hadara and Al-Zahara districts of Homs. Earlier Abdel Karim Rihawi, who heads the Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights, reported the army moving in to Homs after clashes on Saturday.

Here are two contradictory reports about Homs from readers:

Louai writes:

Just finished a phone call with my family in Homs, which was like Beirut yesterday. The news from Syria-news were correct. Three young men (Alawites) kidnapped tortured and killed , they were organising rallys in support of the announced reforms, my brother knows all of them , the rally now cancelled.

The army stopped a angry crowds of entering Bab el dreeb and prevented a lot of killings.

my friend’s old brother got shot in his way back home his name Kifah el set ( a Christian from Al Hafar village) he is badly injured but thanks god still alive. Another Christian from Al Nuzha ( Gaiath al turk ) from Kafrram village was shot in his leg, he was taking to the local medical centre just to get kidnapped from inside the medical centre few hours later and get killed, his uncle was my teacher! His furnal is tomorrow.

People are scared to go out. The army only entered Alawite neighbourhoods to protect them, the Christian neighbourhood is not protected and the thugs are still free. That’s Homs for you !

Aboud writes:

Here is what really happened. The shabiha scum were given a pretext to rampage through Homs, under the protection of the “security forces” (oxymoron there). They smashed Sunni owned businesses in Al-Hadara street (I’ve linked the video previously). The Homsis mobilized themselves, and got together to protect their neighborhoods. After a brief confrontation in Damascus road, which went badly for the shabiha scum, they crawled back to the holes they came out from.

In Bukamal, SANA, a government source, reported on Sunday that “terrorist gangs” stormed a government building and seized the weapons stored there, adding that three security personnel were killed and two kidnapped in the attack. The situation there is “explosive” according to Al-Watan, and “the army is preparing to intervene … because the authorities fear an armed revolt in this border town where (insurgents) can easily find logistical and political support,” it said.

shukumaku.com reports that about 200 armed men stormed the Regional Administration Department and seized control of it, including all weapons. They burned the civil affairs office, the court, the police post and the resident house of the Regional administrator, in Al Bukamal.

Opposition sources claim that scores of military security personnel have defected and are guarding civilians in Bu Kamal. They suggest this means that the power of the regime is breaking apart at the fringes.

The Guardian quotes Reuters in explaining that in Bukamal, a day after security shot five protesters, the town light up in protest.

Residents said around 100 Air Force Intelligence personnel and the crew of at least four armoured vehicles joined the protesters.

“The protesters returned several army personnel carriers today as a sign of good will. The regime knows it will meet tough resistance if it attacks Albu Kamal, and that Iraqi tribes on the other side of the border will rush to help their brethren,” said one activist in the region, who declined to be named for fear of arrest.

Another activist said: “The whole of Albu Kamal went to the streets after the killings. Several armoured personnel carriers moved into the centre of the town to stop them, but ended joining sides with the human wave.”

Qatana: I received this report from a reader:

Dear Joshua and friends I report this for you from my brother in Qatana (SW of Damascus):

The city is now under protection of the army after clashes erupted between Druze and Sunni salafists. After the Druze community held a pro-government demonstrations in the city, they were attacked by Sunnis salafists with batons and arms. 3 Druze died in the clashes. The next day the Druze answered back and attacked Sunnis in the city, many were injured and probably some where killed. Yesterday, the hardcore Sunnis proclaimed Qatana an Islamic city and their leader was showing off riding on his horse in the city after more clashes erupted with the Druze community… There is a siege going on and arms are being looked after. Christians in the city fear the worse…God bless our country

A second view from Qatana: (Addendum on Monday afternoon)

I live near Qatana and this what happned:

1. last month security force and Shabi7a from 4th brigade Masaken attaked an anti regime demostration killing many.
2. Qatana residents prevented the Masaken ppl(almost 100% Alawites) from entring Qtana and doing a pro-regime demo in it.
3. Qatana residents prevented another pro-regime demo that started from the baath building after AdduniaTV came and started saying that Qatanis are supporting Bashar(they are outsiders),and beat the crap out of 5 ,no death.
4. one of the beaten up turned up to be a Druze shekh-Akl in 3arneh (a smuggling border town in the mountains), he ran to his town and brought a lot of people armed with handguns and AK47 to Qatana, the Masaken guys and Security saw that and joined the 3arneh guys, and they started shooting randomly killing a lot including an infant.
5. now there is about 30 tank surrounding the town.
6. there was no Islamic emirate or a amir on a horse ,that is laughable and rediculous , a lot of Qatanis are Nazhine from Golan, and they are not really that religious.
7. What happened is good for no one, and all made mistakes but the goverment is supporting one side over the other and that is 1000 wrong.

In Hama, Al-Watan said the “situation was back to normal” in the central city of Hama, the epicenter of anti-government protests in recent weeks where perhaps as many as a 100,000 had taken part in demonstrations two Fridays ago and where the US and French ambassadors had traveled to show their support for the uprising. The city fell out of government control when the governor withdrew security forces, permitting peaceful protests. He was fired and a new governor has since been appointed. There was fear that the military would shoot its way back into the city. “The efforts the new governor of Hama has made with civic leaders have borne fruit. The state of civil disobedience which lasted 13 days is over,” Al-Watan said. “With the help of residents, officials have started to remove the roadblocks erected on major thoroughfares,” it added. Stores have begun to open again in the market areas and urban transport has resumed regular routes.

In Damascus, the government organized a large firework display and festival at Ummayad Square at which the crowds chanted that the “people want Bashar al-Assad.” The coverage shown by ad-Dunia TV reveals the tone of the local press coverage. One commentator rails against the US ambassador and demonstrators of Hama, while the second is respectful and glowing about the Syrian people and the need for national unity and the ability of Syrians to express their differences without violence and demonstrations. (I at first added the wrong video. I have changed it for the correct one.)

Since the protests began on March 15, 1,419 civilians and 352 members of the security forces have died, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Thousands more people have been arrested.

Kurds have withdrawn from the National Salvation Congressin Istanbul

A number of sources report that Kurds have withdrawn from the National Salvation Congress in Istanbul, including GemyaKurds.net and Kurdish Youth Revolution – Soresa Ciwanên Kurd. The Kurdish Youth of the Revolution are very disappointed, because it was their hope and endeavour to be partners in nation-building and associates in the conference bringing everyone together as Syrians:

• There was no seat for a representative of the Kurds in the Preparatory Committee of the Conference.
• The conference is working under the name of the Syrian Arab Republic, which denies the existence of the Kurds and diverse others in Syria.

A statement by the Kurdish parties is to be issued later.

A number of credible opposition figures have attacked the conference’s promotion of a shadow government, they include: Burhan Galioum, Louai Hussain and Fayez Sara.

Secretary of State Clinton, while in Turkey, made no effort to meet with the Syrian opposition there, despite hopes expressed before the conference by some opposition figures that she would. Instead, she offered only lukewarm support for the Syrian gathering and made it clear that the United States hopes the protest movement will engage in dialogue with the Syrian government, something most opposition groups reject. She announced in Turkey

“It’s what the Syrians are doing, trying to form an opposition that can provide a pathway, hopefully in peaceful cooperation with the government.” Listen to her statement, here.

also

Today she criticized Turkey’s arrest of journalists and restrictions on Internet freedom. Authorities there have jailed reporters and columnists in recent months under antiterror laws. A government proposal set for August would filter the Internet that could allow monitoring of household Web use. Speaking on CNN’s Turkish language channel today, Clinton said that while the countries differ on how to get things done, the U.S. and Turkey “share this strategic vision about where we would like to see the world go.”

A leader of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood movement, Ali Sadr- al-Din al-Bayanuni, said

the opposition could overthrow Assad’s regime. “What is required of the international community and Arab countries is to withdraw support from this regime, which has lost its legitimacy, and to boycott it on both the international and diplomatic levels,” he said today on Al Jazeera television.

