LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِApril 30/2011

Biblical Event Of The Day
Luke 24/36-53: "As they said these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace be to you.” 24:37 But they were terrified and filled with fear, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. 24:38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled? Why do doubts arise in your hearts? 24:39 See my hands and my feet, that it is truly me. Touch me and see, for a spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones, as you see that I have.” 24:40 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 24:41 While they still didn’t believe for joy, and wondered, he said to them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” 24:42 They gave him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. 24:43 He took them, and ate in front of them. 24:44 He said to them, “This is what I told you, while I was still with you, that all things which are written in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms, concerning me must be fulfilled.” 24:45 Then he opened their minds, that they might understand the Scriptures. 24:46 He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, 24:47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 24:48 You are witnesses of these things. 24:49 Behold, I send forth the promise of my Father on you. But wait in the city of Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high.” 24:50 He led them out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. 24:51 It happened, while he blessed them, that he withdrew from them, and was carried up into heaven. 24:52 They worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, 24:53 and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.

Latest analysis, editorials, studies, reports, letters & Releases from miscellaneous sources
I was wrong about Syria/By: Sever Plocker/April 29/11
Why Is Obama Protecting Assad?/By: Lee Smith/April 29/11
Syria: a coup by any name/By: Amir Taheri/April 29/11
Debunking the 2-state myth/By: Yoel Meltzer/April 29/11
Decision time for the U.S. on Assad rule/By: Michael Young/April 29/11
Lebanon should prepare for a different Syria/By: Michael Young/April 29/11
What now for the FPM?/Now Lebanon/April 29/11

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for April 29/11
Protests erupt across Syria on 'Day of Rage'/AP
Islamists back calls for Syria mass/Associated Press/Daily Star
Hundreds of Syrians fleeing unrest enter Lebanon/Daily Star
UN Security Council likely to discuss secret Syria nuclear reactor/AP
Jumping the gun/Haaretz
Damascus urges prompt Lebanese government/Daily Star
Bahrain court sentences 4 protesters to death/Daily Star
Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai heads to the Vatican/Now Lebanon
Sleiman contacts Assad, tell him he wants to make solidarity visit/iloubnan.info
Muslim Brotherhood: Syrian regime engaged in genocide/Now Lebanon
Israeli 'tunnel rats' to fight Hezbollah/UPi
UN warns Beirut over slow progress/UPI
What Syria's neighbors are thinking/CNN
Syria: 'Day of rage' planned in face of crackdown/BBC
A Battle of Words: Bahrain vs. Hezbollah/American Blog
How Syria and Libya compare/The Guardian
IAEA Confirms Syria Secretly Building Nuclear Reactor/VOA
Fear stalks streets of Syria's Deraa, say residents/Reuters
UNHRC to debate creation of investigatory c'tee on Syria/J.Post
Syrians flee to Lebanon as violence continues/ABC
West battles to keep Syria off Human Rights Council/AFP
Jumblatt criticizes March 14 adolescents/Now Lebanon
Allouch: Jumblatt’s “adolescents” comment has no logic/Now Lebanon
Najjar: Political cover hampering illegal construction crackdown/Daily Star

Protests erupt across Syria on 'Day of Rage'
By The Associated Press
An eyewitness say Syrian security forces have opened fire on a demonstration in the coastal city of Latakia, wounding at least five people.
The witness said about 1,000 people were holding an anti-government rally in the coastal city when plainclothes security agents with automatic rifles opened fire.
A Syrian protester beats a poster of Syrian President Bashar Assad with a shoe, as he attends protest against the on going violence in Syria, April 27, 2011.
The witness asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals.
Other demonstrations have been reported in Banias and in the northeastern city of Qamishli.
The government in recent days has stepped up its deadly crackdown on protesters by unleashing the army along with snipers and tanks.
Since the uprising began in mid-March, inspired by revolts across the Arab world, more than 450 people have been killed in Syria.
Activists called for a "Day of Rage" on Friday following Muslim prayers, to commemorate the slayings exactly a week ago that saw 112 killed in just one day.
Friday's demonstrations have the backing of the outlawed Islamist group, the
Muslim Brotherhood, which was crushed by the regime in 1982.
Assad has tried to quell the protests, which are the gravest challenge to his family's 40-year ruling dynasty.
Friday's planned protests come following a report by witnesses and human rights groups on Thursday according to which Syrian army units have clashed with each other over following President Assad's orders to crack down on protesters in Daraa, a besieged city at the heart of the uprising.
While the troops' infighting in Daraa does not indicate any decisive splits in the military, it is significant because Assad's army has always been the regime's fiercest defender.
It is the latest sign that cracks - however small - are developing in Assad's base of support that would have been unimaginable just weeks ago. About 200 mostly low-level members of Syria's ruling Baath Party have resigned over Assad's brutal crackdown.
Ausama Monajed, a spokesman for a group of opposition figures in Syria and abroad, said the clashes among the soldiers have been happening since Monday.
"There are some battalions that refused to open fire on the people," Monajed told The Associated Press, citing witnesses on the ground in Daraa, a city of 75,000 near the Jordanian border. "Battalions of the 5th Division were protecting people, and returned fire when they were subjected to attacks by the 4th Division."

