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04 June 2012 By Dr.
Hamad Al-Majid The real threat to
Bashar al-Assad's regime is not Security Council
resolutions, Arab League decisions, the West's
boycott, the Arab media or the retreat of China and
Russia. The real threat that makes President Bashar
al-Assad these days seem pale faced, hollow eyed and
absent minded is the brave spirit of the Syrian people
and their heroic revolution. Some were gambling on
this revolution running out of fuel or energy,
believing that its grip was bound to loosen, a logical
assumption if we take into account the dictatorial
regime and its bloody, brutal practices, but the
Syrian people have gone against all expectations.
If the line on the
graph of the Syrian revolution had dropped then this
would have been a natural outcome; human energy is
limited and the regime's attempts to suppress the
revolution have been extremely ferocious. If the line
had continued on the same level this would have been a
major achievement in light of the aforementioned
information, but the fact that the trajectory of the
line remains on the rise is striking. Over the past
week, demonstrations have erupted across Syrian
territory in record numbers, 800 demonstrations paying
no attention to the brutal massacres and
assassinations, the horror stories that are leaked
about the torture of detainees, or the barbaric
footage that has reached the global media. The latest footage to
emerge was found by the revolutionaries on a soldier's
mobile phone they had obtained. The video clip depicts
a number of demonstrators lying on the ground on their
stomachs, and then a soldier begins to walk over them
with his heavy military boots, stepping on their faces
and necks and kicking each one in the face as if he
was leading a well-known military salute! Yet despite all this
the Syrian citizens are matching every horrific act by
the regime not only with demonstrations and marches,
but also with songs and chants, as if they were
attending a wedding rather than living in a world of
terror, oppression and bloodshed! The most striking
scene in the Syrian revolution is that the
revolutionary graph's rising trajectory has not been
affected by the decline in Arab, Islamic and
international interest. Arab stances are still not at
the desired level, and the stances of Western
countries, led by America, are marred by extreme
caution, because of the sectarian and regional
intricacies of the Syrian regime. Such a weak
mentality casts shadows over their regional stances,
not to mention the West's eye on Israel, which is
certainly not waiting for a better alternative to the
Syrian regime to guard its northern gateway. Thus, it
is impossible for the Western countries to take a
tough stance and finish off the Bashar al-Assad regime
without an Israeli green light. As for the Turkish
position, which is what many Syrians are relying upon,
it has been somewhat exposed. Do you remember the
famous Turkish "two weeks" remarks, in which Turkish
officials threatened the Syrian regime, saying that it
had two weeks to stop killing people? All this
eventually turned out to be an illusion. Even the
determined Saudi stance urging the need to arm the
Syrian people as a minimum means to defend themselves
was met with a lukewarm response globally, and a
severe rebuttal from some Arab countries. In spite of these
international, Islamic and Arab stances wary of being
drawn into a confrontation with the Syrian regime, the
revolution's upward trajectory has continued, crowned
by last week's demonstrations and movements in regions
and provinces that the regime had believed to be
isolated from the uprising. Here we are able to say in
summary of the Syrian revolution, after more than a
year: These people show remarkable courage, fighting
spirit and by the grace of God they will not be
defeated. The al-Assad regime is actually on the brink
of death, not necessarily a sudden death, but rather a
slow one. Dr. Hamad Al-Majid is a journalist and former
member of the official Saudi National Organization for
Human Rights. Al-Majid is a graduate of Imam Muhammad
Bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh and holds an
M.A. from California and a Doctorate from the
University of Hull in the United Kingdom. |