The Syrian government “has become a criminal against its own people,” said al-Bayayuni, according to a transcript published by the BBC Mideast service.

Tens of thousands of Syrians took to the streets to protest yesterday. At least 32 demonstrators were killed around the country, including about 20 in the capital, Damascus, Al Jazeera reported. Activists report that five have been killed today.

Arab world faces long, painful road, says Islamic group head Hurriyet

Ekmeleddin ?hsano?lu, the head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, or OIC, believes that the transition in the Middle East and North Africa ‘will take a long time and will be painful. ‘I never called this process an ‘Arab Spring’ – because spring is just one season, and we will see the summer and winter,’ says the top diplomat

…..Q: How do you see the situation in Syria?

A: I have a friendship with Syrian officials dating back many years. Even at the times when relations between Turkey and Syria were at their worst, I always believed the day would come when they would be the closest countries. This is dictated by the geographical realities, by history, by sociology. When I first met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2004, I came to know him as someone open to the world, open to change. Until I became secretary-general, Syria was not active in the OIC. But we organized two ministerial meetings in Syria. So within the framework of this relationship, we could talk with unprecedented honesty, giving the message that the world is changing and that Syria need to change.

Q: Has al-Assad disappointed you?

A: Unfortunately Syria has not acted with the speed one would have expected. There was not enough progress ahead of the demonstrations that took place. But the national dialogue process that started recently is a very important step. We hope this trend will continue……

Syria releases 28 anti-government intellectuals

The monastery at Mar Musa has published a letter about its current personal financial struggle – due to paralysis of tourism in Syria, and a plea for support. It is also interesting and informative about the way in which one monastery sees the problems and has human interest. Deir Mar Musa has played an leading role in promoting inter-faith dialogue and in trying to introduce Christians to the notion that the Muhammad was a prophet and the Koran a revealed book.

Ali Abdullah has been re-arrested in Qatana.

The Assad family Mausoleum in Qardaha, where Hafiz (d. 2000) and sons Basil (d. 1994) and Majd al-Assad (d. Sunday 13/12/2009) are buried.

The Road to Qardaha
By Peter
For Syria Comment
July 16, 2011

The broad-shouldered middle-aged figure walked into the internet café and sat down in front of the manager. The black leather jacket and olive trousers – de riguer in those circles – marked him out as a member of the Mukhabarat, Syria’s feared “secret” police. He wanted to know if anybody had been looking at opposition websites critical of the government.

“Not at all”, my friend said in Arabic, “we always look out for that kind of behaviour; in fact, on my screen here I can see everybody else’s computer so know straight away if they are doing something illicit,” at the same time closing the incriminating websites on his desktop. The policemen nodded approvingly and picked up the list – held by all Syrian internet cafes – that records the name, identity number and entry time of customers.

Before he left however, the operative had just one more question: he wanted to know how it was that young Syrians were able to find these websites in the first place? My friend began to apprise him of Google and its use as a search engine, this was clearly the first time he’d heard of this wondrous new programme, but already his mind was working, “We’re going to have to shut down this Google thing”.

“What? Close Google?” my friend said. “Yep,” came the reply.

I witnessed this exchange in early May 2011, two months on from the outbreak of protests and nearly two years on from when I had first arrived in the country with the aim of improving my spoken Arabic. As the protests grew in size and intensity the frequency with which my friends and I would encounter the state’s security apparatus increased as the country’s Alawite leadership struggled to maintain control over the country.

Panic

I watched as the predominantly Christian neighbourhood in which I lived retreated inside itself. Whipped up into a mass of hysteria as the Mukhabarat sent memos to shopkeepers warning of imminent attacks on their churches by Salafists (members of an extreme sect of Islam) – supposedly sponsored by the Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan – barricades were erected and manned throughout the night whilst underemployed youths patrolled the narrow lanes with sticks and axes waiting for this imagined threat.

To be clear, despite the tolerance and the pluralistic attitude to religion espoused by Assad’s government – its greatest selling point – the sectarian divisions have always run deep. Whether it were warnings by young Christian men that the manner in which I greeted others was redolent of local Muslims and as such should be avoided, or the concern with which fathers greeted news of their daughters mixing with Muslim men, the divisions were evident and in existence long before anyone had heard of a fruit seller in Tunisia.

It is this sectarianism and minority fear that account for the support the government is receiving from the Christian quarter as they identify with the government’s own minority status. Shocked by the killings being carried out by the Syrian security forces the vast majority of Christians I spoke to (nearly always in Arabic) want to see reforms, but within the framework of the current government. They fear that the fall of the regime would see the ascendency of a conservative Sunni dominated government in which their rights as a religious minority would be subordinate to those of this threatened Islamic state. As one Christian owner of a successful fast food chain pointed out to me, “in Egypt the Copts cannot build new churches or extensions on their existing ones, here (Syria) we never have that problem.”

Divisions

It would however be a gross simplification to suggest that the divisions that now exist within Syrian society reflect religious beliefs only. Within a few months of the outbreak of protests battle lines had been drawn in workplaces. A friend of mine, a journalist for a popular lifestyle magazine in Syria, told me how her office had been split down the middle, with those supporting the incumbent working on one side and those known to be favouring change (obvious in their lack of vocal support for the President) along the other. Friends were lost and managers antagonised as Facebook pages revealed a person’s true allegiances. This same friend told how her manager, upon seeing that she belonged to an opposition Facebook group, sent her a threatening email asking that she consider very carefully her position at the company.

And therein lays one of the truths revealed by current events: the present regime has created a system in which a few prosper at the expense of the many. It is senior managers and the businessman close to the regime that have most to lose from any upheaval.

It was interesting to hear a British friend recount to me how the views of students in the English language class (from the Central Bank) he teaches were split along seniority lines. Although the students were too frightened to make their opinions explicit, they would express their grievances with the regime by vocalising in class -in front of their bosses – their displeasure with their salaries, all the while disguised as English language practice. The managers were always content.

Riches

It was a common refrain from local friends that Syria no longer has a middle class, “ya fauk, ya tahit” (“you are either at the top or at the bottom”). Taxi drivers were often at a loss to explain to me why both cars and mobile phone units were more expensive in Syria than in the UK. Their reticence not a sign of ignorance, but an acknowledgement of the fact that a group of powerful families close to the government run what is essentially a monopoly in both industries, the criticism of whom would not be tolerated.

In 2003, Riyad Saif, a Member of Parliament and vocal opponent of the government, dared to question whether a deal made by SyriaTel (the state telecom provider, owned by the President’s cousin Rami Maklouf) was in the interest of Syria – he received five years in prison.

Aside from the knowledge that the government has presided over a period of widening income inequality in an already poor country, without making any serious effort to reform, people are upset by the prevalence of “wasta”. With no real equivalent in the English language, it is almost a cross between nepotism, power and bribery, with the difference being that it is something one possesses. The need for “wasta” permeates every level of society; it is not simply a case of a few people using their contacts to gain an advantage in a particular circumstance. Instead it is the ability to have a government document processed quickly, avoid military service, or simply the power to circumvent the ubiquitous payment of bribes that plague the public sector. Jokingly refereed to as “Vitamin W”, in reference to the economic pickup it provides its owners, “wasta” was used in coded criticism of the elite as a substitute for the word few would dare utter; “fasad” – corruption.

Protest

On a Friday afternoon in mid-March I was strolling through the cobbled lanes of the old-city with my girlfriend and her mother. As we ascended the steps leading to that ancient seat of power and learning, the Omayyad Mosque, we began to hear a commotion. Hastening through the alleyway towards the sound we turned the corner into the main square, our ears suddenly assaulted by the cacophony of noise as pro-democracy protestors chanted slogans in competition with those backing the regime. “Allah, suriya, hariya” – “God, Syria, freedom” the rhyme heightening the sense of defiance in their voices.