Islamists back calls for Syria mass
Associated Press/Daily Star
BEIRUT: The banned Muslim Brotherhood urged Syrians to take to the streets on Friday as activists called for a "Day of Rage" against President Bashar Assad's regime, which has stepped up its deadly crackdown on protesters by unleashing the army along with snipers and tanks. The government warned against holding any demonstrations. Syrian state television said the Interior Ministry has not approved any "march, demonstration or sit-in" and that such rallies seek only to harm Syria's security and stability.
Activists in Syria are planning nationwide protests following Muslim prayers in solidarity with more than 50 people killed in the last week alone in Daraa, a southern city at the heart of the revolt. A devastating picture was emerging from the city -- which is largely sealed off, without electricity and telephones -- as residents flee to neighboring countries.
At the Jordanian side of the border, several Daraa residents who had just crossed over said there is blood on the streets of the city.
"Gunfire is heard across the city all the time," one man said, asking that his name not be used for fear of retribution. "People are getting killed in the streets by snipers if they leave their homes."An Associated Press reporter at the border heard gunfire and saw smoke coming out of different areas just across the border. Residents said the gunfire has been constant for three weeks. Since the uprising in Syria began in mid-March, inspired by revolts across the Arab world, more than 450 people have been killed nationwide, activists say.
Friday's statement by the Muslim Brotherhood was the first time the outlawed group has openly encouraged the protests in Syria. The Brotherhood was crushed by Assad's father, Hafez, after staging an uprising against his regime in 1982. "You were born free so don't let a tyrant enslave you," said the statement, issued by the Brotherhood's exiled leadership.
Assad has said the protests -- the gravest challenge to his family's 40-year ruling dynasty -- are a foreign conspiracy carried out by extremist forces and armed thugs. But he has acknowledged the need for reforms, offering overtures of change in recent weeks while brutally cracking down on demonstrations. Last week, Syria's Cabinet abolished the state of emergency and approved a new law allowing the right to stage peaceful protests with the permission of the Interior Ministry. But the protesters, enraged by the mounting death toll, no longer appear satisfied with the changes and are increasingly seeking the regime's downfall. "We are preparing for a big demonstration today," said an activist in the coastal city of Banias, which witnessed a large demonstration last Friday. "The people want the downfall of the regime." Syria has banned nearly all foreign media and restricted access to trouble spots since the uprising began, making it almost impossible to verify the dramatic events shaking one of the most authoritarian, anti-Western regimes in the Arab world. Witnesses and human rights groups said Syrian army units clashed with each other on Wednesday over following Assad's orders to crack down on protesters in Daraa, a besieged city where the uprising started. While the troops' infighting in Daraa does not indicate any decisive splits in the military, it is significant because Assad's army has always been the regime's fiercest defender. It is the latest sign that cracks -- however small -- are developing in Assad's base of support that would have been unimaginable just weeks ago. Also, about 200 mostly low-level members of Syria's ruling Baath Party have resigned over Assad's brutal crackdown.

Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai heads to the Vatican
April 29, 2011 /Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai travelled on Friday to the Vatican to take part in the beatification ceremony of late pope John Paul II, which will be held on May 1.Rai was received at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport by Social Affairs Minister Selim Sayegh along with an official delegation comprising religious and public figures, the National News Agency reported. The patriarch called for speeding up the process of forming a new Lebanese cabinet headed by Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati. “Everyone is calling for state-building, but we are not taking any action to [form the cabinet],” he added. Mikati was appointed on January 25 with the Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition’s backing and is working to form his cabinet. Western-backed March 14 parties have said that they will not participate in his government. John Paul II was set on the road to beatification after the Vatican confirmed he had worked a miracle - a healing, apparently unexplainable by science, of a French nun affected by Parkinson's disease who had prayed to be cured.
-NOW Lebanon

Muslim Brotherhood: Syrian regime engaged in genocide
April 29, 2011 /Syria's Muslim Brotherhood accused the regime of President Bashar al-Assad on Friday of carrying out genocide in the country and called on citizens not to yield to tyrants.
"Every Syrian citizen knows that the regime is perpetrating genocide on Syrian territory, which is targeting the desire for emancipation expressed by the revolt of young patriots aspiring to liberty and dignity," the group said in a statement obtained by AFP. "God created you free; do not let the tyrants keep you in slavery," the statement added. "Cry with one voice for liberty and dignity." Activists have called for "day of rage" protests across Syria after the Friday weekly Muslim prayers, piling pressure on Assad as his regime presses a violent crackdown on dissent that broke out in mid-March. Rights groups say the government repression has killed at least 453 civilians.
-AFP/NOW Lebanon

Lebanon should prepare for a different Syria
Michael Young, April 29, 2011
On Wednesday, Syria got a reprieve at the United Nations Security Council, when Russia, China and Lebanon opposed condemnation of the Syrian regime’s brutal repression of nationwide protests. But for all intents and purposes, President Bashar al-Assad has lost his legitimacy by unleashing security forces on unarmed civilians.
If discussion is stifled at the Security Council, it will find other paths. We can assume that the Assads will pursue their savagery. We can also assume that the Syrian upheaval will continue, since nothing is more degrading to a people than to be ruled over by a confederacy of thugs. In that case European states, perhaps even the United States, once the Obama administration reaches a conclusion about what it really wants to achieve in Syria, will take measures outside the confines of the United Nations, circumventing Russia and China.
Perhaps we shouldn’t blame the Lebanese for having played it safe. The country is hopelessly divided, and avoiding a problem is always more convenient than taking the morally defensible stance. However, Lebanon is as unprepared as ever for what looks like the certain disintegration, whether rapid or slow, of the Assad clique.
Every few days majority politicians assure us that a government will be formed soon, “if not Monday, then Thursday,” to borrow from the Lotto commercial. However, the prime minister-elect, Najib Mikati, had no incentive to form a government “of one color” two months ago, before the unrest in Syria began, and he has even less of one today. Mikati initially wagered on Syrian backing to counterbalance the troublesome embrace of Hezbollah and Michel Aoun. But with Bashar al-Assad preoccupied with crushing his own people, Mikati has had to recalculate, finding that doing nothing is the best decision.
Mikati was foolish to imagine that he could form a government against Saad Hariri and the Sunni majority. Now he realizes that all his options are bad, and so Lebanon is left paying a heavy price for his conceit. However, there is an irony here: Hariri probably welcomes sitting out of government while the storm hits in Syria. In other words, if Mikati were to step down and Michel Sleiman were to call for new parliamentary consultations, it is not at all certain that the acting prime minister would relish receiving a fresh mandate.
Amin Gemayel has proposed that a government that is non-aligned on regional conflicts be formed. The idea is worth considering, although it may be better to establish a government of national unity, ideally on the basis of a 10-10-10 distribution of power – split evenly between the March 8 parties and Aoun; Sleiman, Walid Jumblatt and Mikati; and the March 14 coalition. Better still, these three blocs could nominate technocrats to represent them. The government’s principal aim would be to fill the leadership vacuum, stabilize the situation on the ground, and move forward on the economic and administrative fronts, leaving more bothersome political issues for later on.
It won’t be easy, but Lebanon should begin preparing for the possibility of a post-Assad era in Syria. Above all, Hariri and his March 14 allies, along with Sleiman and those wedded to Lebanese state authority, should determine how to address the future of Hezbollah, which could emerge as the great loser if Assad falls. Yet the party will not disappear; indeed, it may become more dangerous if politically cornered. That’s why Hariri and his partners, as well as the president, must formulate a consensus position for the eventual neutralization of the divisive issue of Hezbollah’s weapons, when and if that becomes possible. Walid Jumblatt’s mediation, and even that of the parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, may be useful in this regard.
The only realistic way to reassure Lebanon’s Shia if there is a leadership change in Damascus that undermines Hezbollah’s authority is to offer the community a quid pro quo: Hezbollah’s weapons in exchange for greater political power to the Shia in the context of the Taif Accord. The process would be complex; all communities would demand reassurances. But there is no alternative, if the sordid Baath order collapses in Syria, for Lebanon to renegotiate its social contract and reach agreement, once and for all, on Hezbollah’s arms, a cancer eating away at Lebanese concord.
As the Europeans and the US slowly maneuver into outright opposition to the Assad regime, which will become inevitable if the slaughter in Syria goes on, Lebanon should read the writing on the wall. There is nothing wrong with shielding the country from the tempests all around, as Gemayel has proposed; but it would be short-sighted not to prepare for the likely tempests in Beirut. Defenders of the state must consider participating in a national-unity cabinet, even as they lay the foundations for a political covenant that could absorb the political shockwaves from Syria.
**Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut and author of The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon’s Life Struggle, which the Wall Street Journal listed as one of its 10 standout books for 2010. He Tweets @BeirutCalling.

