As Syrians begin to suffer from the lack of food, oil and gas products, they are questioning the wisdom of sanctions, which are a blunt weapon imposed to bring about regime-change and not improve human rights or relieve suffering. A new book on the Iraq sanctions demonstrates how destructive they were to the most vulnerable Iraqis. L.C. Brown, my adviser at Princeton, writes in Foreign Affairs that most studies estimate that “at least 500,000 children under age five who died during the sanctions period would not have died under the Iraqi regime prior to sanctions.” Joy Gordon, the author of the new book, also punctures holes in the argument that the Iraqi suffering was due to the abusive manipulation of the sanctions by the Saddam Hussein regime.This is not to mention that they decrease the likelihood of Syria making a democratic transition in the future.

Haaretz writes that Israeli intelligence believes that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, and several other senior officials were indeed poisoned, just as the Free Syrian Army claims. But prompt medical treatment saved their lives. “There was an attempt to poison Shawkat and the other senior officials, but it failed, and all those who were at the meeting are still alive,” an Israeli official said.

What one fears is political money – an interview with Samir Aita – Read the whole interview – Very good

The regime cannot survive. But what is to be kept in society?

BI: Can you speak some about the impact of international sanctions in Syria? Whom are they affecting?

Aita: They are affecting–in two major ways–the population more than the regime. ….

BI: What is your vision of the exit in Syria and are you optimistic about the opposition?

Aita: These days are very bad days for the opposition. They are very bad days for the Syrian National Council. It became a hope for the uprising for the people inside, but it failed to build democratic rules inside itself.

A few guys controlled the Syrian National Council completely from the beginning. There are [other] oppositions that are weaker. They have been hit first by campaigns of denigration by al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, the Gulf media that supported the SNC, but also they failed on their own [to answer the needs of Syrians].

The opposition is somehow discredited–all of it. The situation is becoming not talking politics but talking weapons; the outcome of this will be determined by the weapons. No one knows who controls the armed opposition and what it wants, except overthrowing the regime. But the question is not only [one of] overthrowing the regime, it is what other regime should be built.

BI: You sound very pessimistic.

Aita: Some other path has to be found, built on international experience with conflict resolution, to get out of this messy thing. The US should be involved, but peacefully not militarily. My information is that the US will not intervene but is encouraging the flow of weapons into Syria. If Syria enters civil war, the image of the US will be [very] bad, like after Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. It brought war, not peace, stability and democracy.-Published 24/5/2012 © bitterlemons-international.org

Samir Aita is a writer, editor in chief of Le Monde Diplomatique Arabic Edition and president of Cercle des Economistes Arabes.

Jihad Yazigi in Bitter Lemons

a reduction in agricultural input subsidies accompanied by a severe drought forced tens of thousands of farmers from their lands and reduced the contribution of agriculture from around 25 percent of GDP to 19 percent in less than a decade.

In addition, in order to respond to its dwindling revenues, the government drastically reduced its investment and spending and applied what in practice was a copy of the structural adjustment programs imposed by the International Monetary Fund on emerging countries. This contraction of the government’s role in the economy was most obvious in rural areas, where the core constituency of the Baath party resided.

In the midst of all these difficulties and state divestment, there was one positive consequence: the government managed to accumulate billions of dollars in foreign currency reserves and save them for future generations, thanks to its short oil boom that lasted most of the 1990s.

This is exactly what Syria is set to lose through the international sanctions imposed on its crude exports. The loss of billions of dollars incurred by the government in the last few months because of the sanctions will render the reconstruction of the country and future investment requirements more difficult to fund.

The issues highlighted above point to the tremendous economic problems faced by Syria’s society. There must, indeed, be no illusions. A happy end to the current protest movement, including the establishment of a democratic political system, will not mean an end to Syria’s economic woes. Syrians must recognize the challenges ahead and adopt a new economic strategy that puts economic development and employment at its center.

-Published 24/5/2012 © bitterlemons-international.org – Jihad Yazigi is the editor of the Syria Report.

Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions
Joy Gordon

“The devastation of much of Iraqi society between 1990 and 2003 through [UN economic] sanctions … is a story that has been buried for the most part under layer on layer of diplomatic technicalities, obfuscation and sheer indifference … Her book deserves to be read and discussed widely.” —Eric Herring, Times Higher Education – In a powerful, original book, Gordon offers the most sophisticated and comprehensive analysis of the origins, administration, and impact of the Iraq sanctions regime. This is a damning account of how international administration was used by the U.S. and the UK for policy ends. Despite the rhetoric of humanitarianism, the sanctions were, in Gordon’s term, a humanitarian catastrophe.

This profoundly troubling story about U.S. foreign policy under three administrations reveals the shameful manner in which the United States relentlessly subverted the UN sanctions regime for Iraq, twisting it toward a purpose not approved by the Security Council. It is time Americans knew of the cruelty inflicted on Iraqis in our name behind closed doors at the UN in one of the morally most disastrous foreign policy decisions in American history. Gordon has documented it, calmly, courageously, meticulously, and convincingly.
–Henry Shue, University of Oxford, author of Basic Rights

She reports, most studies estimate that “at least 500,000 children under age five who died during the sanctions period would not have died under the Iraqi regime prior to sanctions.” She also punctures holes in the argument that the Iraqi suffering was due to the abusive manipulation of the sanctions by the Saddam Hussein regime. –L. Carl Brown (Foreign Affairs )

Provocative and sure to stir debate, this book lays bare the damage that can be done by unchecked power in our institutions of international governance.

Foreign Policy

As the United Nations’ observer mission has neared its full deployment of 300 monitors, international envoy Kofi Annan is preparing to travel to Syria to meet with the government to discuss the failing peace plan. The mission’s mandate is for 90 days and is set to expire in July. However, demonstrations and extensive violence continue throughout the country. Protesters took to the streets after Friday prayers in Damascus, Homs, Hama, Aleppo, and Deir el-Zour. According to the activist Local Coordination Committees, about 40 civilians were killed across Syria Thursday, and eight more on Friday. Prominent opposition member, Brigadier General Aqil Hashem, spoke to Britain’s House of Commons Thursday, appealing for an international intervention, in the form of targeted air strikes, to halt the fighting in Syria. His comments, however, highlighted the increasing divisions within the opposition. Meanwhile, Syria’s diplomatic mission in New York has been prevented from opening a bank account, and has complained that the United States, as the host country of the United Nations, is adopting “discriminatory” practices.

Russian arms shipment en route to Syria: report
By Louis Charbonneau | Fri May 25, 2012

Reuters) – A Russian cargo ship loaded with weapons is en route to Syria and due to arrive at a Syrian port this weekend, Al Arabiya television said in a report that Western diplomats in New York described on Friday as credible.

Syria is one of Russia’s top weapons customers. The United States and European Union have suggested the U.N. Security Council should impose an arms embargo and other U.N. sanctions on Syria for its 14-month assault on a pro-democracy opposition determined to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But Russia, with the support of fellow veto power China, has prevented the council from imposing any U.N. sanctions on Syria and has refused to halt arms sales to Damascus….. Western diplomats and officials said the report was credible.

In a letter to the U.N. Security Council, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he had seen reports of countries supplying arms to the government and rebels. He urged states not to arm either side in the Syrian conflict.

“Those who may contemplate supporting any side with weapons, military training or other military assistance, must reconsider such options to enable a sustained cessation of violence,” he said.

Russia has defended its weapons deliveries to Syria in the face of Western criticism, saying government forces need to defend themselves against rebels receiving arms from abroad. [ID:nL5E8GEE2G] Damascus says Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Libya are among the countries helping the rebels…..

Israel steps up security ties with China
Associated Press, by Josef Federman – May 25, 2012

JERUSALEM — After a prolonged chill, security ties between Israel and China are warming up. With Israel offering much-needed technical expertise and China representing a huge new market and influential voice in the international debate over Iran’s nuclear program, the two nations have stepped up military cooperation as they patch up a rift caused by a pair of failed arms deals scuttled by the U.S...

(Reuters) – Syria is struggling to meet its grain import needs because of sanctions, raising the risk of bread shortages.
By Jonathan Saul and Michael Hogan. Fri May 25, 2012

Trade sources said a reluctance among foreign banks, shipowners and grain traders to sell to import-dependent Syria – even though food is not itself subject to sanctions – has forced Damascus into an array of unusually small deals, many arranged by shadowy middlemen around the Middle East and Asia.

“The main producer regions are very much at the centre of the civil war and although it is difficult to evaluate the impact this will have on the harvest, a significant disruption seems certain,” the firm said in its latest report last week.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, a benchmark for global grains traders, estimated last year’s wheat harvest at 3.85 million tonnes and barley at 700,000 tonnes. It estimates total annual grains consumption in Syria at 6.9 million tonnes.

U.N. officials have estimated at least a million Syrians need help with food and other essentials but have failed to agree a supply deal because the Syrian government wants to have control of the distribution of the aid.

“Food security of vulnerable populations in Syria is currently fragile,” said World Food Programme spokeswoman Abeer Etefa. “Overall poverty levels are also increasing and access to basic supplies and services is deteriorating.”….

“The middle men are driving this trade and can make serious money. Syria is making cash payments in euros or dollars through foreign exchange bureaux in places like Lebanon and the middle men will make the transactions from their accounts,” one trade source said. “They need to conceal deals.”