“Allah, suriya, Bashar wa bass” – “God, Syria, and Bashar, only” retorted a choir of paid informants and Mukhabarat; the sheer volume overwhelming the democracy activists, but the incongruities of sounds and lack of harmony were almost a signpost to the hollowness of the regime they were propping up.

Making our way through the crowds in front of the mosque we eventually passed into a side street lined with buses. In the innocence of those early days the buses had not yet come to take on the symbolism that they later would, oblivious to what was happening we pressed on. We heard the shouts before we saw the man; he was being dragged from behind us, the three men – all clad in black leather jackets, one carrying an asp – pulled the stricken man past us, up to the entrance of one of the buses and deposited him inside. The bus shook as the figures inside it moved about, but we were not to know the reason, for the curtains had been drawn.

The next few weeks witnessed a gradual escalation in the size of protests and the demands of the activists, with each Friday like a set-piece in a game of football between the regime and its opponents.

Speeches

Syrian friends living in Damascus who had been concerned by the President’s reticence in the face of the growing unrest were relieved to hear news of a first speech that they fully expected would culminate in the ending of the much reviled emergency law. As middle-class Damascenes with relatively well-paid jobs they cherished the seeming stability that this regime had provided, one only had to look to neighbouring countries to see what could happen.

In years to come, when historians analyse the events of 2011 they will no doubt look back on Assad’s first speech as a turning point. Returning to my girlfriend’s flat that evening I found her and her friend discussing the speech. I was shocked. In the past her friend had always been one of the President’s most ardent supporters, but her stance had now changed dramatically. She felt that the President had completely misunderstood the seriousness of the situation. In her mind it was a grave misjudgement to have allowed expectations over the scrapping of the emergency law to rise only for the speech to offer nothing new.

That same evening I went to my favourite internet café, ostensibly to check my email, but really I wanted to gauge the reaction of the owner (with whom I had become good friends) to the speech. He was as dismissive of the situation as ever. A middle-aged Christian who had fought in the 1973 war against Israel, he was used to life in a police-state and was confident in the regime’s ability to suppress any dissent, in fact he welcomed the regime’s actions. Speaking in Arabic he told me how he valued the stability that he thought Assad offered, the people carrying out the attacks against the government were not Syrians, but Lebanese seeking to stir up trouble, they should be dealt with severely.

Later that night, after the owner had left I sat alone with the manager of the café (another friend). A closet-atheist, raised in a Christian household he sympathised with the protestors plight and recognised their demands, but was concerned with what might happen if the regime did actually fall. Would the ensuing anarchy, bloodletting and loss of protection for religious minorities that he predicted be any better? Yes, the regime had serious faults, but the alternative being touted by the pro-democracy activists was not an improvement. And anyway he pointed out, why should he join the protestors when so many of their chants were underpinned by religious convictions (“Allawoakbar”) rather than those of freedom and humanity?

Set-pieces

A few weeks later I sat with some friends in a café in the Damascus suburb of Saruja watching Barcelona play Real Madrid in the Champions League. The atmosphere was already tense as earlier that evening a man had been taken away by the Mukhabarat for shouting a pro-democracy slogan in a café opposite. Sipping at my coke I did my best to enjoy the game trying to forget the ominous presence of the two characters clad in black leather jackets sitting in the corner.

Suddenly a goal was scored and the room erupted into a scene of celebration. Within an instant the owner had turned the television off. I sat in astonished silence as he explained that there were to be no boisterous post-goal scenes in his café, gently alluding to the figures in the corner. Another slight, another small encroachment of the state into the private sphere. At once tamed and humbled the all-male crowd returned quietly to their seats, the television switched back on, the humiliation complete.

Although at that time living in Damascus, my girlfriend was originally from Homs and travelled back to visit her family every other week. I would pick her up from the Pullman bus depot in the east of Damascus on Saturday evenings making the usual enquires into how she had spent the weekend. As the protests wore on I began to notice that she was often tired upon her return to the capital, a matter I attributed to the stress she must be suffering as a result of the turmoil the country was experiencing. I was correct about the stress, but wrong about the tiredness.

Her restless nights were caused by the constant din reverberating around Homs as its residents repeatedly called out the first words of the “Idan” (the call to prayer) throughout the night. “Allawoakbar” they would shout from their balconies, windows and rooftops, the familiar call an act of defiance, a challenge to the regime. The irony was lost on nobody. The same words that had challenged the Shah over 30 years ago when it was heard above the rooftops of Shi’a Tehran, leading to the most pro-Syrian theocracy in the history of the 20th Century, had now been appropriated by Syrian Sunnis calling for the end of a regime that saw itself as a Shi’a sect.

The truth is that despite the language of the Enlightenment that the more media savvy western-orientated Syrians couch their calls for reform in, there is still a strong religious dimension driving many of the protestors.

Posters

It is not without reason that one of the most popular car posters among regime enthusiasts is a picture of the late President Hafez al Assad with his hands cupped about his ears in a position of prayer. The President’s Islamic credentials need to be flaunted in this manner to deflect the assertions made by Syria’s more conservative Sunnis that the Assad’s are not Muslims, much less Shi’a.

In the 1970s, pronouncements by Iranian clerics that the Alawite sect was in fact an offshoot of Shi’a Islam bolstered the regime’s religious credentials, but many remain unconvinced, seeing the present leadership as an anomaly in the country’s Sunni dominated history.

Driving back from a restaurant one night I sat listening as my Syrian friend –a conservative Sunni – denounced the President as a non-believer: “He prays in the Omayyad as a way to get closer to the people, it’s all for show.” Later that night, passing by the headquarters of the Alawite-dominated state security he pointed at the guards, “do you think any of these men attend a mosque?” I had heard similar things before: Sunnis criticising the President for his lack of religious credentials. A stark reminder that this was not solely a domestic issue, but rather part of the centuries long confrontation between Shi’a and Sunni that had found its most recent expression in the struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Resentment towards the Alawite nature of the regime was not confined to believers only, it was to be found amongst the secular also. Older members of Syrian society recalled the days when the people from the coastal region of Latakia – the traditional Alawite base – were known as hired help, employed as gardeners or cleaners, a designer accessory for wealthy Syrians much like the Filipinos working in Damascus today. Alawites were seen as rural types, unaccustomed to the gentrified manners and pretensions of city life, an image that they have found difficulty in shedding.

Sat in an expensive restaurant with a group of Syrian friends I noticed that the two females next to me were whispering to one another. Enquiring as to their discussion they told me that they were amused by the appearance of the women at the opposite table. According to my friends the brash clothes, heavy make-up and blonde highlights marked the women out as Alawites; a Syrian nouveau-riche whose wealth, power and status coincided with the spectacular rise in fortune of their poster-boy, the former President Hafez al-Assad. The sentiments were not new, I had heard variations on those words many times before.

Goodbye

As I prepared to finally depart Damascus for a translation job in Beirut I spent a final few hours in my favourite internet café. The owner was there as always, but this time he was in the company of a man I had never seen before. In his early twenties the man stood up as the owner introduced me to him.

From the full enunciation of the Arabic letter “qalf” I could tell he was from Latakia, now here in Damascus to study law he told me. Asking after my time in Syria he wanted to know if I had learnt anything about the place. Did I know the capital of Syria? Inwardly groaning at his weak attempt to make me welcome (did he really think foreigners were so ignorant of the places they visited?) I told him Damascus. “No”, came the answer. I looked up from my computer screen, now paying him full attention. “No, you’re wrong, it’s not Damascus”, he continued. Piqued by his silly game, I asked him where it was. “Qardaha” he replied.

I had seen or heard this place before somewhere, but could not at that moment place it. My face must have revealed my puzzlement for he was openly grinning now. And then I realised, if I had heard it once before, then I had certainly walked past the poster of its most famous export hundreds of times.