Sleiman contacts Assad, tells him he wants to make solidarity visit
BEIRUT | iloubnan.info - April 29, 2011Lebanese President Michel Sleiman contacted his Syrian counterpart Bashar al Assad and expressed his will to visit Damascus to express his solidarity with the Syrian regime, well informed sources told 'As Safir' daily. The paper reported in its Friday edition that Sleiman contacted Assad and discussed with him developments in Syria, then upon expressing his will to visit, Assad thanked him for position and did not assign a date for the visit.

Jumblatt criticizes March 14 “adolescents”
April 29, 2011 /“There are adolescents in March 14 who are dealing with the Syria events on the basis of mistaken calculations,” Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt said in remarks published on Friday.“I used to be with them and I know them – I know well what they are thinking,” he told As-Safir newspaper, advising March 14 figures to “reflect and be realistic.” “No matter how far they go in hopes and faulty readings, in the end they have to come back to reality. The Sunnis and Shia are side by side in Lebanon and will pay the price of any potential chaos.” It is in the interest of everyone in Lebanon that the Syrian regime survive anti-regime unrest “with as little loss as possible,” he said.
“Its fall would throw open the doors for all kinds of possibilities, perhaps the most dangerous being the breakup of Syria, tied to the original American-Israeli project that aims to split up the region on a sectarian basis.” “Washington and Tel Aviv want to drown Syria in chaos” to weaken the country and “compensate for the regional imbalance after the fall of the Egyptian regime that was their ally,” he said. He warned that destabilization in Syria will “automatically be reflected in fragile Lebanon […] the Druze in both countries will be the greatest victims in this equation.” Jumblatt also called on “some in the new majority to not exaggerate the roles of some March 14 personalities in what is occurring inside Syria.”
He added that there is still time for “deep and fundamental reforms” in Syria and that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “has the courage to go to the end in this choice, which can fortify the regime and protect its strategic and nationalist choices in confronting Israeli-American targeting.” International pressure is increasing on Assad over a crackdown on demonstrations demanding democratic reforms in which at least 453 civilians have been killed since mid-March, according to human rights activists. Syrian state media and March 8 politicians have accused the Future Movement of involvement in Syrian unrest, a charge Future has denied. -NOW Lebanon

Allouch: Jumblatt’s “adolescents” comment has no logic
April 29, 2011 /Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt’s comment about “adolescents in March 14” is “for nothing” and “not based on any logic,” Future Movement official Mustafa Allouch said on Friday morning. “We cannot be distant from the events [in Syria] and we cannot support injustice against a people. At the same time, interference in the affairs of others is not possible,” Allouch told Future News TV. Jumblatt said in remarks published Friday that some “adolescents” in the March 14 alliance are dealing with events in Syria “on the basis of mistaken calculations.” The Syrian regime has violently attacked demonstrations demanding democratic reforms, with at least 453 civilians killed since mid-March, according to human rights activists.-NOW Lebanon

A Battle of Words: Bahrain vs. Hezbollah
By Katherine Faley
http://blog.american.com/?p=31141
April 28, 2011, 8:32 am The standoff between the Gulf Arab states and Iran and its partners is in full swing. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the Bahraini government submitted a 13-page report to the United Nations last week, accusing Hezbollah of colluding to overthrow the al Khalifa ruling family. The Gulf nation claims that the Lebanon-based, Iranian-supported terrorist organization has been training Bahraini protesters at camps in Lebanon and Iran, as well as coordinating with leaders of al Haq and al Wefaq, two Shi’ite opposition movements, to bolster anti-regime activity. These charges are part of a nearly two-month-long battle waged between Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, and the Saudi-supported al Khalifa regime amidst legitimate, grassroots protests in Bahrain. Hezbollah has harshly condemned Bahrain’s government crackdown and openly supported protesters, maintaining that it only provides the opposition with “political and moral support.” Notably, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened the al Khalifa regime in his two latest public speeches; he warned on April 9 that the expulsion of additional Lebanese citizens from Bahrain “would lead to complications” and predicted on March 13 a bleak future for Manama’s leaders. He stated, “No matter how stubborn you are, you are doomed to be defeated, so respond to your peoples before it is too late.”Bahrain’s foreign ministry reacted angrily to the latter speech on March 20, denouncing it as “blatant interference” and “a violation of Bahrain’s sovereignty.” The kingdom has since punished the Lebanese state by advising Bahraini citizens against traveling to Lebanon, suspending flights to and from Beirut, and deporting Lebanese nationals—mainly Shi’ites with alleged links to Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. Iran, partly through its close ties with Hezbollah and other actors, has attempted to use the Arab Spring to project its ambitions across the region; its narrative that the largely peaceful and pro-democratic uprisings are an extension of the 1979 revolution has been predictably rejected thus far. Hezbollah, for its part, has emerged from political turmoil in Lebanon politically empowered, no longer preoccupied with de-legitimizing the UN-backed tribunal investigating the murder of Rafik Hariri or ousting the Western-supported March 14 bloc. It now employs its rhetoric—if not other means, as the Bahrainis allege—to realign Lebanon with Iran.
**Katherine Faley is a research analyst for AEI’s Critical Threats Project.

