26 June 2012 By Tariq Alhomayed In Saturday's edition of Asharq Al-Awsat, Syrian
dissident Mr. Fayez Sara wrote an op-ed entitled
"Foreign interventions in Syria", in which he talked
about those who are supporting the regime, and those
who are supporting the Syrian revolution. The crux of
his article was that it is the regime that has
benefitted from these foreign interventions, not the
revolution. The aforementioned op-ed may prove to be highly
provocative, especially the part where Sara said: "The
stance of the international and regional bloc that
supports the popular movement in Syria is weak,
hesitant and incoherent. At times, this is dominated
by the media, propaganda and inherent contradictions;
this fails to provide any form of serious and tangible
assistance [to the revolution]". Mr. Sara was drawing
a comparison between those who support the revolution
and those who support the regime, and we find that
Iran and Russia are actually supporting the al-Assad
regime with weapons, funding and political stances,
whilst those sympathetic with the Syrian revolution do
not have particularly influential or concrete stances.
The truth is that what Mr. Sara argued in his article
is very important and warrants much debate. I am
prompted to say this after seeing some of the recent
episodes of the hugely significant televised political
debates being hosted by the famous American media
figure Charlie Rose, such as the recent interview he
conducted with current US Secretary of State Hilary
Clinton and former US Secretary of State James Baker.
In this interview, it was surprising that Baker – a
friend to many of the countries sympathetic to the
Syrian revolution –said that the US should not get
involved in arming the Syrian uprising and that it may
be more useful to instead call for early elections in
Syria. Baker added that al-Assad should be allowed to
participate in these elections, which should also take
place under strict international monitoring in order
to prevent any election fraud. Baker argued that
should al-Assad win these elections then so be it,
whilst if he were to lose then he would leave power
and a new president would come in!
Tariq Alhomayed is the Editor-in-Chief of Asharq
Al-Awsat, the youngest person to be appointed that
position. He holds a BA degree in Media studies from
King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, and has also
completed his Introductory courses towards a Master's
degree from George Washington University in Washington
D.C. He is based in London. Comments 💬 التعليقات |