Private entrepreneurs, many previously unknown to major traders and based in Lebanon, Turkey, India and elsewhere, have been appearing to make purchases on the international market.

One Middle Eastern grain trader said the unusually small vessels arriving at Syrian ports with shipments of grain a fraction the size of a normally commercially viable shipment was an indication that Syria was losing the trust of major operators.

“Syria is in big trouble and can no longer call the shots on terms and conditions,” the trader said. “So they will try and take whatever they can even on tiny vessels.”

Port and ship tracking data, indicated three ships this week docked at Tartous carrying respectively from Turkey, Ukraine and Egypt: 27,000 tonnes of wheat; 8,000 tonnes of soybean; and a cargo of animal feed of 2,000 tonnes. Typical commercial grains cargoes are around 60,000 tonnes apiece.

Further up the Mediterranean coast at Latakia, Syria’s main general cargo port, just a single vessel, carrying less than 10,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat from the Black Sea port of Mikolaiv, or Nikolayev, made a delivery in the past two days.

HARVEST FORECASTS SLASHED

In better times, Syria has been a net exporter of grain. But intensive, state-sponsored production drives since the 1990s have drained the water table in areas like the Hauran plain, where the uprising began last year in the southern city Deraa among a population hit hard by drought and crop blight.

On Friday, an Agriculture Ministry official gave estimated harvest figures for this year that were a quarter lower than targets cited by the state news agency SANA. A production forecast of 3.7 million tonnes of wheat and 843,000 tonnes of barley compared to targets of 4.6 and 1.6 million respectively.

Independent analysts suggest state statistics may be optimistic. Influential French forecaster Strategie Grains said it had slashed its harvest estimate for Syria’s 2012 crop for soft and durum wheat by 900,000 tonnes to 2.5 million tonnes. That compared with a harvest of 3.3 million tonnes in 2011.

Divided Syrian Opposition to Choose New Leader
By: Khaled Yacoub Oweis | Reuters

The main Syrian National Council opposition group said it had accepted the resignation of its president, setting the stage for a showdown between the powerful Muslim Brotherhood and its political rivals over who will be the new leader.

Top Assad intelligence official said killed
march 27th:

Opposition sources said Col. Iyad Mando was killed in an ambush by Sunni rebels on March 26 near Damascus International Airport. They said Mando, identified as commander of a key unit in Air Force Intelligence, was shot to death after a rebel search that lasted several months [...]
Reports of Mando’s death were published on several opposition web sites. The Assad regime did not confirm the reports.

Love in the Time of Syrian Revolution
Justin Vela – Thursday, May 24, 2012 – The Atlantic

A story of two young students, torn apart by one of the world’s most brutal regimes and reunited by the uprising against it

When Farah said goodnight to her boyfriend one evening in January 2007, she had every reason to expect to see him the next day. Though she’d only been dating Omar for a month, the two students at Syria’s Damascus University already shared a special connection. Their first date had been over coffee. Soon, they were wearing matching clothes. “See you tomorrow,” they told each other that evening. But that “tomorrow” would not come for five turbulent years…..He was angry, he told me. He had been tortured, his family virtually deserted him, and classmates informed on him. He wanted to “hurt” the regime. Compiling the reports were one of the few ways he could use its crimes against it.

“That’s the maximum that we could do,” Omar said of the reports. “There was no revolution. You were alone.”

When Omar met Farah, she, like most Syrians, was working neither for nor against the regime. He cared for her, but knew that bringing her into his activist world would put her unfairly at risk. So, when he disappeared, she had no way to know what had happened. “She was upset because she thought I had left her with no words,” Omar said. ….

Farah knew nothing of Omar’s life as an activist, his time in prison, or his struggle to find meaning until, four years after their last conversation, she flipped on the London-based Syrian satellite news station Barada TV and saw an interviewer discussing Syria’s burgeoning revolution with her one-time boyfriend. “It was a shock to see him on TV,” Farah said. “I was happy to know that he is a real activist and I said to everyone that he is my boyfriend, although me and my friends called him a bastard before and it was illegal to mention his name in front of me. But his attitude towards the revolution made me forgive him.”….

When Farah called him the next day, Omar did not answer. She looked for him in the dormitory and asked his friends, but no one would tell her where he was. She began to suspect that Omar, who was several years older and claimed to occasionally “travel,” had been playing games with their relationship. “I was angry, hated him a lot, and did not forgive him,” she recalled.

What she only learned later was that, in the early hours of the morning, eight Kalashnikov-wielding mukhabarat state police had arrested Omar in an Internet café where he had been chatting on MSN with a Syrian opposition member outside the country and e-mailing reports on detained students to international human rights organizations and Western embassies. At the time, Farah didn’t know he was involved in opposition activities, which had gotten him arrested before. Omar had so internalized his awareness of the regime’s reach that he’d kept this part of his life even from her.

“He never told me that he had been arrested, but I noticed that he had ideas [that were] anti-regime from his speech,” Farah told me after we first met in Istanbul this past February. “But in general he was a cold man that did not express everything to me.” His demeanor could be so cool, she said, that she and her friends would teasingly call him “Iceman.”

Omar was released from the feared Sednaya prison in 2008, having completed most of his three-year sentence. He looked for Farah, but she no longer lived in the university dorms, and he’d kept touch with few mutual friends who might be able to help. His time was also short. State security forces had kept his identity documents, which would only be returned when he reported for compulsory military service. But Omar had resolved to never join in service of the brutal regime of Bashar al-Assad. He needed to go underground and assume a new identity, and quickly, even if that meant leaving Farah behind.

Syrian Crisis Spreads to Lebanon, Carnegie

Paul Salem argues that the international community needs to recognize the danger of using Lebanon as a proxy battle for another Arab country.

Uneasy New Players in a Precarious Lebanon
by Rudy Sassine

Recent events in Lebanon have reinforced a widespread belief that civil war is imminent. As the uprising in Syria has spilled over to the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, with clashes erupting between Alawites and Sunnis, and a number of Salafist factions turning increasingly belligerent after the arrest of one of their militant members by general security agents, some have begun to wonder how long Beirut will remain immune to the kind of sectarian conflagrations that will pit Sunnis against Shiites and plunge much of the country into mayhem.

There is no doubt that the answer lies in a number of interrelated domestic and regional factors. Key factors determining the course of events in Lebanon are Hizballah’s alignments with the Assad regime’s interests in addition to its domestic electoral calculations in anticipation of Lebanon’s 2013 parliamentary elections….

Charles Glass in the National
May 23, 2012

The rebellion against tyranny is turning into a sectarian and class war that could destroy Syria for a generation and drive out those with the talent, education or money to thrive elsewhere. Neither side speaks of conciliation. The end game for both requires the destruction of the other. Foreign backers appear to encourage confrontation, when they should seek agreement to save Syria from the fate of its neighbours Lebanon and Iraq.

Colonial threads combine to strangle a sectarian Syria
The National 23/5/12

Twenty-five years ago, I travelled by land through what geographers called Greater Syria to write a book. I began in Alexandretta, the seaside northern province that France ceded to Turkey in 1939, on my way south through modern Syria to Lebanon. From there, my intended route went through Israel and Jordan. My destination was Aqaba, the first Turkish citadel of Greater Syria to surrender to the Arab revolt and Lawrence of Arabia in 1917. For various reasons, my journey was curtailed in Beirut in June 1987. (I returned to complete the trip and a second book in 2002.)

Beyond Bashar, Syria’s Rebels Are Facing Far More Significant Resistance
By: Charles Rizk | The Daily Star

the Iranian leadership still unreservedly supports its Syrian counterparts again the domestic uprising. On July 15, 2011, Iran and Syria signed a $10 billion gas agreement. And soon thereafter, in August, Tehran allocated $23 million for the development of the Syrian base in Latakia. Fighters from the Iranian Al-Quds militia have also taken part in the repression, alongside a Syrian force generously supplied with Iranian weapons.

Today, it is this powerful Iranian-Syrian bloc, with its Iraqi extension, that is covering Bashar Assad’s back and confronting the Syrian rebels. That explains the regime’s capacity for endurance and its indifference to international pressure. This indifference is all the more pronounced in that it is sustained by the backing of Russia, which has been able to reconstitute itself and stage a strong comeback in the Middle East by taking advantage of events in Syria….

For Russia, the restoration of the state and the domestic economy is a precursor to restoring its influence worldwide. This determination, coinciding with the revolt in Syria, gave Putin the opportunity to display his country’s new diplomatic assertiveness. Russian intransigence over Syria could be explained by the fact that the relationship with Damascus is all that remains from the Soviet era, which were built on three pillars: Egypt, Iraq and Syria.

…. In 2010, Moscow signed an arms contract with Damascus worth $700 million. This was followed by the delivery of Yak-130 aircraft worth $550 million.

The inflexible Russian position on Syria in recent months has also reflected a general sense of unease towards the United States, notably since NATO began installing an anti-missile shield stretching from Poland to Romania, at Russia’s doorstep.

… If Western objections to the indefensible character of the Assad regime carry little weight in Moscow, it is because they are taken out of context. Russia is not worried about Assad; it is largely indifferent to his personal fate and to the nature of his regime. What counts most for Moscow is to impose a multilateralism that turns to its advantage, on the ruins of America’s global hegemony.