What now for the FPM?
April 28, 2011 /Now Lebanon
Michel Aoun, whose Free Patriotic Movement is helping hold up the formation of the cabinet over a dispute concerning the Interior Ministry. (AFP photo)
Free Patriotic Movement MP Alain Aoun says his bloc should be given the Interior Ministry portfolio because of his party’s so-called commitment to fighting corruption. Are we to assume, then, that if the FPM does not get its man (or woman) in the Interior Ministry that Lebanon’s chronic corruption will be ignored simply because the job rests with the president’s share?
What does that say about the president? Or indeed what does it say about caretaker Interior Minister Ziad Baroud, a man who has done more than any other politician in recent years to restore some credibility to our image of public servants?
And yet, if, as it claims, the FPM has Lebanon’s best interests at heart and is a party for a new generation of Lebanese disillusioned by decades of self interest and abuse of privilege, why has it been at the center of the three-month squabble with its March 8 allies over cabinet shares?
But then that would be to ignore the big picture. The FPM can harp on all it wants about reform and clean hands, but the fact remains that its choice of political bedfellows has placed it not only on the wrong side of the so-called Arab awakening – ironic, don’t you think – but in the anger of the people it was meant to represent.
We can’t expect much genuine nationwide economic or social reform from Hezbollah and Amal, or indeed from any of the other petrified parties that owe their survival to the embattled regime in Damascus, but the FPM claims to be different, and yet it appears oblivious to the gradual erosion of Lebanon’s economic fabric caused by the three-month hiatus.
The outlook is bleak. GDP growth for 2011 is predicted to drop to around 2 percent from 5 percent, while inflation has hit 6.5 percent. Predictions for the tourist season are equally dire, as hotel occupancy rates have fallen by nearly half since January, with the number of tourists dropping by just under 5 percent in the first three months of the year.
The lack of political direction from the caretaker administration has certainly contributed to this, but given the sinister circumstances surrounding March 14’s removal from office, it is hardly surprising that the bloc has lost its appetite for government.
Bottom line: What vestige of credibility the FPM may have had left after its so-called February 2006 memorandum of understanding with Hezbollah has been wiped away by its shameless horse trading in the pursuit of its own, rather than the nation’s, interests.
And talking of the nation’s interests, where are the shouts of disapproval from the FPM’s ranks when Lebanon’s ambassador to the UN, Nawaf Salam, under instruction from the March 8 foreign minister, Ali Shami, did not condemn the murderous violence the Syrian regime has inflicted upon its own people?
While it is understandable, given the realities of the relationship between the two countries, that Salam objected, surely if any party were to oppose a neutral stance on Damascus, it should be the party that did so much to campaign against Syria’s draconian rule in Lebanon during the latter years of its three-decade “presence,” especially when so many of its members are among the 600 missing Lebanese thought to have been detained by the Syrian regime.
In short, the party has lost its way. It is part of a false majority that appears to have no agenda, no direction and no focus. March 8’s raison d’être is to fight against international justice for a regime that is currently facing the full opprobrium of the international community and to allow Hezbollah to do Iran’s bidding in a region that is getting politically hotter by the day.
Funny how things turn out.

Debunking the 2-state myth
Op-ed: Counting on Palestinian state to improve our security situation is absolute madness
By: Yoel Meltzer /Ynetnews
One of the assumed benefits of the proposed two-state solution is that the creation of a Palestinian state will finally make the Palestinians fully accountable for their actions. Thus, any acts of aggression from the new entity against Israel will be considered an attack on Israel from a sovereign country rather than from a terrorist organization. Moreover, it is this distinction, so we are told, that will not only allow Israel to forcefully respond to any acts of Palestinian aggression but also do so with the full support and understanding of the international community.
Although such line of reasoning sounds very enticing and has even managed to win over some former skeptics, we shouldn’t buy it. In fact, a quick survey of the last 20 years seems to indicate otherwise.
At the height of the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq launched scud missiles at Israel in an attempt to draw it into the conflict. This was a classic case of a sovereign Arab country attacking Israel with powerfully destructive missiles, aimed at some of its most populous regions. Nonetheless, despite the numerous missiles that landed in Israel, due to various geopolitical considerations and behind-the-door pressure Jerusalem did not respond.
Roughly 10 years later, Israel speedily removed all of its troops from southern Lebanon. At the time we were promised that Israeli positions would be taken over by the South Lebanese Army (SLA) in order to prevent Hezbollah forces from stationing themselves within spitball range of Israel’s northern border. In addition, we were assured by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak that should Hezbollah ever commit an act of aggression against Israel our response would be very painful.
Like usual, Israel fulfilled its side of the agreement while the Arabs failed to uphold their part. As a result, rather than having the SLA parked across the border we received Hezbollah. This change of events afforded Hezbollah the opportunity to closely watch our troop movements, something they quickly cashed in on. After a mere few months of up-close surveillance, Hezbollah men dashed across the border and kidnapped three Israeli soldiers.
Israeli restraint
However, despite our hard-earned justification to retaliate to such an unprovoked act of aggression and even the prime minister's own guarantee to respond with might in such situation, in the end we did very little. Thus, the promises meant nothing and unfortunately the kidnapped soldiers were killed.
Five years after the tragic kidnappings in Lebanon, Israel removed all Jewish presence from Gaza. At the time we were told that the removal of Israeli troops from the Strip would shift the burden of accountability to the Palestinian Authority, thereby forcing it to rein in the various terrorist organizations. This, like every other promised benefit, turned out to be false as attacks against Israel only increased. While Israel did eventually reenter Gaza at the end of 2008 as part of Operation Cast Lead, this happened only after thousands of missiles were fired at Jewish communities close to the Gaza border. Moreover, the promised admiration of the world we supposedly were to acquire following our unilateral pullout quickly melted away, as many in the international community hypocritically condemned Israel for its actions in Gaza. Although there were times when Israel responded forcefully to cross-border attacks, such as in the Second Lebanon War, the growing trend through the years has been for a limited Israeli response or total restraint. Moreover, rather than winning the world's approval based upon our polite and considerate behavior, this trend has been accompanied by the growth of an increasingly hostile anti-Israel environment worldwide.
This being the case, why should we believe that things will be different next time? It is far more plausible to assume that acts of aggression emanating from a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria will be met with the usual limited Israeli response. Moreover, even in the rare instance where Israel responds more forcefully, it is safe to assume that the world will quickly condemn the Jewish state regardless of the circumstances. In light of the above, how on earth can we use an unproven assumption as the basis for severely weakening our national security, something which is sure to happen if a Palestinian state is created in Judea and Samaria? Indeed, it's absolute madness.

