US
denies trying to undermine
Assad By Samer Araabi and Jim
Lobe
WASHINGTON - As anti-government
protests in Syria showed no sign of abating, the
US State Department this week denied that it was
seeking the regime's ouster.
"No, we are
not working to undermine that government," said
spokesman Mark Toner in response to a front-page
report in Monday's Washington Post about secret US
financing of Syrian opposition groups, including a
London-based satellite television channel that has
called for overthrow of the Baathist regime headed
by President Bashar Al-Assad.
Assad "needs
to address the legitimate aspirations of his
people," Toner insisted, noting that Assad himself
had spoken over the
weekend about implementing
"the need to lift the state of emergency as well
as implement broader reforms, and certainly, we're
watching closely now to see how those words
translate into deed".
Indeed, in a bid to
contain the rapidly spreading protests throughout
Syria, Assad on Saturday swore in a new government
headed by former agriculture minister Abdel Safar
and pledged, among other measures, to repeal of
the 48-year-old emergency law, "within a week at
most".
On Tuesday, the Syrian government
approved a draft legislative decree for lifting
emergency rule, according to Syria's official news
agency. A senior lawyer said Bashar al-Assad,
Syria's president, was yet to sign the
legislation, but that his signature was a
formality, al-Jazeera reported.
In
striking contrast to his previous public remarks,
Assad also offered condolences and prayers for the
"martyrs" - estimated by independent human-rights
groups at more than 200 - who were killed in
anti-government demonstrations since the protests
began last month.
But the appearance on
Sunday of tens of thousands of demonstrators
demanding the regime's ouster on the streets in
towns and cities throughout Syria, as well as
renewed protests, particularly in Homs, where as
many as two dozen people were killed in protests
on Sunday evening, suggested to a growing number
of analysts that Assad's concessions may be both
too little and too late.
"It looks much
less likely today than last week that he's going
to be able to either tamp down or stomp out this
uprising," said Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at
the University of Oklahoma, who noted that the
explicit calls by the demonstrators for Assad's
ouster marked a new stage in the confrontation.
"While the opposition may not be able to
take over the state, if it can keep mounting big
demonstrations, there's going to be no foreign
investment and no tourism, and the economy will
founder... and there will be no future for the
regime," Landis, whose syriacomment.com blog is
widely read among regional specialists in
Washington, told IPS.
Another Syria
specialist, Bassam Haddad of George Mason
University, also suggested Syria was quickly
reaching a tipping point that would make it very
difficult for Assad to regain the initiative.
"The regime can reverse the process, but
it won't, and it seems we are now approaching a
point of no return in terms of the size of the
demonstrations and the incapacity of the regime to
make real changes that would slow the
[opposition's] momentum," Haddad told IPS.
"I think this will be the most decisive
week in determining where the uprising is headed,"
he said, noting that the attempted takeover of the
central square by thousands of demonstrators in
Homs on Monday "showed that the level of
confidence of the protestors is rising very
quickly".
Washington has generally
responded cautiously to the uprising. As in Egypt,
it initially emphasized the importance of
maintaining stability in the country, even as it
also appealed for the government to offer
democratic reforms and respond non-violently to
the protests.
After a particularly bloody
incident in Daraa nearly two weeks ago, President
Barack Obama issued a written statement denouncing
what he called "the abhorrent violence committed
against peaceful protestors," as well as "any use
of violence by protestors".
Opposition
representatives who have met here with US
officials and implored them to at least toughen
its language against the regime have expressed
disappointment with Obama's caution.
Backed by neo-conservative hawks who have
long sought regime change in Damascus, they have
urged the administration to follow the same path
it trod in isolating Libyan leader Muammar
Gaddafi, beginning with a United Nations
resolution referring Assad to the International
Criminal Court and the appointing of a special
rapporteur to investigate alleged abuses by his
security forces.
Basing its story on
recently released WikiLeaks cables, the Post
reported on Tuesday that the State Department had
provided about US$6 million to opposition groups
since 2006, when US-Syrian relations were at their
lowest ebb under former president George W Bush.
Much of the money has reportedly been
spent on Barada TV, a satellite network run by
Syrian expatriates allegedly linked to the
Movement for Justice and Development (MJD),
described in one cable as a "moderate Islamist
organization that eschews any ideological agenda
aside from ending the Assad regime through
democratic reform".
Despite Obama's
official policy of engaging Damascus, Barada TV
began broadcasting in April 2009 and recently
ramped up its operations and now broadcasts 24
hours a day, although various sources said it was
virtually unknown within Syria.
In his
remarks on Tuesday, Toner insisted that US support
for Barada and civil-society groups in Syria was
"no different" from similar "democracy-promotion"
program it supports in other countries around the
world. "What's different ... in this situation is
that the Syrian government perceives this kind of
assistance as a threat to its control over the
Syrian people," he said. He also denied that the
US was providing direct support for the MJD.
Nonetheless, the disclosures are likely to
fuel charges by the Assad regime that the
protestors are "dupes" for "foreign agents"
working to promote chaos in Syria.
The
administration and most independent experts here,
however, strongly disagree and are increasingly
worried that chaos may indeed result from the
growing polarization between the government and
the opposition.
Indeed, the
administration's reluctance to speak out more
strongly against the regime apparently stems from
its doubts about the opposition, doubts that are
reportedly shared by its two closest regional
allies, Saudi Arabia and Israel, both of whom - at
least until now - seem to have preferred to keep
"the enemy they know" rather than face the
uncertainty of a Syria without Assad.
That
assessment has actually "emboldened the regime",
according to Haddad. "They have known that the
position of the US, as well as Israel and Saudi
Arabia, is pro-status quo in Syria," he said,
although, as the opposition appears to have gained
strength over the last several days, Washington's
position may be changing.
"I frankly don't
think they have a clue [about what to do]," Landis
said of Washington's current stance, given the
mushrooming of the opposition and the hardening of
its demands. "If they're saying [Assad] should not
use violence, that means they should let the
demonstrators overthrow the government because, at
this point, he's going to have to use violence in
order to put this down."
Landis said he's
growing more worried about the reaction of the
Alawite minority - of which Assad is the leader
and from which the top ranks of the military and
security forces are recruited - to the unrest and
the possibility that the conflict could take on a
sectarian character.
That worry is shared
by Haddad, who noted "serious reports that the
latest demonstrations, especially in Homs, have a
Salafi Islamist component". Salafis, who are Sunni
Muslims, regard Alawites, who constitute about 12%
of the total population, as heretics.
"Syria is also home to Christian, Druze,
and Shi'ite minorities - about 15% of the
population - and they tend to support the Alawite
regime," according to Mohammed Bazzi, a regional
expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. "Along
with many secular Sunnis, these minorities look to
Assad as a source of stability, and they fear that
his fall could precipitate a civil war."
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