The main factor driving the convergence of views on Syria between Russia and China at the Security Council is China’s mainly economic interest in Iran, the third main source of oil for China. This situation assumes even greater importance in that international sanctions on the export of Iranian oil have made the Chinese market indispensable for the Iranians. If China decides not to go along with these sanctions, its share of Iranian trade will grow and Beijing will benefit from highly advantageous prices. Iran’s objective, as announced by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in September 2010, is to raise the level of this trade to $100 billion by 2015.

China, Russia and Iran support for Bashar Assad makes a Western military intervention in Syria impossible, given the likely catastrophic repercussions for all concerned. In the eyes of this coalition, Assad is a tool and pretext. He is the façade against which the courage of the insurgents will continue to collide as long as Russia and its allies on the one side, and the United States and its allies on the other, fail to dispassionately settle their differences, therefore reach agreement over their contending interests, through negotiations.

Is there really a Saudi – Turkish divide?
25/05/2012, By Adel Al Toraifi. As-Sharq al-Awsat

….What about the Syrian crisis? Anybody observing the Saudi-Turkish talks must realize that they are in perfect harmony regarding the necessity of ousting Bashar al-Assad. One side may be issuing stronger statements than the other, but practically speaking, there is no difference between their view and handling of the crisis. As for the claims that Saudi Arabia and Turkey are making different demands of Syria, this discourse is lacking in evidence. Of course, there are differences, but we have not seen Saudi Arabia or Turkey backing one opposition party over another. Of course, the Muslim Brotherhood constitutes an overwhelming majority of the Syrian opposition abroad, however this is in accordance with the fact that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood is the largest established political party for Syrians abroad, therefore it is not wise to disregard it when considering the forthcoming period.

Developing Saudi – Turkish relations is important, because there is more that unites these two countries than divides them. However, like bilateral relations between any countries, the language of interests is the natural gauge regarding rapprochement. Of course, there are natural differences between the two countries, but to describe them as “frenemies” is an over-exaggeration.

NetApp Investigated by U.S. on Syria Surveillance System Sale
2012-05-25,   By Ben Elgin and Vernon Silver

May 25 (Bloomberg) — U.S. regulators are investigating how a multi-million-dollar storage system from NetApp Inc. came to underpin a sweeping Internet-surveillance system being built last year for the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad….

NetApp Investigated by U.S. on Syria Surveillance System Sale
2012-05-25 13:23:37.883 GMT

By Ben Elgin and Vernon Silver
May 25 (Bloomberg) — U.S. regulators are investigating how
a multi-million-dollar storage system from NetApp Inc. came to
underpin a sweeping Internet-surveillance system being built
last year for the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Ghalioun has been a success. He represents the best that Syrians living abroad have to offer. He is a deeply cultured and honest man, who could not put his heart into the military option that the opposition is now pursuing. However, he was able to give an inspiring and intelligent face to the Syrian revolution, one that the West and many Syrians living in the West needed to see  in order to get organized and throw their weight behind the international effort to condemn the Assad regime and make the decision to isolate and sanction it. He played a tremendously important role in mobilizing international opinion behind the revolutionary effort. No one can minimize the importance of that achievement.

The fact that Syrians inside distrust those outside the country is perhaps natural, but it is also a product of years of indoctrination, xenophobia and anti-Westernism that has been preached by the Baath Party. It is unfair to blame only the Baath. Arab nationalism as a movement has preached distrust of the West and those Arabs who have lived in the West for decades. That ideology is coming back to haunt the revolutionary movement today.  It will be very hard for Syrians living in the West to gain the trust of those inside the country. The Assad regime has driven or expelled many of the best and brightest from the country. It has then denigrated them as traitors and agents of the West.

The center of gravity of the opposition has now moved to the fighters and coordinators inside Syria. The SNC needs a major overhaul to preserve its usefulness and regain its public support. By stepping down, Burhan Ghalioun is demonstrating that not all Syrian leaders must cling to power in the face of opposition. He should be championed for what he is: a man who has sought to do the best he could in an extremely difficult situation. He has been a beacon of reason and champion of democracy for decades and his is living by his word.

The Assef Shawkat controversy continues to gain traction. Was he assassinated? Not since JR of Dallas fame, has murder been so mysterious and talked about. Chances are, however, that he is alive and kicking. Assef Shawkat’s town-folks deny that he is dead, according to the on-line news site, “Syria Politic.” When their journalist, called people in the town, townfolks laughed at the news, claiming that they don’t even have a tradition of raising a black flag for the dead. Opposition sources claimed that the people of Madhale had raised a black flag for him. The townsfolk interviewed by Syria Politic say the news about his death is bunkum. This doesn’t prove much, but it does suggest that opposition members who write about the assassination are making parts of the story up.

Those who argue that the fact that he hasn’t come on TV to denounce the story is proof of his death forget that the last time there were rumors about Shawkat’s demise – that he was under house arrest and that this wife had fled to Dubai - the rumors were false, but Assef never went on TV to denounce the rumors. The rumors persisted from February to August of 2008. Friends of mine had a chalet on the beach next to his, where he was frequently seen swimming with his wife and children.

Cooking gas is just not available in Aleppo, as I reported a few days ago. The energy minister is finally admitting that sanctions are killing them. For the longest time, they blustered about finding other buyers and sources.

 Antoine writes in the comment section of my commentary of the SNC and external opposition:

Nothing can be more insulting to the “real” Syrian opposition, Dr. Landis. The Syrian opposition, unlike the oppositions of someother authoritarian regimes, is almost totally locally based, with a very, very strong grassroots presence.

The Syrian opposition is NOT the SNC, the Syrian opposition is certainly not the NCB, the Syrian opposition is not some Ahmad Chalabi-like scam artists, the Syrian opposition is not a Masoud Rajavi’s MKO or PLO / PFLP -like external terrorist group.

The Syrian opposition is Abdel Razzaq Tlass, it is Khaled Abu Salah, it is Abdel baset Sarout, Captain Qais Qataaneh, and Lieutenant Khabir. It is the people who bring out every week’s edition of Oxygen (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/22/syria-local-newspapers-revolution) in Zabadani. It is the thousands of young men and women who chant in Aleppo University, and the millions of faceless individuals who bare their chests to bullets every day. It is the people Martin Chulov writes about in Guardian.

The Syrian Revolution is NOT SNC. Let me say this on record, and this the view of 90 % of the people in FSA and the LCCs. The Syrian Revolution is not even Riad al Asaad and other officers cooling their heels in Turkey.

Dr. Landis pretends as if the LCCs don’t even exist. He only sees suited individuals like Ghalioun and Kodmani and Manaa and Abdulhamid and some other names as “the Opposition.” and most of his posts on SC have a strong bias in showing these individuals as “Opposition” and ignoring to a very large extent the Local Coordination Comittee activists and the FSA foot-soldiers.

Fortunately, the Western media has focused on the grassroots local opposition and not these external non-oppositions….

Subject: (NS8) Ya Libnan: Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat
Ya Libnan: Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat buried, report
2012-05-23

According to anti-Syrian regime activists, President Bashar al-Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat who was Syria’s deputy defense minister was buried on Wednesday in his hometown, which they identified as Madhale, near the …

قرية “المدحلة” تنفي وفاة آصف شوكت..وتسخر من قصة رفع الأعلام السوداء
23 مايو 2012 -  PM : سيريا بوليتيك

آصف شوكت في مدارس أبناء الشهداء عام 2010

نفى أهالي قرية “المدحلة” في “ريف طرطوس” رفعهم الأعلام السوداء، كما نفوا وفاة العماد آصف شوكت نائب وزير الدفاع، بحسب عدد من مراسلي “سيريا بوليتيك” الذين اتصلوا ببعض أبناء القرية. وكانت مواقع معارضة، إضافة إلى مواقع إخبارية عربية، زعمت أن قرية المدحلة، التي ينحدر منها شوكت، رفعت الأعلام السوداء حدادا على وفاته بعد أن وصل من دمشق بحوامة إلى طرطوس، حيث تم إفراغ مشفى الباسل من المرضى بالكامل

Foreign Policy: Wednesday

Up to 25 people were killed across Syria on Tuesday. Government troops bombarded the central city of Rastan on Wednesday, shelling at the rate of “one shell a minute.” Additionally, a bombing in Damascus killed five people. According to Syrian authorities, the bomb hit a police station. However photos indicate that in fact a restaurant was targeted. Meanwhile, the kidnapping of 11 to 13 Lebanese Shiite pilgrims near Aleppo has raised fears that the Syrian conflict is spreading into Lebanon, and has aggravated sectarian tensions in Beirut. The Lebanese pilgrims were traveling from Iran when their bus was intercepted. The Syrian government and opposition have traded accusations over the abductions. Hezbollah has said that it has been in communication with a Syrian fundamentalist group that has promised the release of the pilgrims.

A bomb planted under a military bus exploded Wednesday near the Damascus airport, killing one soldier and wounding 23 others, a military official at the site said on condition of anonymity under army rules. Anti-regime activist reported government rocket attacks on parts of the central city of Homs and clashes between rebels and government troops in the central town of Rastan, outside of Damascus and elsewhere.

Egypt holds elections today. Many voters say the election is not about religion or politics, but rather “who can put food on the table.” Egyptians must count themselves lucky to be settling their disputes in the fairer manner.

