1) The Syria Crisis is no longer about Syria, neither Romney
nor Obama has so far shows that he understands that. But judging from their debate
on Foreign Policy, one cannot but conclude that the very concept of policy
seems foreign to them. 2) Dealing with Syria requires action on both the
political and military fronts. Those who insist on approaching the situation
with an either-or mentality will only contribute to making the situation worse,
intentions notwithstanding. 3) Identifying suitable partners among Syria’s
rebels is important for the U.S. of course, but, and as the Revolution enters
into its 20th month, the Obama Administration has taken only a few
baby steps in this regard. At this pace, the only suitable partners that the Administration
will find in Syria will be Libyans, and other foreign fighters.
Monday October
22, 2012
Today’s
Death toll: 204. The Breakdown: Toll includes 8 women and 5
children: 134 in Damascus and Suburbs (including more than 60 were found with
signs of torture on most in Moadamiah, 10 in Harasta and 15 due to the aerial
shelling of Outaya), 23 in Aleppo, 14 in Idlib, 13 in Deir Ezzor, 9 in Daraa (including
4 field-executed in Busra Al-Sham), 6 in Homs, 5 in Hama, 1 in Raqqah, 1 in
Banyas, and 1 in Lattakia (LCC)
Other
Developments: The LCCs managed to
count 125 points of random shelling by Regime Forces: 12 by fighter jets, 49 by
mortar, 44 by artillery, 20 by missiles, 2 points explosive barrels.
Clashes between the FSA
and regime forces were reported in 65 points. The Free Syrian Army started 13
operations the most successful of which took place in Ma’arrat Al-Nouman (Idlib
Province) and Damascus Suburbs.
News
Special
Reports
USA TODAY freelance correspondent
Clare Morgana Gillis spent several days in the besieged city of Aleppo, the
deadliest battleground in Syria's brutal civil war.
Onetime demonstrators seeking the
government's ouster now risk their lives to aid the displaced and wounded
civilians and rebels as Syria's humanitarian crisis grows.
Brahimi’s appointment as Arab League
and U.N. representative came at a time when the Syrian people had lost all
confidence in the Arab and international organizations. We have not only lost
all hope; we now have a tendency to look upon any new initiative as intended to
control the Syria massacre, rather than stop it.
The US has remained largely on the
sidelines but the Syrian crisis will affect all corners of the Middle East and
beyond
In Lebanon, troops launched a major
security operation to open all roads and force gunmen off the streets, trying
to contain an outburst of violence set off by the assassination of a top
intelligence official who was a powerful opponent of Syria. Sectarian clashes
overnight killed at least two people.
The accumulation in civilian hands of
guns, ranging from hunting rifles to assault weapons from official stocks,
shows the potential for the battle between President Bashar al-Assad’s
government and opposition groups to degenerate further into a militia-based
war.
Determining the suitability of armed
opposition elements as potential recipients of military assistance is complex
and challenging. In Syria, such groups are numerous, rapidly evolving, and
highly varied in ideology. Nevertheless, they do not pose an impenetrable
mystery.
If the United States wants to save
Lebanon, it should get off the sidelines and help topple Bashar al-Assad's
bloody dictatorship.
Op-Ed
The US government should tell Assad
that he must launch serious negotiations for a transition government. If he
does not, Western governments should supply opposition militias with ground to
air missiles in sufficient numbers to bring down the Syrian air-force.
Ammar Abdulhamid & Khawla
Yusuf: The
Shredded Tapestry: The State of Syria Today
Briefly Noted
* The foiled
terrorist plot in Jordan gives another glimpse of what the future of the region
will be like if the situation in in Syria is allowed to continue on its current
downward spiral.
* What’s happening in Lebanon is not
the simple manifestation of the spillover effect, but the active results of an
import/export activity championed by Assad, Iran and Hezbollah, with Russian
backing.
The lack of a
commitment to military intervention – such as a no-fly zone or airstrikes, but
not foreign boots on Syrian soil – is maddening to pro-intervention Syrian
opposition figures such as Ammar Abdulhamid, a fellow at the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies, a Washington research center.
While Abdulhamid
said the Obama administration’s involvement in the Arab protests was “overall a
positive one,” Syria is “a nightmare scenario” that was facilitated by
government officials’ “lack of resolve, leadership and vision.” Syria, he and
other activists say, could end up as a stain on the administration’s otherwise
sensible response to the Arab uprisings.