Why Is Obama Protecting Assad?
12:45 PM, Apr 27, 2011
By LEE SMITH
The Weekly Standard/http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/why-obama-protecting-assad_558363.html
 A Wall Street Journal editorial today makes the very valuable point that Syria is an enemy of the U.S. Given its role as a transit point for foreign fighters making their way into Iraq to kill American soldiers, its alliance with Hamas and Hezbollah, its alleged role in the assassination of Lebanese political officials and journalists, its support for terror in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories, America has no reason to help preserve that regime. It doesn’t matter who follows Assad, if it’s an Islamist regime or Osama bin Laden himself, Syria can’t possibly be any more damaging to U.S. interests since the only limits the Assad regime observes are those imposed upon it by force.
The Journal suggests that the administration not only withdraw the U.S. ambassador to Damascus, Robert Ford, but also expel the Syrian envoy to Washington—the vainglorious Imad Mustafa, possibly the most toxic presence inside the Beltway. It was rumored a few years ago that the Bush administration contemplated tossing Mustafa out of the country when Damascus laid siege to U.S. allies in Lebanon and meddled in the Iraq war. Somehow Mustafa got a pass then, but it’s time for him to go now. The White House doesn’t need our diplomatic corps, never mind Syria’s, to send tough messages to a regime that only understands extremely tough messages. Sending Mustafa packing would be a good first step.
The Journal lays out further moves the administration might make, including an array of aggressive sanctions laid out by Foundation for Defense of Democracies:
the U.S. and Europe could also freeze and seize the assets of the Assads, designate Syria's elite units responsible for human rights abuses as Specially Designated Global Terrorist entities, impose sanctions on companies providing the regime's tools of repression, and provide the Syrian opposition with encrypted communications technology to dodge the regime's surveillance. All this would damage the regime while signaling the opposition not to lose courage.
Apparently, there is another round of sanctions on the way. Hisham Melhem, the Washington, D.C.-based correspondent for the Lebanese daily Al-Nahar reported on his twitter feed that “The Treasury Dept. will announce ‘targeted list’ of officials in #Syria before the ‘next big day’ (Friday) according to well-placed sources.” In another tweet, Melhem reports, “From reliable sources, the list of 'targeted sanctions' in #Syria includes Maher Assad, president Bashar's brother and bloody enforcer.”
In other words, it seems that the Syrian president himself is off the hook. It’s not surprising the Obama White House is going to give a free pass to the man who’s actually calling the shots and murdering his own people. As Aaron David Miller explains in Politico, “Having worked in the State Department for more than 20 years, I know that the Assads hold a special place in the schemes and dreams of U.S. policymakers. U.S. policy always seemed to mean giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
It’s true that everyone, from Henry Kissinger to Colin Powell, flattered himself into thinking that they could do business with the Assads. But the Obama administration has taken it to a different level. An administration official told the New York Times that “Mr. Assad is sensitive to portrayals of his regime as brutal and backward. ‘He sees himself as a Westernized leader,’ one senior administration official said, ‘and we think he’ll react if he believes he is being lumped in with brutal dictators.’”
So why is the administration protecting a regime that makes war against its own people as well as America and her allies? As Michael Doran explains in his latest article in Foreign Affairs (“The Heirs of Nasser”), it is because “the Obama administration has made the Arab-Israeli peace process the organizing principle of its Middle East policy.”
From the outset, the Obama administration has believed in the importance of pursuing a "comprehensive" settlement -- meaning a peace treaty that includes not just the Palestinians but, in addition, all the Arab states, especially Syria. As the administration has failed to make any headway in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the Syrian track has grown in importance. Consequently, Washington has chosen to treat Syria not as an adversary deserving containment but rather as a partner in the negotiations deserving of engagement. In fact, the Obama administration sees the peace process as an instrument for wooing Syria away from Iran. At the very least, Washington believes that by bringing Damascus to the negotiating table, it can give the Syrians an incentive to tamp down Arab-Israeli violence. But such a strategy fails to acknowledge that the Syrians understand the thinking in Washington all too well -- they recognize the United States' fervent desire for negotiations and see in it an opportunity to bargain. Damascus seeks to trade participation in diplomatic processes, which costs it nothing, for tangible benefits from Washington, including a relaxation of U.S. hostility. In short, the Syrians believe that they can have it both ways... And why would they think otherwise? After all, nobody held them responsible for similar double-dealing in Iraq, where they were accomplices to the murder of Americans.
In other words, the Obama White House’s Syria policy is not pragmatic and cautious. Rather, it is adventurist and ideological. The administration is sheltering Damascus in order to salvage its own bankrupt Middle East policy. If he loses Assad, Obama is lost in the region and the administration will be forced, obviously against its will, to recalibrate. The question is, how much will U.S. interests suffer in the meantime?

Syria: a coup by any name
April 27, 2011
By: Amir Taheri/New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/syria_coup_by_any_name_Vkv52UPKtzyTJUd8lnhafL
Last weekend, pro-democracy forces de clared the southern city of Deraa to be the first "liberated zone" in Syria with plans to set up a "People's Council" to run it. Yesterday, however, the few Deraans still able to talk to the outside world had a different story to tell.
"We are an occupied city now," one Deraan said via his satellite phone, which he could still use by moving close to the sealed border with Jordan. The picture began to change Sunday as a military column, spearheaded by the 136th Brigade, surrounded the city to prepare for a full-scale invasion. Electricity, water and phone lines were cut off, plunging the city of 250,000 people into darkness and fear. Deraans, who'd started the national uprising, feared what everyone in Syria knows as "the Lessons of Hama." This refers to a week in 1982 when the Syrian army, led by Basil al-Assad, the late brother of President Bashar al-Assad, crushed a popular uprising in the central city of Hama. To this day, no one knows how many people died in Hama; estimates vary from 10,000 to 40,000. Yet hiding a crime isn't as easy as it was in 1982. This is a different world, with news transmitted instantly across the globe. Most Syrians even today don't know what exactly happened in Hama -- whereas yesterday saw the torrent of images and sound from Deraa, initially reduced to a trickle, resume with vengeance, recording the atrocities committed by Assad's army.
Images of mass killings, reported to have claimed more than 100 lives in Deraa alone, are in cyberspace already.
Yet another sign that Deraa won't be a second Hama: Fewer than 24 hours after the invasion, a crowd of women cast aside the hijab of fear and marched in the heart of Deraa with cries of "Down with tyranny!" We also have reports of smaller protest marches in the Kurdish city of Qamishli -- and, perhaps more significant, the mainly Alawite town of Jablah. It seems that Assad no longer enjoys the unanimous support even of his own Alawite community. What we see in Syria is a military coup that dares not use its name. Assad has no political solution to the crisis because he himself is the problem. In addition to the invasion of Deraa, and of the city of Douma close to the capital, Damascus, army units have also taken position in and around Homs, Hama, Latakia and Qamishli, among other cities. Checkpoints punctuate many roads leading to Damascus, including the usually busy one to Beirut, Lebanon.
Will Assad's latest gambit work? It is too early to tell. Deraa is in the heart of the Hauran region, which extends into Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Israel. Tribal bonds cut across largely artificial frontiers that colonial powers imposed. The continued occupation of Deraa may well lead to clashes between Assad's troops and armed tribes, including some in Jordan. So Assad's move is a potential threat to regional peace -- and might provoke a regional response even absent action by the UN Security Council. Another key question concerns the loyalty of the armed forces. Although Alawites dominate the Syrian officers corps, the great majority of the rank and file are Sunni Muslims, who may not want to massacre their coreligionists to keep Assad in power. There are already reports about the alleged "unreliability" of some army units -- including several that a number of officers and NCOs have switched sides. One report claims that a Brig.-Gen. Muhammad al-Raq'ei has refused to move the units under his command against Deraa.
By invading several of his own cities, Assad may have played one of the last few cards at his disposal.