Fox News: Sanctions on Syria have cost country $4 billion, oil minister says
2012-05-23

DAMASCUS, Syria – Syria’s oil minister acknowledged the heavy toll international sanctions have taken on the country’s oil sector, saying Wednesday that they had sucked about $4 billion from the economy.

Sufian Allaw said the sanctions levied by the United States and the European Union to put pressure on President Bashar Assad were to blame for the shortages that have left Syrians across the country standing in long lines to pay inflated prices for cooking gas and other products.

Allaw’s comments are part of a delicate rhetorical balancing act by the Damascus regime 14 months into the crisis that has posed the biggest threat to Assad family rule in four decades. The regime must acknowledge that international measures are squeezing the populace while denying that Assad’s control of the country has been shaken.

Before the Syrian uprising began in March 2011, the oil sector was a pillar of Syria’s economy, with oil exports — mostly to Europe — bringing in $7-8 million per day, according to David Schenker of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. This income was key to maintaining the $17 billion in foreign reserves that the government had at the start of the uprising.

Speaking to reporters in Damascus Wednesday, Allaw said sanctions had cost Syria’s oil sector about $4 billion. Prices for a tank of cooking gas have more than quadrupled as shortages have spread across the country, and Allaw said Syria’s gas production covers only half of the country’s needs.

To fill the gap, officials are seeking imports from countries not party to the sanctions. A Venezuelan tanker carrying 35,000 tons of fuel docked in Syria on Tuesday, Allaw said. Another is supposed to follow. He said officials were seeking to arrange further gas imports from Algeria and Iran..

أثرياء حلب يواجهون أزمة الغاز بالوجبات السريعة والفقراء بالكاز وسرقة الكهرباء

تاريخ المقال: 2012-05-23

واجه سكان مدينة حلب من الأثرياء أزمة الغاز بالاعتماد على الوجبات السريعة الجاهزة، التي زاد الطلب عليها بمقدار الضعف، في حين اعتمد الفقراء على الكاز والتيار الكهربائي «المسروق» للحد من اتكالهم على المادة في المطبخ المنزلي لقناعتهم بأن الأزمة آخذة بالتصاعد مستشهدين بقول أحد المسؤولين المعنيين «دبروا راسكم

.

Feltman Leaving Key Post

Yesterday, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East was reported to be stepping down from his post to take on a senior role at the United Nations (potentially as deputy to UN chief Ban Ki-moon). It is unclear when Feltman will step down or who will replace him, but with Hillary Clinton also leaving the administration at the end of this term, it looks like U.S. policy toward the Middle East will undergo a significant change next year, regardless of who wins the election.

Syria’s downtrodden flock to Lebanon for work By Erika Solomon and Laila Bassam
BEIRUT | Wed May 23, 2012

(Reuters) – Huddled under Beirut’s concrete bridges and around street corners are thousands of Syrian men who have left home and crossed the border in recent months in the hope of finding work as day laborers.

From 13-year-old schoolboys to limping elderly men, most of them represent impoverished families from Syria’s rural regions who are suffering the brunt of a deepening economic crisis as a 14-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad drags on.

“We could barely buy a pack of bread. We’re suffering from hunger, so I had to come here and do whatever I can,” said Mohammed Mahou, 23, a father of three from an eastern farming town called al-Qamishli.

Syrians who once headed for day work in Aleppo and Damascus have found construction projects halted. Farmers like Mahou say they are unable to work their fields because prices of fertilizer have risen sharply and some areas are unsafe to farm. Meanwhile, prices for basic food staples in Syria have nearly tripled, they say….

Analysis: Rifts widen in Syrian opposition
By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

AMMAN | Mon May 21, 2012 6:56pm EDT
(Reuters) – A power struggle within Syria’s main opposition group is pitting Islamists against secular politicians and exiled leaders against activists at home, further undermining its claim to be an alternative to President Bashar al-Assad.

Fourteen months into an uprising, the squabbling in the Syrian National Council makes it even less likely to be able to win international recognition or to get more than half-hearted foreign support against Assad. On the ground, the council shows no sign of exerting control as grassroots activists organize protests themselves and rebel fighters operate under nobody’s orders but their own.

More than anything, critics say, the disarray within the opposition mirrors the chaos of Syria itself. “You have a classic situation in the SNC, not much different from the four-decade old totalitarian Assad family rule the uprising aims to topple,” said veteran opposition figure Fawaz Tello.

The internal conflicts have come to a head over the position of Burhan Ghalioun, who offered to step down as leader of the 313-member council last week if a replacement can be found – not that there is guarantee one will be. Some critics brand the 67-year-old liberal sociologist a stooge of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and say he was chosen because he would attract Western support.

Some criticize him for monopolizing the position of council leader, which is meant to rotate every three months. Others fault him for failing to back the armed rebellion against Assad.

“DYING”

“Burhan Ghalioun: the Syrian National Council is dying… We accept your resignation,” read placards at an anti-Assad rally in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor on Friday. There are signs that foreign patience with the council is running thin too. That does not bode well for the opposition’s chances of getting diplomatic or military support. The Western and Arab countries which recognized Libyan rebels within weeks of them taking up arms against Muammar Gaddafi are still holding back when it comes to Syria.

A military source in France, one of Assad’s most vocal opponents, said the opposition needed to be better organized. “We don’t have that and now it’s playing into the hands of Islamist groups and making it even more difficult for the opposition to organize itself,” the French source said.

The first step is sorting out the leadership position and the Islamists who dominate the council say they are trying to convince Ghalioun to stay on. “If he insists on leaving it will be time to convene the whole council and choose a new leadership on every level,” said Mulhem Droubi, a high-level Muslim Brotherhood official.

Ghalioun is well-connected with France and with Qatar so may still be as close as possible to a consensus figure. But counting against Ghalioun is opposition from inside Syria because of his skepticism over armed resistance by majority Sunni Muslims to the rule of Assad, who is from the minority Alawite sect.

“The rift between the SNC and those inside is growing,” said Yasser Saadeldine, an opposition leaning commentator living in the Gulf. “Ghalioun lacks charisma and he has not embraced armed struggle after Assad killed thousands of his peaceful opponents.”

A senior member of the Free Syrian Army rebel group said Ghalioun was not even “in the equation” but did acknowledge that the Islamists who support him were trying to build serious links with the rebels.

Another candidate for leader could be George Sabra, who came second to Ghalioun in the last leadership vote. Sabra is an ally of Syria’s top dissident Riad al-Turk, an 81-year-old former leftist who spent 25 years as a political prisoner and operates underground inside Syria. The Islamists might also put forward another candidate of their own.

BIGGER CHANGE

But demands are growing for a more radical change than simply a new leader. “There is an elite in the SNC who have brought their own cohorts into the council. They will essentially re-elect themselves unless the SNC is seriously restructured,” said Tello, jailed for five years after a brief period of openness in 200, when Assad inherited power from his father.

Critics say the council needs to better articulate its policy on a U.N. and Arab League peace plan that envisages talks with the authorities on a transition, but not removing Assad’s family or dismantling the police state. Some believe the council will fall apart if it does not undergo a radical overhaul.

“The SNC is on the verge of collapse unless it becomes representative of the whole opposition,” said Rima Fleihan, a human rights campaigner who quit the SNC last year. “It needs to become democratic from A to Z. What is needed now is a broad opposition meeting to escape the vicious cycle of infighting and division.”

How Washington Lost Syria
By Gary C. Gambill
Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) E-note, May 2012

With the failure of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to broker a ceasefire in Syria, Western policymakers and pundits are increasingly coming to acknowledge that the country’s descent into civil war is all but inevitable. But this begs the question of when and why it became so. Was it a foregone conclusion when the uprising against President Bashar Assad began last year?

Civil war was always the most likely end to the saga. Syria is the only majority Sunni Muslim country of the modern era to be governed by a largely heterodox Muslim elite, a peculiar historical anomaly that Daniel Pipes likens to “an untouchable becoming maharajah in India or a Jew becoming Tsar in Russia.”[1] The Alawite-dominated Assad regime survived for over four decades in the heart of the Sunni Arab Levant in much the same way that Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led government endured in the heart of the Shiite Crescent—through brute force. As Iraq’s recent history illustrates, minoritarian autocracies cannot be peacefully unmade.

If there was a window of opportunity for avoiding a full-blown civil war, it came early in the uprising,….

Palestinian writer describes Syrian prisons as ‘slaughterhouses’
Associated Press – May 23, 2012

AMMAN // A prominent Palestinian writer who spent nearly three weeks in jail in Syria described the prisons as “human slaughterhouses”, saying security agents beat detainees with batons, crammed them into stinking cells and tied them to beds at night.

World not doing enough for Syria, says Turkey’s president
22 May 2012

AFP reports: The international community is not doing enough to help resolve the Syrian crisis, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Tuesday as he urged an orderly transition to democracy. “The international community as whole has so far performed poorly in providing an effective response to the crisis at hand,” Gul said in a public address [...]

UN Observers Concede Presence of Terrorist Groups in Syria

UN peacekeeping observers have acknowledged the presence of terrorist groups in Syria, which are hindering the peace process between the government and the opposition, China’s Xinhua agency has reported, quoting UN peacekeeping head Herve Ladsous.

