Israel Matzav: Russia protecting Assad

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Russia protecting Assad

The Arab League deadline for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to stop his crackdown on Syrian civilians has come and gone, but the 'crackdown' continues and now it is being backed by Russian warships in Syrian waters (Hat Tip: Memeorandum) and opposed by Syrian insurgents who fired rocket-propelled grenades at the Baath party headquarters. This is from the first link.

Syrian President Bashar Assad was quoted on Saturday as saying he would press on with a crackdown against anti-government unrest in his country despite increased pressure from the Arab League to end it.

"The conflict will continue and the pressure to subjugate Syria will continue," he told Britain's Sunday Times newspaper. "However, I assure you that Syria will not bow down and that it will continue to resist the pressure being imposed on it."

In video footage on the newspaper's website, Assad said there would be elections in February or March when Syrians would vote for a parliament to create a new constitution and that would include provision for a presidential ballot.

"That constitution will set the basis of how to elect a president, if they need a president or don't need him," he said. "They have the elections, they can participate in it. The ballot boxes will decide who should be president."

The Arab League, a powerful political group of Arab states, set a deadline of Saturday for Syria to comply with a peace plan, involving a military pullout from around restive areas, and threatened sanctions if Assad failed to halt the violence.

However, activists from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 12 civilians were killed in raids by government forces on Saturday while two army defectors died when they clashed with the army in Homs, which has become a center of armed revolt against more than 40 years of Assad family rule.

Asked if his forces had been too aggressive, Assad told the newspaper mistakes had been made but these were the fault of individuals, not the state.

"We, as a state, do not have a policy to be cruel with citizens," he said.

In other words, "mind your own business." Last week, the Arab League tried offering him asylum to get him out, but Assad seems determined to fight to the end. Meanwhile the 'international community' remains surprisingly reluctant to intervene after their recent intervention in Libya, which they keep trying to tell us was different.

It looks like things are only going to get worse. This is from the third link.

At least two rocket-propelled grenades hit a ruling Baath Party building in Damascus on Sunday, residents said, in the first insurgent attack reported inside the Syrian capital since an eight-month uprising began against President Bashar Assad.

The attack occurred hours after an Arab League deadline for Syria to end its crackdown against protesters passed with no sign of violence abating, and Assad remained defiant in the face of growing international isolation.

"Security police blocked off the square where the Baath's Damascus branch is located. But I saw smoke rising from the building and fire trucks around it," said one witness, who declined to be named.

"The attack was just before dawn and the building was mostly empty. It seems to have been intended as a message to the regime," said the witness.

But so far, the only party willing to intervene is Russia, and they are intervening on Assad's side. This is from the second link.

Russian warships are due to arrive at Syrian territorial waters, a Syrian news agency said on Thursday, indicating that the move represented a clear message to the West that Moscow would resist any foreign intervention in the country's civil unrest.

Also on Friday, a Syrian official said Damascus has agreed "in principle" to allow an Arab League observer mission into the country.

In the 'bad old' days of George W. Bush (and for that matter, Bill Clinton), the United States was the World's sole superpower. Now, President Obama has 're-set' relations with Russia and they're back in picture stirring up trouble just like the old Soviet Union.

What could go wrong?

Labels: Arab League, Bashar al-Assad, Russia, Syrian Baath party, Syrian uprising