UN Security Council likely to discuss secret Syria nuclear reactor
By The Associated Press
Diplomats say the International Atomic Energy Agency is setting the stage for UN Security Council action against Syria for allegedly trying to build a secret nuclear reactor.
On Thursday, the head of the IAEA said for the first time that a target allegedly destroyed by Israeli warplanes in Syria in 2007 was a covert nuclear site. The agency later retracted the statement, but diplomats say it is working on an assessment that will judge the destroyed building a likely reactor.
Suspected Syrian nuclear facility reportedly bombed by Israel in 2007.
Syria says the building had no nuclear uses, but a 2008 IAEA inspection found evidence of possible nuclear activities.
The diplomats say such an assessment would be the basis of a resolution at an IAEA board meeting that sends the issue to the Security Council.
They spoke on condition of anonymity in exchange for discussing confidential information.

Jumping the gun
By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel
Haaretz
The surprise reconciliation agreement initialed on Wednesday in Cairo by representatives of Fatah and Hamas is largely the outcome of pressure from the Palestinian public. In the Middle East of spring 2011, no Arab leader - and that includes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas' Khaled Meshal - can completely disregard public opinion.
Indeed, it was not another revolution or more mass demonstrations against a dictator (like those still in progress in Libya, Syria and Yemen ) in the region that provided the big news of the week, but the Palestinian accord - however fragile, partial and conditional it may be.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza City on March 18, 2007.
Abbas and Meshal were also probably influenced by ongoing events in neighboring countries. Hosni Mubarak, who as president of Egypt was highly critical of Hamas in recent years, is out of the picture. Syrian President Bashar Assad currently has other issues on his plate.
Barring any further surprises (and there will undoubtedly be many ), a year from now, the Palestinians will hold a free election for their president and parliament. According to the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center, a Palestinian organization, Fatah enjoys the support of 34 percent of the Palestinian population - and Hamas, 15 percent. Abbas personally has the backing of 17.9 percent of the population, as compared with 11.4 percent for Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.
The lopsided disparity in favor of Fatah could change before the election for any number of reasons. The first is Abbas' declaration that he does not intend to run for another term. At the moment, no successor has emerged on the Fatah horizon. But Abbas might - and not for the first time - retract his planned retirement. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who is not a member of Fatah, could become a consensus candidate, but only if the movement's senior members overcome their hostility toward him.
Another scenario is also possible: that fear of suffering a humiliating electoral defeat will spur Hamas to present quick achievements. Since support for the armed struggle against Israel is not currently running high among the Palestinian public, an alternative option is to try to complete a deal for the return of Gilad Shalit to Israel. Hamas will need a "victory photo-op." Hundreds of prisoners being released from Israeli prisons would definitely make for a winning image.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a statement to the effect that the emerging agreement attests to the PA's weakness, and urged its leadership to choose between peace with Israel and peace with Hamas - the organization that seeks Israel's destruction. Netanyahu is right, of course. Hamas has no interest in a permanent settlement and refuses even to discuss the Quartet's demand that it recognize Israel's right to exist. Its co-option to a unity government, not to mention the possibility that it will lead the Palestinian people if it wins the election in a year's time, reduces the chances of achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Still, it is not clear why it was so urgent for the prime minister to speak little more than two hours after the first reports emerged from Cairo. It's not only his stiff body language that is a problem; it's also the sourness that wafts from Jerusalem in response to every Arab move.
Less than three months ago, when Mubarak's regime began to wobble, Netanyahu instructed his ministers to say nothing, though he himself, in a press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, warned that Egypt was in danger of becoming a new Iran. He was immediately seen to be pinning his hopes on regional developments turning into an excuse for political inactivity. This time, too, Netanyahu would have done better to wait and let the Palestinians mess things up themselves, instead of rushing to interpret their intentions to them and to the world.
Crisis at Joseph's Tomb
The Cairo agreement includes a clause about joint Fatah-Hamas security activity. Its implementation will create a serious obstacle to future Palestinian coordination with the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service, which has improved dramatically ever since the end of 2007, and in the more recent past, has been based on a high level of mutual trust and readiness to allow considerable operational latitude.
A series of recent violent events - the massacre of the Fogel family at the settlement of Itamar, the explosion of a bomb near a bus stop in Jerusalem, the shooting of an ultra-Orthodox man at Joseph's Tomb by Palestinian policemen during Passover, and to some extent, even the murder of actor Juliano Mer-Khamis in Jenin earlier this month - call into question the degree to which the PA controls its territory and is seriously commited to calm.
In the Joseph's Tomb affair, a group of Hasidim ignored Israeli army directives and entered Nablus. On Sunday afternoon, a meeting was held in which the IDF insisted that the Palestinians investigate the incident and draw the necessary conclusions. The Israeli officers carefully avoided labeling the event as "murder" and emphasized the importance of continued security coordination.
Behind the scenes, the Palestinians acknowledged their mistakes and promised a detailed report. Publicly, an article in the official PA newspaper, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, justified the shooting at the cars carrying the Bratslavers. And senior PA officials in Nablus competed with one another - in interviews with the Israeli media, of all places - in presenting fabricated and unfounded descriptions of the event. They claimed, for example, without any basis, that the worshipers had thrown stones at the policemen.
'Summud in Daraa'
"According to Dr. Haitham Manaa Awdat: The families are living under a criminal siege, the roads to the city have been blockaded in a manner far worse than what Israel does in the West Bank. The authorities are trying to push the people to defend themselves by violence in order to justify the serious crimes committed by the security forces. But the people are organizing a fabulous civil resistance and are moving food and light [electricity] to areas under siege. We will continue the intifada by peaceful means ..."
This is one of the testimonies posted this week on Internet sites run by the Syrian opposition. It refers to the events in Daraa, in the south of Syria, the heart of the uprising against Assad. Comparisons to the Israeli enemy recur in many reports, notably in the context of claims that the Syrian army has demonstrated far more brutality in suppressing the opposition than the IDF have done in cracking down on the Palestinians. Earlier in the week, when Assad's 4th Division entered the city, the imam of Al-Omari Mosque in Daraa called on the residents through loudspeakers to demonstrate summud - a term often used by the Palestinians that means steadfastness - against the Syrian army.
According to photographs depicting events this week across Syria, Assad's security forces are carrying out massacres against opponents of the regime. On Wednesday morning, opposition websites carried the names of 416 civilians who had been killed by the security forces in the past few weeks. Hundreds more were wounded and arrested.
