The beginning of foreign intervention in Syria

Today's visit to Damascus by Turkey's foreign minister is a watershed in Syria's modern history.

The visit marks the beginning of foreign  intervention in the country to install a new regime and alter the balance of power in the region.  Iran will lose its Syrian protege and Russia will keep its naval base in Tartous.

Turkey is a member of NATO but also capable of playing its own game; it can easily intervene militarily (with NATO's blessing) to help remove Assad while appeasing Russia. Its own prize will be stronger political and economic influence in the region and as a bonus more Kurds will choose to live in Syria rather than Turkey! Israel will cautiously play along if the new regime will be more interested in re-building Syria than recovering the Golan for the next decade or so.

If Assad and his brother are not assasinated in the next few months or  El-Qardaha is not flattened by fighter bombers, Turkey will surely want to establish an exclusion zone deep into northern Syria as a first step towards whipping the Assad clan into submission. The regime has some strong ground troops (essentially two loyal and well-equipped Alawite divisions) but no real air cover and the country can also be "invaded" from the sea and from the east. 

There is always a  heavy price to pay for foreign intervention and no wise and patriotic Syrian wants it. Sadly it is now almost inevitable.  Peaceful protesters and the smattering of anti-regime armed groups are simply incapable of putting an end to the regime's daily murders. Conservative Arab regimes and foreign powers, with their own political agendas, have seen Assad shoot himself in the foot and will now move in for the kill. Perhaps they will be motivated to do it before the economy becomes too much of a liability!

Why can't Assad do the honourable thing, save the nation and his own skin and just quit?

Are we savages beyond compare?

Syrians are peace-loving, hospitable, mild-mannered and generous people, or so our parents and school teachers led us to believe.

This video tells a very different story (please be aware that it contains bloody and distressing scenes).  It makes you feel ashamed of your own identity, history, flag, passport, constitution and everything that the country stands for.  

It makes you question the very foundations of the Syrian state.  Were the French right to divide us up from the very beginning into ungovernable savage mountain people, ignorant farmers and sly and greedy city dwellers? (See 1920s map).

This uprising has brought out the worst and the best in people but it is still very hard to accept that some Syrians can be so barbaric and cruel.  This is precisely what the regime wants us to think and fear.  It wants to remind us of our supposed ugly past and regional and ethnic hatreds and to demonstrate, “by example”, how we would behave towards each other if it collapsed.

Just remember the faces and accents of the militias in this video, which was taken by one of their own gang members in Daraa.  Thankfully it is just a minority but no one should ever be allowed to get away with such ugly crimes against humanity.

Threat of Turkish invasion suffocates Syrian regime

Western powers, through Turkey, have tried hard to persuade Assad to lead a peaceful transition to a genuine multi-party democracy but failed. They are giving him one last chance despite the intransigence of the primitive savages in his extended family.

The alliance of  Western powers, Israel and conservative Sunni Arab governments would like nothing more than to end Iran’s influence in Syria and Lebanon. If this cannot be done peacefully then Turkey will be happy to oblige militarily on behalf of the alliance.

Turkey has welcomed 13,000 Syrian refugees, not just on humanitarian grounds, but also to give the alliance a pretext for military intervention in Syria if necessary. When the regime was left in no doubt about the alliance’s intentions, it moved swiftly to stem the flood of refugees, cutting off all major roads to Turkey in the border region.

The choice given to Assad and his clan was made crystal clear: make way for a democratic government, and we will guarantee your safety, or die. The threat will work but not until  Damascus and Aleppo have seen a massive popular uprising. The regime has maintained a tight grip on both cities and when small protests have erupted in the suburbs they have been dealt with quickly and with less brutality than that inflicted on other towns and villages. The protests will continue to grow each week and the more people are hurt the more widespread the protests will become and the easier it will be for the Western alliance to intervene.

Iran can do little to protect its protégés in the region. The era of igniting conflicts on the Lebanese/Israeli border at will is over. Such attempts will be catastrophic for both the beleaguered Syrian army and Hizbullah. Missiles or no missiles, neither can cope with a three-pronged attack from the south (Israel), the west (naval forces) and the north (Turkey), not to mention aerial bombardment.

The Syrian regime is all but finished; it is only a matter of time before it implodes or is obliterated. If the Assad tribe still possesses an ounce of intelligence and sanity it should yield to the will of the people now and save its own skin. No despot who sleeps on feathers fights to the end against overwhelming force.