“We know that there are … a third party (of the conflict), terrorist groups, who are trying to gain advantage for themselves… but we have to see this as an issue within Syria, between the Syrians,” Ladsous said at a news conference held in Damascus.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said that foreign fighters, some of them Al-Qaeda members, are fighting in extremist groups operating in Syria. Ladsous added that 270 observers are working in six cities across Syria. According to him, observers will arrive in four more cities. {…}

Why Assad shouldn’t worry about NATO
By Elise Labott

As NATO leaders discuss the winding down of its 10-year war in Afghanistan and pat themselves on the back for helping in the bloody ouster of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, there is one increasingly deadly conflict that is taboo for the alliance to even think about wading into: Syria.

Practically every NATO leader has publicly condemned the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and called for him to step down and make way for a democratic transition in Syria. Yet U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder said Sunday that not one leader even raised the issue of Syria during the opening day of the summit.

While saying NATO is “very much concerned about the situation of Syria,” NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen made clear the alliance has “no intention whatsoever to intervene.”

NATO’s radio silence has prompted criticism among human rights groups and on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers for question why the alliance supported military intervention in Libya but has ruled out similar action in Syria. One congressional source called the refusal to even talk about the issue “pretty shocking.”…

A couple of friends were invited to a conference last week to present the perspective of the Iranian opposition about the current situation in Iran. They told me that during their talk at the conference they lambasted the sanctions policy and told the attendants that sanctions are counterproductive and detrimental to the middle class in Iran and the opposition’s social base. When a State Department representative asked them “What do you expect us to do for Iran?” they said “Lift the sanctions. That would be the best thing you can do for Iran!”

My Iranian friends at the conference explained that one of the US diplomats said that the US priority in Iran is not human rights violations and not public opinion in Iran. Rather, the diplomat insisted that Washington’s main concern was Iran’s nuclear program, its impact on the security of Israel, and avenues for regime-change. He mentioned Pakistan as an example where regime-change is no longer possible because of its nuclear capabilities. The US diplomat added that regime-change causes instability which is dangerous in the case of a country with nuclear capabilities. So time is running out for regime-change in Iran. This triggered a quarrel between some of the Iranians and the speaker to the effect that one of the prominent opposition leaders retorted that the US should have no role in changing the regime and that it should be the choice solely for the Iranian people. He went on to ask that if the US was not concerned with human rights in Iran “why did you invite us here in the first place”! He said that we have been insisting that the human rights should be the central issue, however your strategic concern is the nuclear program.

Syria faces the same dilemma as Iran. Anti-Assad activists designed and lobbied for the sanctions imposed on Syria by the West. They wanted to undermine the regime and create an environment of crisis in the country with the aim of toppling the regime. With foreign powers unwilling to commit their air-forces, as they had in Libya, sanctions seemed like the best and only avenue open to Syrian activists and anti-Assad policy makers in the West.

The problem with sanctions is two fold. First they undercut the opposition almost as much as they do the regime. The mainstay of the opposition is the rural middle-class and poorer sections of the urban centers.  These are the people who sanctions are hurting the most because the government can no longer provide  fuel and food for subsidized prices, as it used to. Shortages and inflation will hurt the poorer groups within the Syrian population most. These are the groups most likely to support the opposition, but they will be least able to afford to fight, which is expensive. Foreign payments and subsidies, such as those promised by Saudi Arabia to the opposition can pick up the slack and begin to shift the balance of power away from the government and military and toward the opposition, but the money will have to come in large quantities. Saudi Arabia must effectively feed the Syrian opposition and its families before fighters will spend the money on arms. Few fighters will buy arms with foreign money before feeding their families.

The second major drawback of sanctions is that they destroy the middle class and standard of living for most Syrians, just as they undermine national institutions. The healthcare system, roads, schools, etc. will deteriorate quickly, as they did in Iraq. Without a strong middle class, the future chances of democracy diminish. As the per-capita GDP declines so do the chances that democracy can be established or survive. Iraq is faced with a generation of youth that is largely uneducated because of the impact of sanctions and the collapse of national institutions, including the educational system. The only social indicators that came close to predicting success in transitions to democracy are wealth per capita and the median age of the society. The richer the population and older the population, the greater its chances of making a successful transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Syria, unfortunately, has low per-capita wealth and a very young population  making it a very bad prospect for democracy. The average age of a Syrian is 21 years old. Tunisia is 30. Egypt is 25 and Libya 26. Yemen is the only Arab country with worse prospects for a democratic transition than Syria. Its average age is 17. According to a recent study by demographer Richard Cincotta of the Stimson Center in Washington DC, “Autocracies with a median population age of over 30 years old are most likely to become liberal democracies.”

The explanation usually offered by political scientists for why income and age predict success with democratic transitions  is that older and wealthier populations tend to be associated with mature, complex societies. As societies mature and acquire the institutions and infrastructures of developed nations – urbanization, higher income, women’s rights and education to name a few – birth rates tend to drop, the median age goes up, and incomes and literacy increase. All these factors reinforce each-other to suggest higher percentage success with cultivating and maintaining democratic institutions and culture.

If the crisis in Syria drags on for a long time, sanctions will have a very negative effect on all aspects of Syrian life. Yes, they will hurt the government and create a pervasive sense of crisis and regime failure, but they will have many other negative effects as well, such as plunging income levels, which will diminish Syria’s chances of becoming a democracy and getting rid of dictatorship.

News Round Up

Syrian rebels cling to bullets and hope
22 May 2012 by Martin Chulov in Jebel al-Zawiya

The Guardian reports: In the shadow of the monolith they call the Corner Mountain, Firas Abu Hamza was carefully counting his most prized possessions. He removed a dirty sock from his camouflage vest and spilled its contents, 13 old bullets, on to the fire-scorched concrete in front of him. “I’ll use them if I have [...]

Abu Ahmed said he has lost scores of men to ambushes and detentions. A Saudi-based businessman until the uprising erupted, he returned to take a leadership role in the nascent guerrilla force. He now holds the rank of lieutenant colonel, one of about five such senior officers in the dozen or so villages between here and the encircled city of Idlib, which was retaken by loyalist forces in March.

“They are cruel and they are evil,” he says of his enemy. “And they will never stop killing and lying. To them and those who blindly back them, we are Muslim Brotherhood and Muslim Brotherhood is al-Qaida. Both claims are dishonest.”

At this base and all the others the Guardian visited during five days in Syria, a television was playing in the background. Each set of hosts would insist on showing the Syrian state TV channels, then the rebel-backed TV and pan-Arab networks.

On state television, the al-Qaida line is relentless. The narrative has become essential to the regime’s bid to hold on to power. Rallying support for state repression is easier when people believe it is needed to combat a global jihadist “terrorist” plot against a secular Arab nationalist state.

“They are always talking about al-Qaida,” said Abu Hamza of the state coverage. “They are stopping at nothing to make us look like devils when they know very well that the Free Syria Army are no more than men who have seen the light. Have you seen their claim that there are 3,000 foreign Arabs fighting here with us? There is not one.”

Rebel groups across Jebel al-Zawiya sense that the regime’s narrative of al-Qaida-backed groups taking a lead in the insurgency is starting to prevail – in the western psyche, in particular.

“Political Islam in Syrian Revolution“, published by Aljazeera Center for Studies

Syrian Heart Patients Set to Feel Economy’s Squeeze
By Donna Abu-Nasr – May 17, 2012

…“The economy is going to continue to decline,” said Ayesha Sabavala, a Syria economist with the Economist Intelligence Unit in London, in a phone interview. “But whether the economy will decline to the extent that it will actually cause the regime to change tactics — that is probably not likely. Not in the near term, anyway.”…

The pound has lost about one-third of its value, pushing prices higher and slashing the purchasing power of Syrians on fixed incomes. International embargoes have disrupted trade, bank lending has slumped and businesses have closed.The $65 billion economy shrank 3.4 percent in 2011 and will contract another 5.9 percent this year while the budget deficit widens to 18 percent of output, the EIU forecast in March. Central bank Governor Adib Mayaleh, interviewed at his office in Damascus on May 10, said inflation was 15 percent in January, while declining to give data for growth or other indicators.

Sanctions plus devaluation have left imports scarce or too expensive for many Syrians. At gas stations, long lines of men wait to fill blue or gray cylinders with cooking gas. Oil Minister Sufian Alao told state television on May 12 that local gas meets 60 percent of needs, and said he is working to avert shortages by finding new sources for the rest.

… More than 6,000 small factories and businesses closed last year, said Khandji, who runs a company that makes hair-care products. Some banks shut down in cities such as Homs that were the scene of the bloodiest clashes, she said.Tourism has ground to a halt after a boom between 2005 and 2010, when arrivals rose 14 percent a year and revenue exceeded $7 billion, contributing 12 percent of gross domestic product and employing 13 percent of the workforce, according to Tourism Ministry figures.

In the capital’s covered Hamidiyyeh bazaar, there are few customers at shops offering embroidered tablecloths, boxes studded with mother-of-pearl, Persian carpets and clothes made from Syrian cotton. Some salesmen play backgammon, others were gathered outside their shops for coffee and a chat. A jeweler said he has received some business from Syrians selling gold rings, pendants and earrings to help pay for food.

Agriculture Strong

Nabil Sukkar, a former World Bank economist and managing director of the Syrian Consulting Bureau in Damascus, which advises the government, businesses and international organizations, said private-sector job losses exceeded 100,000 last year, pushing unemployment above 20 percent. The government has reversed course from the liberalization it was pursuing before the revolt, and now employs more people. It also increased energy subsidies last year while maintaining payments for sugar, rice and pita bread.

