Several years ago, I read an interview, I think in the New York Times, with Syria's young president Bashar al-Assad and his attractive wife. Both educated in the West, he as a medical doctor and ophthalmologist. That career was interrupted when he was pressed to take up the leadership of Syria upon the death of his father.
The article painted this couple as the enlightened, educated Westerners who had great ideas about modernizing and democratizing their country. I was impressed at the time, and have looked for reforms, knowing that it would be slow and difficult because he would be going against Syria's tradition and his father's regime.
Then we began to hear accusations of Syria meddling in Iraq, providing exile and support for the people in opposition of the invading Americans.
I was not in favor of our invading Iraq either, so a neighbor helping resist an imperialist invasion from afar did not strike me as so reprehensible.
I was still reluctant to see him as just another tyrant of a Middle East country ripe for revolution. And he did early on announce some reforms and promised others. But it has grown more and more difficult to dismiss the tyrannical tactics that the Syrian miliatary has been using against demonstrators. Either Bashar Assad has no power over the military, or the impression I gained was wrong about his intentions.
Today, the news has erased any doubts I had about this regime. At two different funerals today, troops fired on mourners. One funeral was for an important opposition leader who was gunned down in his own apartment yesterday. Up to 50,000 people were marching in mourning when police opened fire on them. If there was provocation, other than their presence in large number, the media have not reported it.
The other was a much simpler funeral in another province. Again no reason given in the news for why the military started shooting at the crowd. Of course, we know that this is a favorite terrorizing tactic of the opposition
Don't they know that nothing ignites a crowd like an assassination of a leader, or an innocent young person, and then killing people who are mourning those deaths?
This may be the kindling that ignites a full-blown revolt in Syria -- joining Tunisia, Egypt, and Lybia.
Ralph
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I'm learning more about this situation. The opposition leader killed was a highly respected leader of the Kurdish community, the largest minority group in Syria.
ReplyDeleteSo now the government has only made the Kurdish opposition to the regime many, many times worse.
Tactically, it was the most stupid thing they could have done. Whether this is Assad's administration or whether he has little control over the military is something I don't know enough about. But whoever is in charge obviously is not very smart or wise.
I've now read further in the New York Times article that informed the above comment.
ReplyDeleteIt is thought that the Assad regime granted unlimited powers to the security forces back in early August to use violence against the uprisings in order to restore the wall of control through fear.
So it seems that the regime made the strategic decision to delegate to the security forces but may not have sanctioned this tactical blunder.
Now they will either have to clamp down massively and violently against their own people, or else dramatically reverse course.
The Kurd leader's daughter said that assassinating her father "was the screw in the coffin of the Assad regime."