Crossing the border into Lebanon that night I saw his picture one last time, in full military regalia Hafez al Assad stared down at me, he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Th National Salvation meeting of the Syrian opposition in Istanbul. Opening remarks by representatives from Damascus and mr Haytham Al-Maleh in Istanbul.
????? ??????? ?????? – ?1 16-07-2011

The following is a short summary of the main points made by Maleh. This is not a translation or exact. [Joshua]

Maleh begins with a quick review of Syrian history since 1978 and the efforts of human rights groups to build democracy. He enumerates those killed and imprisoned by Hafiz al-Assad. He says that some 60,000 were killed by Assad.

The central metaphor Maleh uses is that of a farm. He says that Bashar al-Assad has treated the Syrian people as workers on his farm. The people of Syria refuse to be workers on that farm. They don’t want to work for Bashar, Makhlouf or Shaliish.

He counts the number of killed, wounded, imprissioned and refugees.

He says that many people live in exile, and he hopes that someday soon they will return home with their heads held high to rebuild the country.

He says the demonstrations are like a snowball, gathering size and speed.

Bashar has followed a policy of lies and tricks. He got rid of emergency law but replaced it with others to allow the arrest of any citizen without cause or process.

What I ask from those gathered here is not to lose this opportunity. The Syrian people are heros. Don’t waste the blood that has been spilled by this fascist regime. This needs a great struggle. WE must struggle for our nation, our motherland, and our people.

The future of Syria is between your hands. None of us must claim that we carry the truth.. We each have an opinion. We are humans. Humans make mistakes. We must stick to collective decisions in order to show not only the regime but the world that the Syrian people is strong. We will overcome. We will win.

[end]

The following is an article in Syria Steps about the Peasants Union, which declares that it does not want to lose any of the privileges and hard advances that it has been granted by the Baath Party. It is a reminder that socialism has its defenders.

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16/07/2011

“I have seen no evidence yet in terms of hard changes on the ground that the Syrian government is willing to reform at anything like the speed demanded by the street protestors. If it doesn’t start moving with far greater alacrity, the street will wash them away.” That was the blunt verdict offered by U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford in a wide-ranging telephone interview with Foreign Policy today.

Ambassador Ford

Syrians mount biggest protests so far, 20 killed – By Khaled Oweis | Reuters

“These are the biggest demonstrations so far. It is a clear challenge to the authorities, especially when we see all these numbers coming out from Damascus for the first time,” said Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights….

At least 350,000 people demonstrated in the eastern province of Deir al Zor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Syrian forces shot dead two pro-democracy protesters there on Thursday, residents said. …

Syria’s main ally, Iran, is considering offering $5.8 billion (3.6 billion pounds) in financial help, including a three-month loan worth $1.5 billion to be made available immediately, French business newspaper Les Echos said, citing a report by a Tehran think-tank linked to Iran’s leadership. …

“We have said Syria can’t go back to the way it was before, that Assad has lost his legitimacy in the eyes of his own people,” U.S. Secretary of States Hillary Clinton told a news conference in Istanbul.
“We, along with many others in the region and beyond, have said we strongly support a democratic transition,” she said. “The ultimate destiny of the Syrian regime and Syrian people lies with the people themselves.”… Emboldened by the spreading protests, prominent opposition figures and activists are to hold a conference in Istanbul on Saturday that will be closely coordinated with another conference in Damascus to form a shadow government of “independent, non-political technocrats” to prepare for when Assad loses authority.

These are the reports of the Syrian TV and Addounia about today:

Jad writes: “Every Friday for the last 3 weeks I read the exact same sentence and the problem is that every Friday I see less peaceful people go out in the street with more younger kids joining the same youth stone throwers of the week before, and there numbers are not ‘more’ than the week before, they are steady and in many places less.”

Unfolding the Syrian paradox
By Alastair Crooke in Asia Times

Can Syria properly be understood as an example of a “pure” Arab popular revolution, an uprising of non-violent, liberal protest against tyranny that has been met only by repression? I believe this narrative to be a complete misreading, deliberately contrived to serve quite separate ambitions. The consequences of turning a blind eye to the reality of what is happening in Syria entails huge risk: the potential of sectarian conflict that would not be confined to Syria alone.

One of the problems with unfolding the Syria paradox is that there is indeed a genuine, domestic demand for change. A huge majority of Syrians want reform. They feel the claustrophobia of the state’s inert heavy-handedness and of the bureaucracy’s haughty indifference toward their daily trials and tribulations. Syrians resent the pervasive corruption, and the arbitrary tentacles of the security authorities intruding into most areas of daily life. But is the widespread demand for reform itself the explanation for the violence in Syria, as many claim?

There is this mass demand for reform. But paradoxically – and contrary to the “awakening” narrative – most Syrians also believe that President Bashar al-Assad shares their conviction for reform. The populations of Damascus, Aleppo, the middle class, the merchant class, and non-Sunni minorities (who amount to one quarter of the population), among others, including the leadership of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, fall into this category. They also believe there is no credible “other” that could bring reform.

What then is going on? Why has the conflict become so polarized and bitter, if there is indeed such broad consensus?

I believe the roots of the bitterness lie in Iraq, rather than in Syria, in two distinct ways. Firstly, they extend back into the thinking of the Sunni jihadi trend, as advanced by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which evolved in Iraq, surfaced violently in Lebanon, and was transposed into Syria with the return of many Syrian Salafist veterans at the “end” of the Iraq conflict.

Secondly, and separately, the bitterness in Syria is also linked to a profound sense of Sunni grievance felt by certain Arab states at Sunni political disempowerment following Prime Minister Nuri al-Malaki’s rise to power in Iraq, for which they hold Assad responsible…….

Yet the Salafists understand that the exiles are using them to provoke incidents, and then to corroborate a media narrative of repression by the external opposition; this might actually serve Salafist interests, too.

These two components may be relatively small in numbers, but the emotional pull from the heightened voice of Sunni grievance – and its need for redress has a much wider and more significant constituency. It is easily fanned into action, both in Syria and in the region as a whole.

Saudi Arabia and Gulf states explicitly trade on fears of Shi’ite “expansionism” to justify Gulf Cooperation Council repression in Bahrain and intervention in Yemen, and the “voice” of assertive sectarianism is being megaphoned into Syria too.

Sunni clerical voices are touting the Arab “awakening” as the “Sunni revolution” in riposte to the Shi’ite revolution of Iran. In March, al-Jazeera broadcast a sermon by Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawi, which raised the banner of the restoration of Sunni ascendency in Syria. Qaradawi, who is based in Qatar, was joined by Saudi cleric Saleh Al-Luhaidan who urged, “Kill a third of Syrians so the other two-thirds may live.”

Clearly many of the protesters in traditional centers of Sunni irredentism, such as Homs and Hama in Syria, comprise of aggrieved Sunnis seeking the Alawites ouster, and a return to Sunni ascendency. These are not Salafists, but mainstream Syrians for whom the elements of Sunni ascendency, irredentism and reformism have conflated into a sole demand. This is a very frightening prospect for the quarter of the Syrians that form the non-Sunni minorities….