Still, Sukkar said, the economy can survive the difficulties for at least another year. Agriculture, almost one- fifth of GDP, “is in very good shape because of two consecutive rainy seasons” and can make up for shortfalls elsewhere. Plus, Syria started the crisis with high foreign exchange reserves and low external debt of about $7 billion that leaves it room to borrow, he said.

‘Can’t Beat Us’

Sukkar cited the international embargo as Syria’s main economic challenge. “Unless the sanctions are removed, Syria is not going to go back to normal,” he said…

The Syian Paradox - May 22, 2012
New York Times Sunday Magazine, By ADAM DAVIDSON

….The Alawite ethnic and religious minority, which eventually assumed leadership of the party, was made up of poorly educated people from mountain villages who “knew nothing about running a country or an economy,” says Joshua Landis, a pre-eminent Syria watcher and a professor at the University of Oklahoma. The Alawites, he notes, had been given a role by the French colonial government in the military precisely because they had few ties to the majority Sunnis in the big cities: “They were very unsophisticated, and they didn’t have a deep community of cosmopolitan people from which to draw.” … As Landis notes: “They look out at the countryside and think: What if these people win? Are they going to respect capitalism? Are they going to preserve our wealth? Or are they going to come by and say, ‘Oh, you’ve been a collaborator for 40 years, and we’re going to take everything you own’? They don’t know.” …

Crony Capitalism, Syria Style – May 22, 2012
NPR – by Dan Kedmey, the Power of Money

Meet the guy who embodies everything that’s wrong with Syria’s economy. He’s the president’s cousin, and his nickname is “Mr. Ten Percent.”…

Damascus ‘Bubble’ Belies Violent Reality of Assad’s Syria
By Donna Abu-Nasr – May 22, 2012

Syria marked Traffic Day this month with five programs on state-run television and radio fostering road safety and responsible driving.

On the streets of the capital Damascus, motorists are lulled by sprinklers feeding lush traffic circles studded with yellow and purple spring flowers. The theme of benevolent government is underlined by news in Tishrin, the state-run paper, which reports that the state spent 80 million Syrian pounds ($1.25 million) last year treating more than 19,700 people bitten by stray dogs.

More than 14 months into the Syrian uprising, the government of President Bashar al-Assad is projecting a facade of normality belied by a breakdown in security and a proliferation of defensive emplacements. Photographer: Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images

More than 14 months into the Syrian uprising, the government of President Bashar al-Assad is projecting a facade of normality belied by a breakdown in security and a proliferation of defensive emplacements. Sandbags, blast walls and heavily armed men seek to protect government buildings in Damascus, where suicide bombers killed at least 55 and injured almost 400 in twin attacks on May 10. …

Omran al-Zoabi, a lawyer who’s a member of the ruling Baath party, said “the secret to Syria’s survival is that what’s happening here is not an Arab Spring.”

With a large, gold-framed photograph of Assad in military dress to his side, al-Zoabi said in an interview at the Damascus’ Lawyers Syndicate that the president will emerge stronger from the crisis.

‘In Our Heart’

Rabaa Shaalan, a 35-year-old mother of three who helps organize a weekly pro-Assad youth rally in front of the Central Bank, insisted “the regime will not fall.” As she spoke, her mobile phone rang, trilling a pro-government song called “In Our Heart We Chant Bashar.” She said her phone’s ringtone, like the photos of Assad on a pendant she wears, three pins on her lapel and her keychain, were expressions of her love for the 46 year-old president.

The belief among Assad supporters that the government is winning has several causes, Salman Shaikh, director of the Brookings Doha Center, said in an interview on May 15.

Assad has been given a breathing space by the international community and not least by UN envoy Kofi Annan’s cease-fire plan, which has failed to stop the bloodshed, he said. In addition, there’s not yet been any major organized effort to arm the opposition, allowing the government to continue its use of violence and intimidation, he said.

“Plus, the Iraq war in particular has seared a real indelible mark on this particular U.S. administration which is why it and other Western powers have up until now not provided the support and backing for what we all know is what is required” to unseat the government, Shaikh said….

Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Center in Beirut, said the regime has “reached a plateau but certainly not a solution or a situation that they can sustain for very long.”

“Yes, they are trying to project normalcy, but the country is still largely paralyzed, the economy continues to be in very bad shape, they remain isolated and Damascus barely sputters along,” Salem said in a telephone interview.

Hizbullah And Its Proxies Expose Supposed CIA Activity In Lebanon, U.S. MEMRI

Book Review: Pierret, Thomas. Baas et Islam en Syrie: La dynastie Assad face aux oulémas. Paris, PUF, 2011.
By Erik Mohns in the Newsletter of the Syria Studies Association

…Only a small minority of Syria’s Sunnite ulama have distanced themselves publicly from the regime since the outbreak of the uprising. Their large majority has adopted a quietist posture towards the regime’s ongoing campaign of repression. This overwhelmingly complying stance of the religious establishment results certainly from direct threats and coercive measures by the regime. However, the reasons for this positioning of the Ba’thist regime’s traditional foes emanate from longer-term sociopolitical processes that Thomas Pierret’s remarkably riveting study of Syria’s religious field reveals.

Throughout the book’s five chapters, Pierret convincingly unrolls his central argument; namely, that the ulama have been able to adapt to challenges emanating from social change and the authoritarian context due their resource of tradition. …He analyzes how the ulama as ‘custodians of commodities of salvation’ have been able to hold on to their relative autonomy by demonstrating considerable flexibility in an ever-changing political contexts, even under authoritarian rule….

Pierret’s study …. refutes two common claims about Assad regime’s mechanisms of rule. It has widely been argued that the secular and Alawite-dominated regime lacks any substantive legitimacy among Syrian Sunnis. Pierret, however, reveals that the regime has been remarkably successful in the establishment of an ambiguous, but nevertheless robust relationship with the urban-based Sunni clerics, social actors that possess considerable credibility of many pious Syrian Muslims. He considers this ‘clergy-regime-partnership’ being embedded in the encompassing transformation of the regime’s social base in its post-populist phase, from its former rural-based, popular constituencies toward urban-based, socioeconomic elites, a dynamic that became all too obvious throughout the ongoing uprising.

The second, often-made assertion that the recent incremental reconstitution of the clergy’s social authority emanates from a deliberate policy by the Ba’thist regime to encourage a quietist and moderate form of Islam, is denoted by Pierret as an overestimation in the regime’s capacity as a ‘social engineer’. By retracing longer-term historical developments that led to the ulama’s considerable social following, he convincingly argues that the increased religious popular fervor and the concomitant influence of the Sunni clergy stems only marginally from the regime’s intervention into the religious field. Instead, the regime has rather accompanied this social process and strove to confine its political impacts by applying alternating, at times erratic strategies towards the Muslim clergy.

The traditionalist clergy’s hegemonic position within the religious field has not solely been based on the regime’s interventions, but rather by their access to considerable economic resources. The fourth chapter analyses the political economy underpinning the clergy’s continuous social power. The existence of a ‘clerical-mercantile complex’, designating as an alliance between the urban based ulama and the private sector, allowed an ever-growing enlargement of different forms of religious social action. The alliance does not only assure the clerics’ financial autonomy from the state, but enabled them to benefit directly from the economy’s liberalization. The state’s scare resources deprived it from upholding its welfare policies vis-à-vis a growing, impoverished population. In order to prevent potential destabilizing effects emanating from pauperization of large section of the society, the state liberalized its policy towards the welfare and enabled religious networks, in particular the Damascus-based Zayd movement, to establish a wide-ranging web of charities. Pierret argues that the alliance between middle-size entrepreneurs and merchants and the ulama is nurtured by mutual interests over which the state exercises only limited control. The ulama provide the private sector with social capital, trust and networks, while merchants and entrepreneurs provide financial donations, management expertise and relations to the security apparatus. In addition, both actors range from the same social merchant and commercial milieus and share often common familial origin. Through a thorough analysis of the parliamentary elections campaign in 2007, Pierret reveals that the religious men have moved even closer to the politico-military elite, resulting in an ongoing transformation of the clerical-mercantile complex. Financial donations by crony capitalists to the religious foundations during the electoral campaign appear to be too tempting to be refused by the clergy….

Pierret succeeds in drawing a number of general conclusions on the ulama’s modes of political action. First and foremost, the ulama are by definition representatives of a sectoral elite and their political engagement is always a secondary dimension of their social practice. Their political practice is characterized by strategic rigidity and tactical flexibility and their inventions into politics are of an inconstant manner, mainly in the form of punctual eruptions and lobbying. This political behavior allows the ulama, despite their total disagreement with the regime’s ideological choices, to adapt to an authoritarian environment as their political demands are primarily limited to negotiate the preservation and/or enlargement of those spaces to carry out their vocation. This sectoral logic of political action has facilitated in sum the ulama’s rapprochement to the regime in its post-Ba’thist stage…..

“Bashar: Decentralization should be implemented after Assad toppling…”in Al-Hayat, United Kingdom (translated thanks to Mideastwire.com)

On May 21, the Saudi-owned London-based Al-Hayat daily carried in its paper edition the following interview with President of the Syrian Kurdish National Council Abdul Hakim Bashar:

“… Q: “Is decentralization a major condition put forward by the Kurdish parties before joining the Syrian National Council?

