Geneva Talks Must Consign Assad Regime To Dustbin Of History :: EsinIslam The Muslim World Portal For Islamic News And Opinions

EsinIslam Portal Media Network

20 February 2014

By Khalid Amayreh

With Syria virtually completely destroyed by its own regime, and with 150,000 -200,000 Syrians killed, hundreds of thousands injured and maimed and many millions displaced, the murderous gang of Bashar el-Assad has finally accepted to hold talks with the opposition in an effort to reach a peaceful solution.

However, it is highly unlikely that there is any modicum of sincerity or good-will behind the Syrian regime's consent to attend the Geneva talks, slated to take place Wednesday.

In the final analysis, a regime that destroys its own country, murders its own citizens and rapes its own women can't be expected to suddenly undergo an awakening of conscience.

The more likely prospect is that this sectarian regime will go all the way to the abyss in order to prolong the life span of its grip on power in Syria.

The Nusseiri sect, an offshoot of Shiism, accounts for less than 8% of Syria's population.

However, since 1963, that sect has been in tight control of the Syrian state, including the army, especially the elite forces, air-force, the security forces, the economy and every conceivable center of power.

The virtually total stranglehold was often justified by the confrontation with Israel. However, a more honest explanation of this insidious state of affair is the relentless overwhelming desire to consolidate the sectarian Nusseiri control, using the confrontation with Israel as a sort of red herring.

Hence, it is probably safe to conclude that the Geneva conference will die a natural death, like that of a still child, either before birth, or upon birth or soon after birth.

Indeed, if the survival of the murderous regime continues to be the ultimate strategy and paramount goal of Assad and his Iranian and Russian allies, then there can be no hope for a breakthrough in Geneva.

The survival of the Assad regime after all this monumental bloodshed and pornographic destruction would be a huge affront to human morality and humanity itself.

We all know that the proper place for Bashar el-Assad is before a firing squad. But perfect justice doesn't belong to this world. It is a world that allows its Assads, Hitlers and Sharons, even its Sisis and Mubaraks to escape unpunished for their crimes against their own and other peoples. This is really sad. It is also an expression of the moral imbalance and inequity plaguing our world. Only God knows where this moral imbalance and inequity will lead us. Certainly, it won't take us to salvation but to annihilation- all thanks to our greed, rapacity, depravity and evil-mindedness.

We all hope and pray that Syrians could reach a common-ground in order to save whatever can be saved of their nation and country.

However, the worst possible outcome of the Geneva conference would be the survival of the Assad regime.

Such an outcome would vindicate all the genocidal crimes the Assad regime and its equally criminal allies have committed against the Syrian people.

Moreover, the survival of the regime would enable the far-from-innocent Nusseiri sect to reconsolidate itself in power and tighten its sinister grip on Syria for a hundred years to come. That would be Syria's ultimate nightmare.

We are not against the Nusseiri sect per se, e.g. because of its religion, however heretical it may be. No one can play God in this world and all citizens must be treated equally under a modern civil state.

But we cannot escape the fact that this sect has effectively been at the forefront of Assad's genocidal blitz against the Syrian people.

And by readily accepting this nefarious role, the Nusseiri sect effectively put itself on a collision course with the rest of the Syrian people. We would be dishonest if we ignored or overlooked this fact.

I know it is politically incorrect to invoke sectarian issues. However, we all know that the sectarian dimension was conspicuous from the very inception in the Syrian quagmire.

And we can't pretend that sectarianism is not at the heart of the conflict, especially with the presence in Syria of tens of thousands of Hizbullah, Iraqi Shiite and Iranian fighters who are sent to Syria to murder Syrian children and rape Syrian women in the name of Hussein, Ali and Zaynab.

This evil is absolutely and totally unacceptable. It must be stopped.

Khalid Amayreh is an American-educated journalist living in the Hebron region of the West Bank.

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