Economic facts about Syria for the year 2008 (source statistics office)

• The entire hotel industry in Syria employed just 11,224 people.
• Total salaries and wages paid to them was syp 1.97 billion, which comes to syp 14,668 ($ 312) a month per person.
• All the hotels combined had a revenue of $279 million.
• The 5 star hotels had 55% of that at $154 million
• The four star and under combined had revenues of $125 million.
• The Phoenicia hotel in Beirut alone had a revenue of $88 million last year (31% of all the hotels in Syria combined).
• It employes 2000 people (18% of the entire workforce employed in the Syrian hotel industry)
• latest survey is that spending by an average Syrian family living in an urban area (higher than rural) is syp 33,483 a month. This is close to $700 a month for say a family of 5 (23 dollars a day for them combined or $4.7 a day per person on all requirements)

Guardian (GB): Syrian protesters take aim at economy, 2011-07-14

ZEINA KARAM Associated Press= BEIRUT (AP) — Syrians held general strikes in cities and towns across the country Thursday, part of a strategy to squeeze the economy as President Bashar Assad tries to crush a four-month-old revolt against his …

From Middle East Channel – Thursday

Activists say 8 more Syrians killed in the last 24 hours Syrian activists say that security forces have killed an additional eight people, and arrested dozens of others — including artists and intellectuals — during military operations in the last 24 hours. The military sweeps have been in Damascus, the northern Idlib province and a restive area near the Turkish border in the northwest. Rights groups estimate that some 1,600 people have been killed since demonstrations broke out in March. Meanwhile, French President Nicolas Sarkozy is calling for an increase in sanctions against Syria as the regime continues its crackdown. “The attitude of the Syrian president is unacceptable,” he said in a television interview. “We must strengthen sanctions against the regime which is applying the most brutal methods against its population.”

Arab League to U.S.: Stop interfering in Syria
Jul. 13, 2011, Associated Press

BEIRUT – The Arab League said Wednesday that Washington overstepped its bounds by saying Syrian President Bashar Assad had lost the legitimacy to lead his country. Speaking to reporters in Damascus, Arab League Chief Nabil Elaraby said Assad assured him that “Syria has entered a new era and is now moving on the road of a genuine reform.”….

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( Thursday, July 14, 2011?? ??? – ???)
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???? ???? ???? ???????? ????????? ?? ???? “?? ??? 10 ???? ????? ?????? ?????? ???? ?? ?? ?????? ?? ?????? ????????? ??? ??? ??? ??????? ????? ?????? ?????? ????? ????? ????????.”
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Syria: The Opposition and the Church: A Slap in the Face for the Pro-Democracy Movement – Qantara by Claudia Mende

While church leaders pledge their support for the Assad regime, Christians in Syria are backing the protest movement for democratic change. The endorsement of the regime’s propaganda slogans by the representatives of the churches puts them in an increasingly precarious position, as Claudia Mende rep…

It appears that not all Christians are following the leaders of their churches in their assessment of the situation. …Christians are definitely taking part in the popular protests, and in doing so are risking their lives alongside their Muslim fellow citizens. For them, the bishops’ comments are a slap in the face.

Johnny West, “sectarianism among Alawis and Sunnis in Tripoli Lebanon and the death of Ali the Muscle”
in Granta

‘Look, you need to understand something. We Alawis were nothing in Lebanon until the Syrians came in 1977,’ he said, referring to the entry of the Syrian army, under the command of Bashar’s father Hafez, at the start of the Lebanese civil war. ‘My father went to America in 1960. He saw Martin Luther King and Malcolm X speak and he got a degree in chemistry. Then he did another degree at the American University in Beirut. Look, there’s his certificate on the wall. And when he’d finished, the only job he could get was as a garbage man or customs clerk. They just wanted us to clean their shoes.

‘He came back home to Tripoli and spent two years thinking about politics. Then he founded the Arab Youth Movement. Then the war started and the Syrians came and they showed us how to fight, how to mobilize. And we learned to defend ourselves. Even when they withdrew, we got two seats in the Lebanese parliament.

‘So I am with them, right or wrong. They are my guys and I am theirs. Right or wrong. Because they are our only hope,’ he said.

I could understand that kind of loyalty, I said. But wasn’t that a personal position rather than a political one? As a leader, didn’t he bear a responsibility to his community to at least try and leave other paths open a fraction? Otherwise, where would they be if the Assads did go down in Syria?

Rifaat just shrugged. Right or wrong, there is no other hope, he kept repeating. A thunderstorm had broken outside and rain crashed against the roof and windows. Rifaat was courteous as he walked me to the door. Ali the Muscle saw me to my car and signalled to his guys to open the checkpoints.

*

The next day, in Tripoli, Lebanon, I ran into some young bloods by the clock tower in the centre of town. …

A young man called Amr was sitting near me on a plastic chair, getting a shoulder rub from his friend. When he learned who I was and where I had been, he spat on the ground.

‘The Alawi are dogs. In fact, that’s an insult to dogs,’ he said. ‘We are going to deal with them. Soon.’

His massaging friend told me he’d just come home from a long stretch living in Sydney. I wondered whether he suffered any cognitive dissonance as he looked out on the street with its chaotic bustle, bullet-pocked buildings and the tide of plastic bags swept by the early morning breeze across the square like urban tumbleweed. Amr was clearly a boss of some kind. He ‘worked’ in the shop we were outside and people came up and asked his opinion on various things, which he issued curtly. As we chatted, a big man, like all of them in his mid-twenties, solidly built and wearing a barrio string vest turned up. They are nothing. Worse than animals. We will cut their throats like sheep, he said.Amr introduced me and his friend stood there, all six foot four of him, and blew me a kiss, po-faced. I’ve always appreciated the potential to demonstrate virility through camp. My grandfather Billy, a decorated career soldier and prize-winning boxer with more than a touch of Errol Flynn to him, had loved cross-dressing for vaudeville. But here it took on a sinister air, a promise, somehow, of blood. What are we going to do to the Alawi dogs? Amr asked. Big Man drew his finger across his throat. The parking attendant turned up on a moped and Amr made to intimidate him into not collecting the fine. I insisted on paying up. The guy, after all, was just doing his job.

As I got into the car, Amr drew me aside, conspiratorially, which was odd since we were already alone. They are nothing. Worse than animals. We will cut their throats like sheep, he said….

Ali the Muscle was dead…..

Meir Javedanfar, “Iran’s domestic concerns vis a vis the Syrian uprising.” in the National

‘The rise and fall of Iran’s Ahmadinejad’ (Karim Sadjadpour, The Washington Post)

“Khamenei’s desire to project a unified front to the world is likely to keep Ahmadinejad in office until his term expires in 2013. Khamenei seeks to wield power without accountability; this requires a president who has accountability without power. A disgraced Ahmadinejad can conveniently absorb blame for the country’s endemic economic, political and social disaffection. For Washington, the best outcome of Iran’s conservative fratricide is only that the fight continues. Authoritarian collapses tend to have three prerequisites: grass-roots protests, fissures among the elite and a regime’s loss of will to use sustained brutality to retain power. While Iran has the first two, the regime remains quite willing to rule by terror….By accentuating the country’s internal rifts and breaking previously sacred taboos – such as challenging the supreme leader – Ahmadinejad has become an unlikely, unwitting ally of Iran’s democracy movement. Once thought to be leading the Islamic Republic’s rise, he is more likely to be remembered by historians as the man who hastened its decay.”

U.S. Standing Plunges Across Arab World
By: Naseema Noor and Jim Lobe | Inter Press Service

Economic News (Thanks Ehsani)

The weak Syrian state is incapable of taxing its people.

• Syria’s tax receipts from all alcoholic beverages in 2009 was $425k.
• Tax receipts from tobacco were $49 million for a country of 23 million people. (60 percent of adult males and 23 percent of adult females in Syria smoke. Around 8 percent of a Syrian smoker’s income is spent on 3.6 kilos of tobacco a year. American men smoked at a rate of nearly 24 percent of the population.)
• In spite of the enormous rise in real estate values in the past decade, Syria only collects a total of $36 million in real estate taxes.
• The country only collects 4% in taxes and duties on total imports worth $13.8 billion.

Farouq al-Sharaa, Syria’s V.P., declares that Syria’s growth rate never reached 6% as claimed by previous governments. These figures were “manipulated”, he said and growth never exceeded 3.7%

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Foreign direct investment in Syria fell by 28 percent last year to USD 1.85 billion, according to a newly released report, writes Syria Report.