“If they make it
through this coming election, I just hope they have plans to give this tragedy
the time and resources it requires to be brought to resolution in a manner
commensurate with the aspirations of the pro-democracy activists who started
this whole thing and were, in effect, betrayed,” Abdulhamid said.
More thoughts on U.S. foreign policy towards
Syria and region:
The Obama Administration did not push and is not yet pushing for regime
change in Syria. American officials simply asked Assad to step down and imposed
sanctions hoping that this will somehow facilitate Assad’s decision-making
process in this regard. That’s not pushing, that’s a Hail Mary, if not shirking
the responsibility of pushing, of playing a real role in ensuring regime
change.
Indeed, instead of pushing and formulating a policy to achieve the
stated goal, the Obama administration stood by and watched as the situation
devolved, massacres became a daily occurrence, and the pace and scale of
violence escalated to the point where we now have a civil war and a failed
state. What could have been resolved with a moderate use of force to get a
message home to Assad and his supporters that the situation needs to be
resolved through a real open political process now requires massive military
and diplomatic intervention.
Of course, it’s not just Syria’s future that is at stake here, it’s the
future of the region and it’s the credibility of the United States as world
power, if not the credibility of the international order as a whole. We are
facing the possibility of a regional meltdown here, and yet no one in the
administration saw it coming, despite the plethora of warning signs throughout
the last few months. This is unforgiveable.
On the other hand, harking back on the good old days of supporting
dictators is not less of a betrayal. Allying with dictators is exactly why we
have so many Salafists and Jihadists around and is the root cause of the
problems we are facing in the region today. The good old days were hell for the
people of the region. As Arab Human Development Reports produced over the UNDP
program over a period of years showed, for all the wealth we have in our
countries, Arabs rank next to sub-Saharan Africa, one of the poorest regions in
the world, on the development index. To year for a return of a policy that
ensured this kind of status quo is to show complete disrespect for our basic
aspirations as a people and for our sense of humanity.
Fear of Islamists does not justify such an attitude. For Islamists were
empowered, often intentionally and as a part of a deliberate policy, by our
ruling oppressive regimes, in order to be used as instruments of blackmail
vis-à-vis certain segments of the population as well as the international
community. This strategy has been exposed and explained over the years by
scholars from both the right and left, and it will not change unless the
regimes are changed. Freedom will come with plenty of headaches for all
concerned, and it will, for a certain time, empower people who will fail to
appreciate it by virtue of their ideological predilections. Managing the
transition ahead will not be easy or without risks, but proactive attitude is
far better than trying to keep a lid on what is in effect a pressure cooker.
Video Highlights
This video from Aleppo City shows the aftermath of dropping a TNT
barrel on a local mosque on October 17 http://youtu.be/PdrN3eLvjpY
Elsewhere in the City, and in Midan Neighborhood, clashes take place http://youtu.be/ElA4D-zgGVo
This clip was uploaded by activists who claim it shows Iranian
troops arriving in Damascus from Tehran on board of a Syrian airline flight
http://youtu.be/CnH4aijhbj0
The bodies in this video belong to pro-Assad militias killed in a raid
on their checkpoint by rebels in Lattakia province http://youtu.be/1GgTOg3yNTE , http://youtu.be/xh7grcSsNu0
Leaked Videos
A clip showing the intensity of the pounding that rocked Baba Amr
Neighborhood, Homs City http://youtu.be/VbQ0HMWXep0
A clip shows Brig. Gen. Issam Zahreddine, a commander in the
Republican Guard, leading his soldiers on a march through the Qarabees
Neighborhood in Homs City, while signing for martyrdom, praising Assad as a
“holy leader,” and chanting “God, Syria, Bashar, the Guard, and nothing more.” http://youtu.be/XiSTiMaDBOg
Clip of pro-Assad militias surveying the damage of Qarabees,
saying “this is freedom, this is the neighborhood that was occupied by
terrorists” http://youtu.be/qxwebHiFCas
, http://youtu.be/F9-6cJy6HzQ
Clip showing abuse of detainees by pro-Assad militias http://youtu.be/ybVSpeD3HUo
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