Bizarre, but the cracks are showing
That’s the only word for President Bashar al Assad’s announcement today that he intends to hold a referendum on a new constitution February 26. The draft reportedly dethrones the Ba’ath party from its leading position in Syria and opens the political system to some competition.
But only someone completely out of touch with what is going on in his own country could imagine that this initiative, prepared behind closed doors, would calm the situation so that a referendum could be held in less than two weeks. Even the two-(seven-year) term limit on a given individual’s tenure as president is hardly a concession, since Bashar was “re-elected” in 2007. The notion that Syrians are going to tolerate another two or three years of him is, well, bizarre.
That said, this is perhaps the first real sign that the regime is feeling pressure: from the Russians, from the Arab League and perhaps from internal dissent. To admit the possibility of actually leaving office–if only several years hence–is not going to satisfy anyone, but it goes farther than Bashar has been willing to go in the past.
The situation in Hama, Homs, parts of Damascus and many other parts of the country is one of open warfare by the Syrian army against the country’s own citizens. I don’t see this ending until Bashar steps aside. Syrians have already been through too much.
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Assad has always shown some preparedness for negotiations. But the US has sabotaged all his efforts – just as it previously did in Libya. The goal of the US still is regime change and all talk about human rights is just propaganda to achieve that. In reality the US doesn’t care at all about casualties – as can be seen with the 30,000 dead in Libya and the consist effort to push Syria into a civil war.
In the mean time the opposition is divided. The SNC is a bad joke composed by Western and Arab diplomats and very probably selected on their hostility towards Assad. It has hardly any influence among the opposition inside Syria. The armed opposition inside Syria looks – just like in Libya – as a loose amalgam of local militias. They are better motivated and disciplined than in Libya but their sectarian (Salafi-Brotherhood) hatred of the regime does not represent the majority of the people and will make finding a solution difficult.
So I think Assad is just trying to throw in a proposal that at first sight looks acceptable while still leaving him some space to negotiate. Washington’s reaction will very likely be similar to yours. Yet if you look at at how democratization works it is a very reasonable proposal. A two or three years transition period is quite normal from a strict dictatorship to real democracy. And giving power to extremists from the other side (the Brotherhood) is a recipe for achieving democracy yet seeing a lot of destruction and strife.
You write that Assad is waging “open warfare […] against the country’s own citizens.”. One could just as well argue that the armed opposition is doing that when it is attacking people from the army and police. Also it were the rebels that triggered the present government offensive when they suddenly occupied a much larger area.