Economy Syria Considers Lowering Retirement Age to 52 (Syria Report)

The Syrian government is working on a draft scheme to reduce the retirement age of civil servants from 60 to 52, according to Mohammad Jleilati, Minister of Finance.

An Iraqi pipeline carrying crude oil to Syria was blown up on July 10, interrupting supplies, according to an Iraqi news agency.

Al-Moallem discuses with Iraqi Premier regional situation.

Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Sufian Allaw discussed with his Iraqi couterpart Abdul-Karim Luaibi cooperation in the field of oil and gas and means of transferring Iraqi oil production to the Mediterranean across Syria. The two sides signed a memo of understanding on establishing a network of oil and gas pipelines to transfer Iraqi crude oil and gas across Syria.

<b>Syrian Pharmaceutical Industries Sector</b>

Abdul-Muhsen said that Iraq imports 90% of its medicinal needs; thus, this agreement will open the door for the Syrian factories to export their products to Iraq.

On Tuesday too, Minister of health discussed with a delegation of Italian companies’ representatives best means of cooperation in order to amend equipments for Aleppo and Homs oncology centers.

Minister Al-Halqi said that the Ministry, in cooperation with European Investment Bank and Curie institute for oncology, pointed out at the importance of operating the two centers as soon as possible.

For their parts, members of the Italian delegation expressed their readiness to cooperate at amending the equipments for the two centers after reviewing all the details related……

U.S. Favorable Ratings Plummet Across the Arab World View the poll in full

WASHINGTON – July 13, 2011 – The Arab American Institute (AAI) released the findings of a poll today conducted in six Arab nations. Commissioned promptly after President Obama’s state department address on the popular uprisings in the Arab world, over 4000 people were surveyed. Four key findings of the poll are:

• U.S. and Obama favorable ratings are at a record low
• Top Arab concerns are U.S. interference in the region and the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Killing bin Laden has not improved relations with the region
• There is a mixed mood on the Arab Spring

One Syrian writes:

These guys in Damascus keep changing their minds…they do something on day and decide to reverse it the next. Even Sharaa backtracked on what Bashar said yesterday. Now he is saying we will talk to even those who call for regime change. Bashar yesterday said he would not talk to them.

Syrian FM says crisis between Syria and U.S., France, to be solved
2011-07-13

DAMASCUS, Jul 13, 2011 (Xinhua via COMTEX) — Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al- Moallem said Wednesday the recent crisis erupted between his country and the United States and France over protesters’ attack on the two’s embassies, would be solved within the framework of the Vienna Conventions. “I believe that demonstrators shouldn’t bypass the boundaries of the two embassies,” Moallem told a joint press conference with the Arab League (AL) chief Nabil el-Arabi. “Whoever did that was wrong … They (the embassies) shouldn’t be bypassed,” he said, adding that an expression of protest is ” legitimate but in a peaceful way.” He reasserted that the Syrian government is responsible for protecting the embassies and their staffs, saying “and we bear full responsibility for that.”  al-Moallem, meanwhile, said diplomats should obtain prior permission before heading to restive areas so that the government could be able to protect their security.

U.S. Hardens Tone Against Syria’s Assad
By Jim Lobe, July 13, 2011

Escalating its rhetoric against Bashar Al-Assad, the White House declared Tuesday that the Syrian president had “lost his legitimacy” but declined to call explicitly for his resignation or removal….

The tougher rhetoric, as well as Ambassador Robert Ford’s visit to Hama, comes amid growing pressure on the administration, notably from neo-conservative sectors and some liberal hawks, such as former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, to take stronger measures against the regime….

“To help end the bloodshed, Washington will need to be equally ruthless” in applying such sanctions as Assad has been in applying his “iron-fist-in-velvet-glove approach” to the uprising against him, warned Tabler, who also claimed Tuesday that the administration was preparing such measures “behind the scenes” as part of a “quiet sea change” in its approach to Damascus.

But such an approach carries significant risks, according to Joshua Landis, a Syria specialist at the University of Oklahoma who publishes the widely read syriacomment.com blog.

“If we go down the road of augmenting sanctions in a serious way, that’s a slippery slope toward military intervention, because sanctions alone can’t overturn the regime,” he told IPS. “We haven’t seen a regime in the Middle East as tough as Assad’s collapse because of poverty, and we’ve learned from recent experience that poverty and blowing out the middle class are not the way to build a successful democracy in any case.”

Ironically, he said, the latest events have served the purposes of both capitals.

“For Washington, Ford’s trip and the tougher-sounding rhetoric demonstrate that Obama is on the side of the Arab Spring and eases the pressure on him by the critics to recall (the ambassador). And by sending Ford into the eye of the storm in Hama, Clinton has made it easier for Assad to rally his supporters around the charge that the U.S. is leading the effort to destabilise Syria,” he said, adding that the latest developments were unlikely to substantially change the balance of power within the country…..

Life Among Syria’s Not-So-Secret Police
The power of Assad’s Mukhabarat lies largely in its visibility.
By JONATHAN G. PANTER in WSJ

….In late January, when I arrived in Syria to study Arabic, most people seemed to have learned that lesson well, including my friend Ahmed. I met him at the University of Aleppo. He was a soft-spoken, 22-year-old graduate student who liked to tell me about his girlfriend and wasn’t very political. We mostly discussed poetry, compared our cultures, incessantly told dirty jokes, and generally agreed on our values. He and most young Syrians I met dwelt little on the difficulty of life under authoritarianism. They acknowledged that Syria had “problems,” but argued that President Assad was an intelligent leader dedicated to reform. They waited for change, and in the meantime shared the daily concerns of young people the world over: They studied, made friends, and dreamed of falling in love. Politically, both they and I expected the status quo, and none of us foresaw the uprisings and bloodshed to come.

Then in March, the uprisings around the Middle East spread to the south of Syria, and slowly moved north. The reaction from Damascus was fast and brutal. My language program was canceled and evacuated, but I stayed and in mid-April set out in a rickety service taxi to Belayoun. The violence had not yet reached the sleepy town, but already its inhabitants’ outlook had been transformed why what was happening in their country.

Gone was their hope for Assad’s reforms. The vicious crackdowns in Dara’a, and then in the cities of Homs and Hama, had become symbols of the thorough illegitimacy of the president’s regime of institutionalized brutality. Belayoun’s residents were no longer resigned to the injustices they had been conditioned to accept. Suddenly my friend Ahmed, the shy literature major, had become a revolutionary, by dint of joining millions of Syrians in asking to be treated like human beings and not subjects of the state. He stopped talking about his girlfriend, preferring to watch foreign news broadcasts about Syria as his face darkened with rage.

It was this transformation in people like Ahmed that brought the tanks to Homs and Hama, to highways all over Syria, and even to little Belayoun. The people are rejecting the lesson of fear, beaten into them by decades of surveillance and intimidation. Hope is emerging even in the shadow of the Mukhabarat, the sort of hope that brings men and women to the streets to stare down gun barrels. They’ve got nothing to lose—to the Syrian protesters, a life devoid of freedom hardly feels like life at all.

Mr. Panter is an undergraduate at Cornell University studying government; he left Syria on May 18.

White House, in Shift, Turns Against Syria Leader
By MARK LANDLER and DAVID E. SANGER, July 12, 2011

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, after weeks of urging Syria to carry out democratic reforms and end a brutal crackdown, has now turned decisively against President Bashar al-Assad, saying that he has lost legitimacy and that it has no interest in Mr. Assad keeping his grip on power.

President Obama, in an interview Tuesday with the “CBS Evening News,” stopped short of demanding that Mr. Assad step down. But administration officials said the president may take that step in coming days, as he did with Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, much earlier in that country’s popular uprising.

Mr. Obama’s comments, and even stronger ones by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday, showed that the administration has now concluded that Mr. Assad is no more willing or capable than Colonel Qaddafi of opening a dialogue with protesters or overseeing a political transformation.