Still, the demonstrations are apparently limited in scale, and even though more than a month has gone by since they began, Syria's two major cities, Damascus and Aleppo, had been barely affected as of yesterday. According to Prof. Eyal Zisser, an expert on Syria from Tel Aviv University, the middle and upper classes make up a far larger proportion of the population in the big cities than in the periphery. (Daraa is located in Horan, the poorest district in the country. ) "Civil servants and businessmen have a lot more to lose," he notes.
As of now, defections from the army are not widespread. Most of the soldiers - Alawis, Sunnis and others - continue to obey orders and to shoot the demonstrators. The question now is what will happen first: Will Assad succeed in suppressing the demonstrations before massive defections begin or before the killing of civilians finally breaks the army?
Assad made the decision to massacre the demonstrators when his declarations of reforms failed to halt the protest movement. Washington claimed this week that Iran is providing Syria with military aid to quell the disturbances. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi scolded the Syrian regime but explained that only a UN Security Council resolution - something that is not on anyone's agenda at the moment - can put an end to the murder of demonstrators.
The anonymous videographers in Daraa who courageously documented the quashing of the protest sounded simultaneously proud, desperate and ironic. "Here is Bashar bringing his reforms to Daraa," they said, as the tanks advanced and mowed them down with machine-gun fire. The immediate associations were Prague in 1968 and Budapest in 1956. There, too, the world watched and did nothing when the Soviets invaded.
As every Friday, demonstrations will be held today throughout Syria, even though Assad's forces have taken the cities of Daraa, Doma and Banyas. "The use of the army certainly does not end the affair," says Prof. Zisser. "Assad has not addressed the motivation people have to topple his regime. That still exists."
If Assad's advisers were to provide him with translations of the warnings being issued by experts and commentators in the Israeli media about the dangers lurking ahead for the Jewish state should he disappear from the stage, he might yet be tempted to seek political asylum in one of the B&Bs on the Golan Heights.
Galant's return
Next Tuesday evening, Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant, the man who was almost chief of staff, will be the keynote speaker at a symposium organized by the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. Galant will address the protracted struggle between Israel and Iran to mark the publication of "Israel against Iran" by the journalists Dr. Yoaz Hendel and Yaakov Katz.
Galant's position on the Iranian issue is of particular interest. Defense Minister Ehud Barak is considered, like Netanyahu, a hawk who is likely to back an attack, and many conjectured that Galant's support for the military option (an issue he never addressed in public ) improved Galant's prospects to be appointed chief of staff.
In contrast to Galant, Benny Gantz - the man chosen in the end to be chief of staff - is considered a moderate, apparently also when it comes to Iran. The question of how Israel should respond to Tehran's nuclear project (which continues to advance ) is apparently no longer a top priority in light of the recent instability in Egypt and Syria.
Galant, in the meantime, remains on leave from the army. A few weeks ago, a ceremony was held marking the completion of a training course of the naval commandos. When the emcee of the event announced that Galant was present, the audience honored him with a standing ovation. It can be assumed that the Bar-Ilan talk will also not be his last public appearance. After all, the state comptroller is still investigating who was behind the forged document issued last summer that was meant to hurt Galant's prospects of becoming the next chief of staff - what has become widely known as the Harpaz affair.

I was wrong about Syria
By: Sever Plocker/Ynetnews
Op-ed: Sever Plocker admits he was wrong, says Israel must not make peace with killers
I was wrong and I admit it. Three times in the past three years I wrote articles in favor of a peace treaty between Israel and Syria. I wrote, based on numerous conversations with senior security officials, that Israel can achieve peace with Assad’s regime in exchange for willingness to withdraw from the Golan Heights, whose security significance has become dubious, if not wholly non-existent.
While making this argument, I did not take into account the Damascus regime’s tyrannical character. I fooled myself. Even when Assad won 98% of the vote in the last elections I did not wake up and say: We must not make peace with this man. I believed in peace so much to the point of being blinded to reality.
I should have seen reality. As one who researched and wrote about the fall of tyrannical regimes, I should have realized that Arab affairs experts are wrong, just like Soviet experts were wrong before them. The people of Aleppo are no different than the people in Gdansk. Both want to live as free men, and the thirst for freedom is like the thirst for water: It has no substitute. Sooner or later, it overflows and brings down any dam.
Nikita Khrushchev appeared to be a decent statesman, until he sent his tanks to repress Hungarian democracy. Leonid Brezhnev appeared to be a level-headed and rational dialogue partner, until he too sent tanks to repress democracy in Czechoslovakia, and later in Afghanistan. Those reaching out to tyrants were wrong, and former American president, the late Ronald Reagan, was right: One must not make peace with the empire of evil.
Benjamin Netanyahu was also right in his first speech before the two houses of Congress in Washington on July 10, 1996, when he said that
viable peace between Israel and its neighbors is impossible without Arab world democracy. The time has come to place the issues of democratization and human rights at the top of the Middle East’s agenda, Bibi said at the time. He added that while Israel can make peace with non-democratic Arab states, it will not be full-fledged peace and will rely on restrictive security arrangements.
Peace for generations can only be made with democratic regimes that honor human rights.
Look at Egyptian case
However, the absence of democracy and tyrannical rule in the Arab world does not legitimize our continued control over another people and land that does not belong to us. The end of the occupation is a national and strategic interest for Israel and it is not an abstract notion. It is very practical and depends on the question of who our peace partner is. I forgot this historic lesson when I voiced unqualified support for a deal with the murderer Assad.
Would Israel’s current situation be worse with an Israeli embassy in Damascus and the Golan Heights mostly under Syrian sovereignty? I believe so. In that case, the Syrian rebellion would have taken a radical anti-Israel shape. The oppression and massacre by Assad’s troops against his own citizens would have been perceived as a means to enforce the peace deal. A new regime – and after all, such regime will eventually rise in Damascus – would have annulled such treaty at once.
In this respect, we should be looking at Egypt. Even though Mubarak was not toppled because of his (weak) hold on the peace treaty with Israel, and while peace did not play a key role in the revolutionary discourse, the belligerent attitude to Israel on the part of some of Egypt’s free media has been reinforced ever since democracy won. As result of the incitement, only about half of Egyptians support the peace treaty in public opinion polls.
A peace treaty with Assad would have fully collapsed a day after the Assad regime collapsed.
I am not writing on behalf of Israel’s leftist camp. I was not authorized to do so. I am writing on behalf of myself: I need to engage in some self-reflection. I need to remind myself and not forget, as I did indeed forget, the following principle: A dictator is a dictator is a dictator, and peace with him would always be handicapped, flawed, and unstable. Peace with such tyrant is immoral, undesirable and dangerous for Israel.

