For weeks, the United States has stood by while Syria’s dictatorial regime brutally repressed those calling for reform and change. The forces of Bashar Assad have slaughtered hundreds, if not thousands, as Washington reacted with only an occasional meek request for the Syrian ruler to meet demands for change.
After the latest round of atrocities committed by Assad’s forces as they swept through cities with tanks and armed troops, the regime’s spokesperson, Bouthaina Shaaban, told the New York Times that she and her boss believe the dust is about to settle. Her comments to a Times reporter who, according to the story, was permitted into Syria for a few hours to conduct the interview, indicate that Assad thinks he has crushed the Arab Spring protests that many hoped would bring an end to his family’s 40-year-old reign of terror in Damascus.
Events in Syria once again prove that such regimes tend to fall only when their elites lose their taste for violent repression or lose the support of their military or security forces. In Egypt, the military decided it would rather jettison Hosni Mubarak than fire on the crowds protesting in Cairo. But in Syria, where fellow members of the minority Alawite religious sect run the armed forces, Assad had no such worries. His regime is incapable of reforming itself simply because its grip on the country is predicated on the mafia family-style manner in which the extended Assad clan and other Alawites maintain control of all sources of power and influence.
Assad’s victory is bad news for the Syrian people. But it is also a problem for the Obama administration. When asked about the weak response of the United States to events in Syria, Shaaban dismissed it as insignificant. The statements from President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about Syria were, she said, “Not too bad.” Nor was she concerned about the sanctions imposed on her country by the United States.
In the last year, the Obama foreign policy team tried and failed to woo Assad to join the peace process with Israel and abandon his alliance with Iran. The result was complete failure as Assad reasserted Syrian control of Lebanon and reinforced his Hezbollah terrorist allies there. Now after the failure of protests in Syria seeking freedom, Assad must be feeling even more confident about his decision to stick with Tehran.
Though in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden Americans are feeling good about their president as a decisive leader, the disdain that both Syria and Iran and their newly empowered Hamas allies feel for Obama cannot be ignored and may have severe consequences for America’s hopes for peace in the region. Bin Laden’s death gave Obama a boost in his polling numbers at home, but in the Middle East, his stock is crashing.
[...] perhaps the president will talk about Syria, where Bashar Assad thinks things are going his way despite the loss of one of his more ardent western supporters, Senate Foreign Relations Committee [...]
[...] THE BLOODY Assad Declares Victory, Calls Obama and Clinton “Not Too Bad” …. [...]