First the Human Rights Watch report then the Arab League suspension and now the threat of foreign intervention. What next?
Will this regime ever come to its senses? If the Assad clan and their armed thugs are ever caught they should be tried not just for crimes against humanity but also high treason.
Their refusal to meet public demands for free and fair elections and deliberate escalation of violence have been tearing the country's economy and social and sectarian fabric apart for months. They are now opening the door for unwelcome intervention and long-term exploitation by foreign powers.
Syria has little to offer but let us not be blind to foreign political, economic and military agendas. In essence:
Russia: Now friendless in the Middle East but for Syria, arms sales and maintaining their only naval base in the Mediterranean at Tartous
Turkey: Economic rewards, encouraging the Kurds to resettle in Syria and acting as Nato's watchdog and power broker in the Middle East
Iran: exporting Shi'a theocracy along the Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon crescent to provide strategic depth against long-term Western, Israeli and the Sunni Arab threats
France: unprincipled as ever, and more so with the Hungarian vulture Sarkozy, who foments national discord and violent conflicts to sell arms and win reconstruction contracts
USA and Britain: under the thumbs of Jewish lobbies and their banks, weakening Syria, prising it away from Iran and exporting cultural trash
China: will not support popular democratic uprisings as a matter of princple as they threaten its own autocratic system
Arab League: Sunni desire to curtail Iran's rising influence mixed with some concern over civilian deaths and wanting to be seen to have teeth for a change
Saudi Arabia & Qatar: arming Syrian men with long beards and dellusional Wahhabi ideals
Israel: Has almost given up on the regime as a long-term ally in maintaining peace in the Golan!
and the list goes on...
At the heart of Syria's troubles is a rotten little patch in Qardaha that gave birth to the worst Alawite family the country has seen for generations. What more do they want? They have milked the country dry and subjugated the entire population for 42 years. Syria today is a shameful example of how to deprive two generations of their liberty, dreams and self-esteem.
Their heads will roll. Deep down I really hope they don't. They deserve a better fate: hard labour for life with waterboarding, beatings and electric shocks for nightly treats. Why should they miss out on such exquisite pleasures as their political prisoners have enjoyed for decades?