The turning point in the administration’s public posture came after angry crowds attacked and vandalized the United States Embassy in Damascus, and the residence of Ambassador Robert Ford, after his visit to Hama, the hub of the current protests and site of a bloody crackdown by Mr. Assad’s father in 1982.

Syria’s Christians fearful of future: As protests rage on, many in the community are concerned about the possible future influence of Islamist groups. Ambassador Ford was expelled from a church in Damascus, yesterday.

Good Debate on al-Jazeera between Muhammad Abdullah and Faisal Abd al-Satih, two articulate opponents. Muhammad Abdullah has been a guest in my house on a number of occasions when he first came to the US two years ago. His story is an interesting one. Following his release from jail in Syria, he was granted refugee status in the US. His father was arrested in 2005 for reading a letter written by the Muslim Brotherhood out loud at the Atassi Forum in Damascus. The US government located him to Oklahoma City, where he was given a subsidized apartment for three months. He got a job at Walmart as a cashier. After his subsidy ran out and he had practiced his English to a degree, he moved to Washington DC, where he seems to be doing well. He is a lawyer by training and is originally from Deir ez-Zor.

Peterson Inst: Economic Sanctions Case: EU, US v. Syrian Arab Republic (2011- : human rights, democracy) [pdf], 2011-07-12

Post-2000 the United States has imposed three rounds of sanctions against Syria, in response to: (1) Syria’s support for terrorist groups and terrorist activities in Iraq; (2) its pursuit of missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) …

This Flag is My Flag
by by Amal Hanano for Jadiliyya

For two hours on Wednesday, I was in the safest place in Syria: at “The Longest Syrian Flag in the World,” pro-regime rally in Aleppo. The security protected, 1700 m flag, is touring “sympathetic” cities like Damascus, Suwaida, and now Aleppo, covering the muhalleq, beltway from al-Bassel Circle to al-Layramoon Circle. I figured since everyone constantly calls me a mundesseh, infiltrator, I might as well live up to the name and andass, infiltrate the event to get a closer look at the mysteriously brainwashed masses ……

The volunteers crossed the flag in socked feet out of respect, but when an over-enthusiastic guy accidentally stepped on the president’s shoulder while taking a picture, the crowd booed, “You stepped on the president!” He looked alarmed for one second but then jumped back, kneeled down and kissed the image. Suddenly, people started bringing their children to the plastic president to kneel and kiss his image as well. A large, military helicopter circled in the sky, and every time it passed, people would wave and chant. Someone whispered to me that the president was in it, wearing a gray suit, watching over us. The feared and admired gaze never leaves us…..

A Free Society: The Syrian Challenge, 2011-07-11

The administration’s policy toward Syria is shaping up to be the greatest missed opportunity of Barack Obama’s presidency. His failure of vision and nerve, paired with an acute Republican fatigue with the Middle East and foreign policy in …

Thousands of Iraqis face long wait for visas — and entry to U.S.

BAGHDAD — Heightened security concerns in the United States have stalled the immigration process for tens of thousands of Iraqis who worked for the U.S. government or American firms in Iraq and hope to move to the United States, according to U.S. officials and refugee advocates. A special program meant to distribute 25,000 visas to Iraqis who worked for the U.S. government has admitted just 7,000 since it started in 2008, officials said this week.

Hama stands firm
Jul 11th 2011, by The Economist

THE city of Hama is both defiant and fearful. Boys with wooden sticks man makeshift checkpoints. Burned-out government cars, rubbish bins, gates, piles of bricks and street-lamps unscrewed at the base and carefully laid across the road have been used to create blockades to prevent the security forces from re-entering the city. Even satellite dishes, with the name of Al-Dounia, a pro-regime channel, scribbled over with Al-Jazeera, have been used. The streets are eerily quiet; shop shutters are locked and the roads are almost empty of cars. No sign of the Assad regime remains. Pictures of the president, Bashar Assad, have been torn down and a plinth where a statue of his father, Hafez, once towers stands empty. Outside the city, the government’s forces wait.

A week ago the government tried re-take the city. In response, residents say, neighbourhoods organised overnight. At least 24 people have been killed in Hama and 500 arrested since the unrest began, but security forces have not been able to enter the main areas of the city of 800,000. The city, the fourth largest in Syria, has been galvanised by its size and by its history. Everyone knows each other and word travels quickly. Everyone has a relative who died in 1982 when Hafez Assad, the former president, killed tens of thousands in an effort to quash an Islamist uprising. Everyone knows someone who lost a son, husband or father on June 3rd, a date now similarly etched on the city’s memory, when over 70 people were shot dead. They have been able to organise quickly and effectively.

Crisis Group: The Syrian Regime’s Slow-motion Suicide
by Peter Harling for ICG
2011-07-13, Damascus/Brussels | 13 Jul 2011
[A 35 page Part II of this most valuable report. Harling is superb]

Even in its attempts to survive at all costs, the Syrian regime appears to be digging its own grave.

Popular Protest in North Africa and the Middle East (VII): The Syrian Regime’s Slow-motion Suicide, the second of a two-part report from the International Crisis Group, examines the regime’s approach to the crisis. Although the outcome remains in doubt, as many Syrians still fear the prospect of chaos and sectarian strife in the event of abrupt change, the regime has significantly hurt its case through its brutal repression, half-hearted reform suggestions and squandered credibility.

“Playing catch-up with protester demands, the regime has always lagged one if not several steps behind, proposing measures that might have had some resonance if suggested earlier yet falling on deaf ears by the time they were unveiled”, says Peter Harling, Crisis Group’s Iraq, Syria and Lebanon Project Director. “Demonstrators have turned to something else. It is not regime reform they are pursuing. It is regime change”.

By sowing fear of instability, the regime seeks to check the extent of popular mobilisation and deter its less committed detractors. But while this appears to have had the desired impact on some Syrians, the balance sheet has been overwhelmingly negative from the authorities’ standpoint. The security services’ brutal and often erratic performance has created more problems than it has solved, as violence almost certainly has been the primary reason behind the protest movement’s growth and radicalisation.

The situation has reached an apparent stalemate but it would be wrong to bet on the status quo enduring. Economic conditions are worsening; should they reach breaking point the regime could well collapse. Predominantly Allawite security forces are overworked, underpaid and increasingly worried. They could conclude that the regime is unsalvageable and defect, precipitating its end.

Officials argue that many Syrians still see things differently, that they are wary of the protest movement, suspecting it is a Trojan horse for Islamists and that the fall of the regime would mean sectarian civil war. They have a point. Largely due to regime scare tactics – but also to some of the violence against security forces – the country has become more polarised. A growing number want to see the end of the regime; many still cling to it as better than an uncertain alternative, particularly in Damascus. The middle ground has been shrinking.

The international community’s options remain limited. Military intervention would be unquestionably disastrous, potentially unleashing a sectarian civil war, provoking further instability and benefiting a regime that repeatedly has depicted the uprising as a foreign plot. Sanctions against regime officials can be of use, but going further and targeting economic sectors that would hurt ordinary Syrians would backfire….

The world’s cautious attitude has been a source of deep frustration and even anger for the protesters. That is entirely understandable, yet such caution might well be a blessing in disguise. The regime is unlikely to respond to international pressures, regardless of their provenance. Ultimately, the burden lies with the protesters to counter the regime’s divisive tactics, reassure fellow citizens – and in particular members of minority groups – who remain worried about a successor regime, and build a political platform capable of rallying broad public support. Already their ability to transcend sectarian divides has confounded many observers. More importantly, it has given the lie to a regime that has made a business out of preying on fears of a chaotic or Islamist alternative to its own brutal reign.

Syria’s Leadership and Opposition Need an Economic Policy
By EHSANI2
for Syria Comment
12 July 2011

We are nearly four months into the crisis in Syria and neither the opposition nor the Syrian leadership has articulated anything that resembles an economic policy to address the country’s challenges. And this, despite the central importance of economic factors in igniting the Arab revolts..