A: “… Many Alawis, Druze and Kurds have abstained so far from taking part in the Syrian revolution because they are concerned about the future. This is why I believe that it is essential to give all these minorities some guarantees. The Syrian Kurdish National Council wants the opposition parties to adopt a clear declaration reassuring the Druze, the Alawis and the other minorities. We will defend the principle of decentralization until the end because we believe that it gives these necessary assurances….

Q: “Borhan Ghalioun said that he supported decentralization but you rejected his position and said that you wanted him to pledge to implement it in the future. Why is that?

A: “Borhan Ghalioun has supported the principle of administrative decentralization but there is a huge difference between this kind of decentralization and the political decentralization we have been advocating…

“Ghalyun responds to his critics: I am ready to quit…” Asharq al-Awsat - (translated thanks to Mideastwire.com)

On May 18, the Saudi owned Asharq al-Awsat reported: “Burhan Ghalyun, head of the opposition Syrian National Council yesterday responded to the criticism that followed his election for a new three-month term by announcing “his withdrawal from the Council as soon as a new candidate is chosen through accord or through new elections.” He explained that he accepted the latest nomination “out of his eagerness to maintain accord,” stressing that “I will not accept in any way to be the candidate of division, and I am not sticking to any position.” Ghalyun, whose chairmanship of the SNC for the third time since its establishment last October, said in a statement yesterday: “I will continue to serve the revolution from my position as a Council member along with the young fighters -the youths of the revolution of dignity and freedom until victory is achieved,” and called on the opposition “and all its groups to meet as soon as possible to reach an understanding on the unity of the national work and get rid of the circle of conflict and division.”

“A lot of criticism has followed Ghalyun’s election as head of the National Council that reached the point of suspending the membership or resignation to protest the failure to translate the principle of “the rotation of power” in the SNC’s chairmanship, and the refusal by the representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood to give the chance to Ghalyun’s rival, Syrian opposition figure George Sabra. The local coordination committees, which constitute a main faction in the Syrian opposition and which are active in the field and in documenting the diary of the revolution, yesterday joined the list of those who oppose the results of the elections, which took place in Rome three days ago, and threatened to withdraw from the SNC in protest of “monopolizing the decisions by some influential persons in the Executive Bureau and the General Secretariat, the latest of which is the decision to extend for Ghalyun for a third term in spite of the terrible failure on the political and organizat ional levels.” Rima Fulayhan, spokesperson for the coordination committees, strongly rapped “the weak performance of the National Council throughout the past seven months.” She told Asharq al-Awsat that the Council “has not been up to the Syrian people’s aspirations and has not served the revolution due to the flabbiness of the work mechanisms and the weakness of the Council’s head,” and said that the Council “is still stalemated and we have not felt any progress on the ground.”

“Fulayhan pointed out that “the traditional opposition in general has not served the popular Syrian revolution, but it has aggravated the crisis,” stressing the “need for institutionalizing the SNC work in the next stage and electing a leadership that represents the people’s aspirations.” She explained that “we want a leadership that has a vision and a plan and to be the one that launches the initiatives, not to wait for initiatives from inside and outside and be satisfied with just making reactions.” Commenting on Ghalyun’s recent stand, Fulayhan said that “he should not have nominated himself for a third term in light of the general feeling of the SNC’s failure to make any achievement, and he should have given the chance for others,” and asked: “How can we speak about democracy and the rotation of power in the upcoming Syrian state if we are unable to renovate the SNC chairmanship?” she stressed that “the political leaders of the Syrian opposition today are at stake, and we are going to overtake them if they are not up to the level of the revolution in the street,” stressing the rejection of “using the pretext of preserving the unity of the opposition to justify acceptance of the fait accompli and not making the aspired change, particularly since we have become in a stage on which the whole fate of Syria is hinged, and this necessitates that we bring ourselves to account for every mistake.”

“SNC membe r Adib al-Shishakli, who announced the suspension of his membership after Ghalyun’s election, told Al-Sharq al-Awsat that Ghalyun’s stand “is a courageous step in the right direction, so that to show that the one who makes a mistake can retract it, and this is the example that we want to see in the new Syria.” He said that this situation “stands as a lesson for the Syrian opposition and revolution and it is a big test for the National Council.” He also said that “what is required today is the restructuring of the National Council and the mechanisms of its work, particularly the mechanisms of elections before electing a new head,” stressing the importance of “rotating power and that all those who are qualified can nominate themselves for the SNC chairmanship so that the nomination does remain restricted to the members of the Executive Bureau.” Al-Shishakli said that “the Syrian opposition has not practiced any democratic experiment in the past, and it is normal to m ake mistakes, but what is important is that what happened should become a lesson in the next stage,” stressing that “he is not planning to go ahead in his resignation and that he is not protesting against Ghalyun in person, but he is protesting the elections mechanisms emanating from the fact that the SNC’s experiment should be an example to be followed in its capacity as the sole legitimate representative e of the Syrian people.”

“Samir Nashar, member of the Executive Bureau of the National Council, yesterday stressed that “the nomination of George Sabra to head the SNC has been made in consolidation of the principle of the rotation of power and in light of Sabra’s stands and the facts surrounding him, which make him qualified more than others in the SNC. Furthermore, he is a struggler from inside Syria, and he has organizational and leadership experience and belongs to the Christian sect, and this sends a reassurance message that the head of the SNC and the future president of Syria can be from any sect in Syria, and this dispels fears within this minority that the next regime after the collapse of President Bashar al-Asad would be an Islamic one, but it will be a national and civilian one, and will be rotational by all components of the Syrian people.” He explained that “Sabra’s election would have been an advance step (by the Muslim Brotherhood) in particular that they accept a president who belong s to the Christian sect to lead the Syrian people, but what happened has been the opposite when the Muslim Brotherhood voted against George Sabra, and asked their allies in the Islamic trend to vote against him.”" – Asharq al-Awsat, United Kingdom

Chairman of the National Union of the Forces for Democratic Change comments on the Kurdish question – Kurdwatch

KURDWATCH, May 14, 2012—Hasan ʿAbdulʿazim, chairman of the National Union of the Forces for Democratic Change, commented on the Kurdish question in an interview on May 7, 2012 in the chat room »Resistance from Western Kurdistan«. He explained that while there are Kurds in Syria, there is neither a Syrian-Kurdistan nor a region predominantly settled by Kurds. According to ʿAbdulʿazim, even in al‑Hasakah province, the proportion of Kurds is only between 33 and 35 percent; Arab residents are in the majority. Moreover, he rejected all forms of political decentralization. Instead, the National Union, together with the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and in consultation with ten other Kurdish parties, supports the right to administrative decentralization based on the currently existing model of local administrations. At the same time ʿAbdulʿazim emphasized that he would not stand against more extensive Kurdish demands if the majority of the Syrian people were to accept them in a democratic election. In reaction to ʿAbdulʿazim’s comments, the PYD chairman, Salih Muslim Muhammad, communicated in a press release that his party’s use of the term West Kurdistan is not intended to convey that this region does not or should not belong to Syria.

Al-Qamishli: Demonstrators criticize Islamic slogans – Kurdwatch

KURDWATCH, 16. May 2012—Nationwide protests on 11. May 2012 resulted again in numerous dead and injured. Throughout the country, demonstrators demanded the fall of the regime. Once again protests in the Kurdish regions this week did not take place under a united slogan. Only a few demonstrators joined the all-Syrian slogan »God’s support and a speedy victory«. An activist told KurdWatch, »Our revolution is committed to freedom and dignity. We no longer have sympathy for the fact that so many of the slogans that are designated as the main slogans have an Islamic context«. Most of the demonstrators chose their own slogan; for example, supporters of the Democratic Union Party took to the streets under the slogan »Support for the Kurds in Aleppo«…. Overall the number of demonstrators in the Kurdish regions is currently in decline.

 

Joshua Landis, Bassma Kodmani (spokesperson for the Syrian National Council), and Kamal Labwani (opposition leader who recently broke away from the SNC) discuss the Syrian opposition on aljazeera English. May 20, 2012

Afghan war dominates NATO summit: Obama announces that Assad must leave: NATO commander says that NATO will not intervene in Syria.

Economy: Three articles from Cham Press about the struggling Syrian economy (in Arabic)

1. Run up in prices on Chicken, eggs and sugar because of transportation difficulties
2. Gold settles at 3075 Syrian Pounds a gram: سعر كغ البندورة 35 ليرة والفاصولياء الخضراء 60 والكوسا 40 والخيار 40 والفول الأخضر 25 والباذنجان الأسود 50 والبطاطا 40 والبازلاء الخضراء 55 والجزر 30-40 والبصل اليابس بـ 25 أما الأخضر فثلاث جرز بـ 10
3. Syria’s main glass factory will close due to lack of fuel.

Cooking gas was no where to be found in Aleppo this week. A friend writes, “My father offered to pay 2000 pounds yesterday, but no one could supply him with a new tank.”

The al-Nusra Front said it was behind the attack in Deir ez-Zur on Saturday which targeted military installations.

“There was a limit to the ferocity of the dogs of the regime in Deir al-Zor at which they had to be punished, so the soldiers of the al-Nusra front undertook this mission,” read the statement on an Islamist web forum.

