The Alawite "state within a state" begins to implode

The French created the Alawite State in and around Lattakia in the 1920s to divide and rule Syria.  They encouraged Alawites to join the new army because the more-affluent and urban Sunni majority preferred civilian life.

As they rose through the ranks and their numbers swelled the armed forces, the Alawites proceeded to build a state within a state from the late 1960s onwards motivated by deep-seated fear of Sunni persecution and lust for power.

Not only did they take control of the armed forces, intelligence agencies and the police but also the Baath party, state enterprises, trade flows and oil revenues. They co-opted the greedy Sunni merchants of Aleppo and Damascus and the fearful Christian, Druze and other minorities' leaders. Their project was not complete until they drove out the middle classes, muzzled the intelligentsia and bought long-term protection from Iran.

The real losers in the last 41 years have been the poorer Sunni majority, two generations of expatriates and their dependent families back home and Syria's development as a healthy, effective and modern nation state.

Dismantling this extraordinary "state within a state" will not be easy let alone rebuilding Syria. International sanctions do not have much effect on such a state and could hurt ordinary Syrians. This regime has plenty of foreign reserves and gold stashed away and can go on funding its killing machine for at least six months. That said, the Assad tribe has already sown the seeds of its own destruction.

The regime has hardly any friends left in the world and its security apparatus is coming under attack not just from defectors but also international powers. While it can  survive for a few more months, Assad himself, his inner circle and extended family have no choice but to negotiate a safe-exit deal with the Russians or risk being slaughtered.

Splits within the Alawite community are also bound to emerge in coming weeks. Other Alawite tribes may even offer the Assad clan to the international community as sacrificial lambs if faced with a real threat of annihilation.

Waterboarding for Assad

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?

The "King of All African Kings" is hunted down like an animal

He could have retired in dignity but,  like all despots, he believed his own hubris and met the end that he deserved.

Mr Assad, do not fight the people. Take a good look at this picture, learn from history,  pack your bags and go.