Syrian parties are not alone in their silence on the economy. Egypt, too, has no viable economic plan. How will it create jobs? The country is lost. One of the leading figures in that country’s Freedom and Justice Party, the most recent incarnation of the Muslim Brotherhood, recently confessed: “I don’t know much about the economy”.

In a stunning admission, Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa confessed that the previous Syrian government had “manipulated” the economic growth figures. It claimed growth rates as high as 6% and 7% for Syria when they never exceeded 3.7%.

For those of us who believe that the recent events in the Arab world are being driven by years of economic under-achievement and falling living-standards for the majority, it is disappointing to hear so little discussion of economic policy.

The opposition, for example, is yet to offer a single credible plan that would explain to the Syrian people how their lives may improve under different leadership. It is true that the opposition is still too fragmented to offer such a plan. However, it is a fact that not a single camp in this so-called opposition has articulated a well thought-out economic alternative.

The same goes for the current leadership. While an implicit and even an explicit admission has taken place that the past economic policy failed to deliver the earlier promises of growth and employment, one is yet to hear a fundamental rethinking of the failed policies that brought us here in the first place.

Set below is a list of questions for the opposition and the leadership:

1. In light of the current trends in population growth, what will happen to the subsidies? Will the Syrian treasury be able to afford paying close to $8 billion a year in subsidies and for how long? Is there a plan to replace them with cash assistance to the lower income groups only?
2. What will the country do about the public sector? Fewer than 10 percent of the 260 public enterprises are profitable. How long can the country keep throwing good money after bad? Will we keep promising to reform this sector with the most predictable of outcomes?
3. Will the government act to control population growth and how?
4. How will the economy grow enough to generate nearly 300,000 jobs a year? This number of new jobs is required merely to absorb the new entrants into the labor force. It will not reduce the present level of unemployment.

One can go on of course. This list is by no means sufficient to address all the challenges that will face the country going forward.

While the removal of article 8 from the Syrian constitution has received widespread support from the opposition, one is yet to hear much about article 13 that governs the country’s economic principals.  This is how 13 (1) reads today:

“The state economy is a planned socialist economy which seeks to end all forms of exploitation.”

Once article 13 is addressed, article 23 needs to follow. It states that:

“The nationalist socialist education is the basis for building the unified socialist Arab society. It seeks to strengthen moral values, to achieve the higher ideals of the Arab nation, to develop the society, and to serve the causes of humanity. The state undertakes to encourage and to protect this education.”

Article 49 is also linked since it states:

“The Popular organizations by law effectively participate in the various sectors and councils to realize the following:

1. Building the socialist Arab society and defending the system.
2. Planning and guiding the socialist economy.”

The Syrian people deserve a vigorous debate over their future economic policy. As Egypt has found out, regime change does not automatically put food on the table, just as it does not magically create jobs or lift standards of living.

Both the Syrian leadership and those in the opposition need to articulate a realistic, decisive and effective economic policy that inspires the 23 million Syrians who must dream of a brighter future for their kids.

The time for a national dialogue on the economy is now. The leadership must lead the charge and offer the country a progressive, bold and inspiring new path forward.

Addendum (14 July 2011) by Author : EIU

Ehsani is raising a crucial issue not only for Syria but for other countries afected by uprisings inspired to some extent by frustration at the failure of economic policy.

On the real GDP growth question it would be interesting to get a more precise idea from Shara about the extent of the manipulation. Actually the latest quarterly bulletin of the central bank includes a provisional figure of 3.2% for growth in 2010, which may or may not be plausible; in the previous five years, the official figures show growth averaging 5.4%, which you could argue is too high, but would be consistent with the performance of some sections of the economy, in particular exports of goods and services in the context of generally strong growth across the region. The point is that given the long legacy of poor economic performance going back to the disastrous UAR, a country in Syria’s position would need growth rates of over 7% to make any impact on poverty and unemployment.

The policy questions are more difficult. The 2006-10 five-year plan aspired to achieve growth rates of around 7%, but was categorical about the need for restructuring, for example phasing out ruinous petroleum price subsidies and widening the government’s tax base through introducing VAT (supposed to have happened in 2008), as well as developing the domestic debt market through launching T-bills. The plan also included measures to put public sector companies on an autonomous commercial footing, which would logically lead to privatisation. These policies can be crudely categorised under the Dardari heading. The problem is that Dardari (like his equivalents in Egypt) is discredited in the popular mind for having collaborated with a corrupt and oppressive regime and for pushing a neo-liberal agenda whose effects would be to make life even harder for the poor. I would suggest that Dardari was nobbled by a combinatiion of his own pretensions (fed by over-enthusiastic would-be foreign investors), the Baath party and sections of the business elite–and ultimately of course by the lack of effective support from the president.

Any new government in Syria would have to go back to these ideas and decide whether there is still a place for liberal economic policies–which would be guaranteed to receive significant external financial support from the IMF and the World Bank–or whether the answer is to revert to a more sttae-centred model. Arguing for the former approach would be a challenge of intellectual honesty. We have already seen in Egypt that the caretaker government was not up to this challenge, and retreated into a muddled policy of self-reliance that will probably only store up more problems for the future.

Ehsani:

Unless this government liberalizes the economy properly, it is inconceivable that the economy will improve by much. Rather than heading in that direction, the recent crisis has brought out the anti-economic reformers back with a vengeance. The reformers are now on the run. They are blamed for everything now. In this atmosphere, this country will suffer further for years to come. Socialist policies have not worked. They have made the country poor. They have made corruption widespread. Sadly, one is hard pressed to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

One of the major headwinds in Syria is low money velocity. Not to get technical but this refers to how much income and production is produced per one dollar of currency in circulation and bank deposits. The lower this number is (velocity), the more hoarding and less risk taking there is. Syria is caught in a very low money velocity due to the lack of animal spirit and trust in the system which allows for both borrowing and lending. The money essentially stays dormant inside the banking system or under mattresses. This situation existed even before the crisis.

Ehsani take on the notion that the West is in decline:

The U.S. households borrowed way too much between 1997 and 2007 as speculation mounted in the real estate sector. This was due to lax regulation and loose monetary policy. Since that particular bubble burst, it will take years for household balance sheets to be restored. The inability of households to borrow and spend meant that the government had to step in and boost borrowing and spending to make sure that the money supply and economic growth does not collapse. The U.S. economy is still growing but not nearly at the level that is needed to lower the 9.2% unemployment rate. Yes, by some measures it is even higher. This process of repairing balance sheets takes a long time as Japan as found out. The U.S. could be in this slow growth period for a decade till household feel that their balance sheets are restored. For the record, the size of the U.S. e!

conomy is still $15 trillion (yearly income/production). Households in the U.S carry a debt of $13.8 trillion but have assets that are worth $ 71.9 trillion. Those assets are made up of financial assets amounting to $48.8 trillion and tangible assets adding up to $23 trillion. In other words, despite the high $13.8 trillion in debt, household asset values are enormous. The difference between the two is networth and is currently at $58 trillion. This means that every U.S household has an average networth equal to 3.86 of yearly income (networth/gdp).

The EU issues incidentally also stem from excessive borrowing in the southern nations. Countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain (and even Italy) were not used to low single digit interest rates. After they joined, they could not resist the temptation to borrow. The bills are now coming home. They too will suffer from years of slow growth as they curtail borrowing.

Ehsani on the sectoral mix of the Syrian Economy

The last published figures by the Central Bank were for 2009. The size of the economy then was supposedly $54 Billion.

• Agriculture share = 22%
• Mining and manufacturing (oil) = 25%
• Building and construction = 3%
• Wholesale and retail trade = 23%
• Transport and communication = 10%
• Finance and Insurance = 5%
• Social and personal services = 2%
• Government services = 10%