{"id":9621,"date":"2011-05-07T13:21:09","date_gmt":"2011-05-07T17:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=9621"},"modified":"2011-05-07T16:31:51","modified_gmt":"2011-05-07T20:31:51","slug":"landis-and-seale-on-prosepects-for-a-government-comeback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/landis-and-seale-on-prosepects-for-a-government-comeback\/","title":{"rendered":"Landis and Seale on Prosepects for a Government Comeback"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nAntigovernment protesters gathered Friday after noon prayer in the coastal town of Baniyas, Syria, in a cellphone photo provided by an onlooker.
\nAnthony Shadid gives the best assessment today<\/strong>
\nProtests Across Syria Despite Military Presence<\/a>
\nMay 6, 2011 New York Times<\/p>\n

The worst violence was reported in Homs, Syria\u2019s third largest city, where activists described a chaotic, bloody day, as tanks entered the town. The government said 10 soldiers had been killed there by what it described as \u201cterrorists,\u201d while activists said at least 9 soldiers had defected to their side. Sixteen protesters were killed, they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe answered the call to protest today, but the intelligence forces attacked us right away by opening fire on us,\u201d said a resident in Homs, reached by telephone.<\/p>\n

Another resident there said the security forces fired without provocation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey took us by surprise,\u201d he said by phone, over the sound of gunfire.<\/p>\n

Both sides in the seven-week struggle claimed victories of sorts on Friday. Thousands of demonstrators gathered again in dozens of towns and cities, despite the government\u2019s deployment of security and military forces from the Mediterranean coast to the steppe in southern Syria. But the crackdown seemed to have slowed the force of the protests, and even some of the government\u2019s opponents acknowledged that crowds may have been smaller than on past Fridays.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe protests can\u2019t get the momentum to increase the numbers on the ground, as we saw in Egypt and Tunisia,\u201d said Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian human rights advocate and visiting scholar at George Washington University in Washington. \u201cThe collective punishment of cities, mass arrests and the tactics of snipers have created some fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Bashar al-Assad, who inherited power from his father, Hafez, in 2000, initially claimed that Syria was immune to the tumult sweeping the Arab world. When the uprising erupted in Dara\u2019a, a poor town near the Jordanian border, he initially responded with a mix of crackdown and concessions that proved largely rhetorical. For the past two weeks, the government has relied almost entirely on force to crush dissent, and there appears to be a sense in official circles that the government has gained the upper hand.<\/p>\n

Over the past week, opposition figures said, Butheina Shaaban, an adviser to Mr. Assad, has reached out to some dissidents. One of them, Michel Kilo, said he met with Ms. Shaaban on Thursday and insisted that a dialogue could begin only after an end to the crackdown, recognition of the right to protest and agreement on a political solution to the crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t go to hold dialogue,\u201d he said. \u201cI went to express my opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other opposition figures dismissed the tentative outreach and pointed to the arrests of two government opponents \u2014 Riad al-Seif, a former member of Parliament ailing with prostate cancer who was jailed twice in 2002, and Mouaz al-Khatib, a prominent Muslim cleric. Mr. Khatib was arrested Thursday, and Mr. Seif on Friday, after attending a small protest in the capital, Damascus, outside the Hassan Mosque that was quickly dispersed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are maneuvers,\u201d said Burhan Ghalioun, a Syrian scholar and director of the Center for Contemporary Oriental Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris. \u201cThey are maneuvering, and they are playing with the opposition to try to break its ranks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama administration officials say that while some figures in the Syrian leadership, Ms. Shaaban and Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa among them, seem to favor at least some reform, hard-liners in the leadership are ascendant. In the past two weeks, the military has been deployed in force to Dara\u2019a, Baniyas on the Mediterranean coast and Rastan, a town near Homs. Thousands have been arrested, particularly in Dara\u2019a and towns on the capital\u2019s outskirts.<\/p>\n

But officials say the ire of France and, in particular, Turkey, which had emerged as one of Syria\u2019s closest allies, has worried the Syrian leadership. So has the threat of international action. On Friday, the European Union decided to impose a travel ban and a freeze of assets of 14 Syrian officials, though Mr. Assad was excluded.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government has been saying this will be over in two to three weeks,\u201d an administration official said in Washington. \u201cThey seem to think they have control over the situation, that it\u2019s dying down, but we don\u2019t really understand why they think that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The toll on Friday paled before that of past weeks, especially April 22, when more than 100 people were killed as security forces opened fire on demonstrations across the country…..<\/p><\/blockquote>\n