Decision time for the U.S. on Assad rule
By Michael Young
The Daily Star
The Obama administration’s policy toward Syria has been narrowly portrayed as vacillating between heart and mind. On the one side the United States has sought to save lives and defend humanistic values; on the other, it has endeavored to protect its interests in the Middle East.
The tension between principles and political preferences is ever present in the foreign policy of democracies, so it should come as no surprise that Washington has struggled amid proliferating Arab uprisings. However, the Obama administration’s confusion on Syria has also very much had to do with the absence of an overriding strategy. The United States has had no center of gravity when dealing with Damascus.
It was obvious weeks ago, when the Syrian protests began, that the Obama team could not avoid addressing the situation in the country, whatever the outcome. If President Bashar Assad crushed his own people, the administration would face a major human rights challenge; and if Assad and his regime buckled, then Washington would have to attend to a volatile new political reality. Either way, more was required than the reactive, timorous responses we witnessed as the situation in Syria worsened. President Barack Obama and his advisers seem as unprepared today on Syria as they were last month.
The latest twist is that Washington is considering sanctions against Syrian regime figures, even as American officials whisper that the U.S. has little leverage over Syria. The second proposition underlines how low are the administration’s expectations that the first will succeed. Sanctions are there for show, to do something when one doesn’t want to have to do more. Yet Obama has no justification to pursue that vacant path when he was provided with ample evidence that sanctions against Moammar Gadhafi’s regime failed utterly to halt a military onslaught on eastern Libya, let alone ameliorate Gadhafi’s behavior.
If fears of a possible breakdown in Syria are serious enough to warrant excessive cautiousness by the Obama administration, surely that means the country is sufficiently important to impose a U.S. approach more coherent than what we have had until now. The grim fact is that there is no Syria policy in Washington. The Assad regime’s ever higher levels of barbarity have been eliciting ever sharper administration ejaculations of outrage, and feverish consultations with this ally and that. But none of those steps has established that Obama knows what he really wants to achieve in Syria, whether he actually sees beyond the Assads, what his endgame is, let alone whether he is looking to exploit the situation to bolster America’s otherwise uneasy status in the Middle East.
As numerous commentators have pointed out, Syria is that rare place where America’s heart and mind converge. The fall of the Assad regime, if handled properly, would represent a major setback for Iran and its regional allies. Potentially, this could have a positive impact in Lebanon, Palestinian areas and Iraq. More important, it could free the Syrian people from four decades of subjugation by a single sinister family.
Understandably, no one is seriously contemplating a scheme for the U.S. and European states to mount a military campaign to protect the Syrian population. Syrians have not braved the bullets of their security services and pro-Assad crime gangs in the hope of inviting foreign armed intervention. This is one society that has appeared quite determined to free itself largely through its own agency, and peacefully. However, with Western, especially American, apathy measured in lives, Syrian protesters are entitled to wonder why their plight has been so much less pressing than those of the Egyptians and Libyans.
You can still hear Western officials and spokespersons mouthing empty words about the need for Bashar Assad to embrace reform. Have they been watching what is going on? The Syrian regime knows that it simply has no such option. If you give society a bit of breathing space, it realizes better than anyone else, most Syrians will see an opening to overthrow the entire foul edifice repressing them. What many in Syria want is an end to the institutionalized suffocation and terrorization of Assad rule. They see no point in preserving Bashar if they can get rid of Maher, his brother who has led the savage military counterattack.
Bashar Assad is no more a reformer than Moammar Gadhafi or Hosni Mubarak. And with his security forces butchering Syrians from north to south and from east to west, his legitimacy has reached an end. It’s about time that Washington accept these simple propositions and reshape its attitude toward Syria accordingly. Bashar is not about to do what Washington, deep down, pines for him to do: He won’t reform, he won’t break with Iran, he won’t engage seriously in peace negotiations with Israel, and he won’t halt his interference in Lebanon.
What Bashar will do is continue to slaughter his own population, and they will likely continue to resist. It’s as simple as that, and Obama should place the U.S. on the right side of the fight against the Assads and their maintenance in power, while also helping to ease Syria toward a smooth democratic transition. This is not about regime change in Syria; the Syrian regime has already ascertained that change is obligatory. It’s about the U.S. accepting that change is inevitable and ensuring that it can become useful for whatever occurs next.
If politics is the art of the possible, it’s also about knowing what one desires. Barack Obama has so often accepted the restrictions of what is possible that he has frequently proven unwilling to pursue what he finds desirable. The president’s wavering on Syria has been a prime illustration of this shortcoming. And yet the sordid methods of the Assads make even the most difficult decisions fairly easy to take.
*Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR and author of “The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon’s Life Struggle” (Simon & Schuster), listed as one of the 10 notable books of 2010 by The Wall Street Journal. He tweets @BeirutCalling.