“The blessed operations will continue until the land of Syria is purified from the filth of the Nusayris (Alawites) and the Sunnis are relieved from their oppression.”

 Al-Assad must leave, Obama tells G-8 meet
2012-05-20, Turkish Daily:

Al-Assad must leave, Obama tells G-8 meet CAMP DAVID REUTERS Photo G-8 leaders on May 19 called for a “political transition” in Syria and for an end to violence after U.S. President Barack Obama told G-8 leaders meeting at Camp …

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Sunday maintained that the alliance has “no intention” of taking military action against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, according to AFP.

Syria attacks kill 33, opposition says
By the CNN Wire Staff, May 20, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Most of the dead are in Hama, which opposition activists say is being shelled
• Syria’s government denies reports that defectors killed top officials
• Estimates of the death toll range as high as 11,000 over 14 months

….A total of 21 deaths were in the northwestern city of Hama, where reported heavy shelling of a neighborhood by government troops, said Rafif Jouejati, a spokesman for the Local Coordination Committees of Syria. Sunday’s toll follows 26 deaths Saturday, according to the LCC, a network of opposition activists…

CNN: Syrian Government Denies Assassination of Top Officials

… Syria’s government Sunday denied claims by the rebel Free Syrian Army that it had killed several of its leading government officials. The state-run news agency SANA called the claim “categorically baseless” and quoted two of the supposedly slain officials dismissing the report.

“I am speaking from my office at the Interior Ministry,” SANA quoted Lt. Gen. Mohammad al-Shaar, the country’s interior ministry. “All my colleagues are performing their duties.”

Al-Shaar and Syria’s assistant vice president, Gen. Hasan Turkmani, were both quoted criticizing Arabic news networks Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, which broadcast the claim.

Gunbattle in Beirut amid fears of Syria spillover
By HUSSEIN MALLA, Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — Gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns early Monday in intense street battles in the Lebanese capital, wounding six people as fears mounted that the conflict in neighboring Syria was bleeding across the border.

The fighting appeared to be among the worst clashes in Beirut since 2008. The clashes erupted hours after an anti-Syrian cleric and his bodyguard were shot dead in northern Lebanon.

The vain search for dialogue in a battle-scarred Syria, 20 May 2012
By Lyse Doucet, BBC News

Holding on to power: Privately, some of President Bashar al-Assad’s officials accept change may be necessary

Deported Palestinian journalist speaks out about torture in custody

Journalist Salameh Kaileh describes his brutal torture in a Syrian prison and hospital before he was deported to Jordan.

Syria: The Citadel & the War
The New York Review of Books 07/06/12

Archaeologists believe that human beings settled on the hilltop that became Aleppo – some 225 miles north of Damascus – around eight thousand years ago. Cuneiform tablets from the third millennium BC record the construction of a temple to a chariot-riding storm god, usually called Hadad; while mid-second-millennium Hittite archives point to the settlement’s growing political and economic power. Its Arabic name, Haleb, is said to derive from Haleb Ibrahim, Milk of Abraham, for the sheep’s milk the biblical patriarch offered to travelers in Aleppo’s environs. Successive conquerors planted their standards on the ramparts of a fortress that they enlarged and reinforced over centuries to complete the impressive stone Citadel that dominates the city today.

This photo of an opposition banner hung on a dormitory at the University of Aleppo shows the growing reach of the opposition in Aleppo. Another sign of the growing capability of the opposition is its ability to set off car bombs with growing regularity near intelligence offices and in Syria’s major cities, such as this one: Car bomb hits Syrian city of Deir al-Zour, killing 9 instantly and wounding 100. An intelligence headquarters was the target.

But the assassination of Syria’s six top security officials and Baathists seems beyond the capabilities of the opposition just yet.

According to the Guardian, Heavy clashes were reported in Damascus overnight and in a video message (Arabic), the Free Syrian Army claimed to have killed six key figures in the Assad regime.

The six men killed are reportedly:

1) Asif Shawkat (Head of Syrian intelligence)
2) Mohammad Shaar (interior minister)
3) Dawood Rajha (defence minister)
4) Hassan Turkmani (vice president’s deputy)
5) Hisham Bikhtyar
6) Mohammad Saeed Bkheytan

But it is safer to doubt these claims until they are proven true. The opposition has no coordinated information outlet and many competing news sources, so exaggeration and disinformation seems to be the order of the day. For example, the opposition continues to insist that every car bomb and explosion at an intelligence headquarter is set off by the Syrian military itself in order to blacken the reputation of the pacifist opposition.

This does not make sense for many reasons.

1. Why would the mukhabarat kill itself? No mater how evil one presumes Syria’s intelligence agents are, it remains unlikely that they would kill themselves in such great numbers. This is a bit like believing that the CIA is so evil that it killed the people in the World Trade Center to give President Bush the pretext to invade the Middle East and kill Muslims.The willingness of Western news agencies to repeat these opposition claims demonstrates that Westerners are just as prone to conspiracy theories as are Arabs. All it takes to believe in conspiracy theories is to demonize your enemies to the point that you can believe they will carry out any operation in order to advance their devilish aims.

2. It makes sense for the opposition to set off car bombs in down town areas. Classic stage-two insurgency tactics call for terrorist acts in public places to make the regime look weak and to provoke it to lash out in rage, killing innocent people and provoking more and more neutrals to hate the regime and side with the insurgency. Targeting intelligence headquarters is smart as it accomplishes all of these opposition goals.

Addendum: MM writes in the Comment Section:

Ghalioun to Saudi paper: no recognition of Israel – YNET news

Syrian National Council head Burhan Ghalioun tells Saudi paper that Syrian opposition has no intention to normalize relations with Israel after fall of regime…

“We are convinced that the Syrian regime’s strongest ally is Israel,” he told the paper, adding that the international community’s lack of action in Syria stems from concerns for the Jewish State’s safety

Ghalioun reiterated the Syrian opposition’s position by which “the continued occupation of the Golan Heights severely undermines Syria’s national sovereignty, which it will only regain after the occupied territories are returned.”

Asked about a recent statement made by a member of the opposition, by which Syria will establish relations with Israel after Assad’s fall, Ghalioun said: “Who is the fool who said such a thing?”

Swiss investigate Syrians, Libyans over money-laundering, 2012-05-20

World Bulletin/News Desk The Swiss state prosecutor said on Sunday it had opened criminal proceedings against Syrian and Libyan citizens on suspicion of money laundering. Jeannette Balmer, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor, said Swiss authorities had …

Syria diary – 19 May 2012 – (h/t War in Context)

Layla Al-Zubaidi writes: ‘Welcome to Assad’s Syria,’ the signpost at the Lebanese-Syrian border still says, letting the visitor know who owns the country. The ceasefire had just been announced, but few Syrians I knew held out much hope that three hundred UN observers could keep an eye on the whole army. The journey from Beirut [...]

Two Obama Administration Scandals on Syria?,  By Barry Rubin – Meria

When a delegation of Syrian Kurdish rebels recently visited Washington, D.C., the State Department met them to ask for a favor. What was it? The Obama administration urged them to join the Syrian National Council (SNC), the organization created by the U.S. government through Turkey to lead the opposition movement and receive Western aid for [...]

But the Turkish Islamist regime, which Obama put in charge of forming the SNC, put the Muslim Brotherhood in control, a fact I pointed out within hours of the announcement of the SNC leadership’s names.

Now that several SNC leaders have resigned complaining about Brotherhood domination, followed by some Arab journalists pointing out the obvious Brotherhood domination at the SNC’s last meeting, that reality is clear. But the implications of such an incredibly foolish policy—America putting an anti-American, antisemitic group into the “official” leadership of Syria’s rebels — have never been properly examined as a case study for Obama’s disastrous Middle East policy.

The Kurds had walked out of the talks that formed the SNC last year when they saw how Islamists would be in control. Not only do they oppose Islamism itself but they also see the Brotherhood as an Arabizing and centralizing group that would impose a regime oppressing the non-Arab Kurds.

The new U.S. effort so backfired  that, with the Obama administration ignoring their concerns, the enraged Kurds in the delegation spoke for the first time of breaking up Syria altogether!…

Syrian Kurdish Dissident: Break Syria Into Pieces,
By Jonathan Spyer May 16, 2012 – Meria

Sherkoh Abbas, a veteran Syrian Kurdish dissident, called on Israel this week to support the break-up of Syria into a series of federal structures based on the country’s various ethnicities.

Speaking from Washington, Abbas was also critical of US attempts to induce Syrian Kurds to join and work with the main opposition body, the Syrian National Council. Abbas, who heads the Washington- based Kurdistan National Assembly, said that dismantling Syria into ethnic enclaves with a federal administration would serve to “break the link” between Syria and the Iran-led “Shi’a crescent.”

Syrian Kurdish, Druse, Alawite and Sunni Arab federal areas, he suggested, would have no interest in aligning with Iran.

At the same time, a federalized Syria would avoid the possibility of a resurgent, Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Sunni Islamist Syria emerging as a new challenge to Israel and the West.

“We need to break Syria into pieces,” Abbas said.

The Syrian Kurdish dissident argued that a federal Syria, separated into four or five regions on an ethnic basis, would also serve as a natural “buffer” for Israel against both Sunni and Shi’ite Islamist forces….

Addendum: aron writes in the comment section: