Syrian President Bashar Assad should resign if he doesn’t want to repeat the fate of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, while Russia and China should help him to do so, the Middle East expert Tariq Ali told RT.
British historian and journalist Ali considers it unlikely that Syrian president will step down on his own accord.
“He has to be pushed out,” Tariq Ali insists, for which “the Syrian people are doing their best”.
Pressure is being mounted outside Syria by Turkey and NATO for intervention – that would be disastrous and bring enormous bloodshed, like in Libya, believes Tariq Ali.
The expert says both Assad and his father have spilled enough Syrian blood and that “this family is unacceptable”.
“Syria needs a non-sectarian national government to prepare a new constitution," Tariq Ali stressed.
He expressed hope that all the most influential parties, like Russia, China, Iran and even Hezbollah must realize that it is time for President Assad to go and to do so, no peacekeeping force is needed.
Tariq Ali agrees that mounting international pressure on Bashar Assad is needed because simple economic sanctions will not bring the desired results. Countries like Iran and China would not abide them, so it is time for Russia and China to realize they need Assad no more.
He believes that once Assad falls, the new government will keep good relations with Iran, because this will be in the interest of the new democratic government.
“If the Assad clan refuses to relinquish their stronghold on the country, sooner or later something disastrous will happen,” Tariq Ali predicts, threatening a foreign intervention and recalling the inglorious deaths of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi lynched by mobs inspired by the west.
“That is the future that stares them in the face, there is no other future,” Tariq Ali said.
“The fact is that the overwhelming majority of people in Syria want the Assad family out – and that is the key thing that we have to understand and he [Assad] should understand,” Tariq Ali claims.
He also warns about letting Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood take control of the Syrian government. Even if it becomes a moderate one, religious minorities will most probably be targeted to divert attention from economic and social problems.
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Arms, not diplomacy,
By Tatsuo, Miyachi at Feb 17, 2012 11:33 AM
From Independent
Adrian Hamilton: Arms, not diplomacy, will decide the fate of Syria
World View
Adrian Hamilton
Friday, 10 February 2012
Don't be fooled by the outraged cries coming from London, Paris, Washington and now the UN Secretary General himself over the Russian and Chinese veto of the resolution on Syria. True, it spoiled the careful build-up of diplomatic pressure organised by Western and Arab governments. But it's also quite convenient to put all the blame for the continuing escalation of violence in Syria on these two countries, Russia in particular.
Of course, President Assad must welcome the fact that he escaped the censure of the UN. But does anyone think for a moment that, had the resolution passed, he would have instantly ceased bombarding Homs or any other centre of resistance?
The Syrian government isn't deploying the heavy weaponry so deplored by UN chief Ban Ki-moon and President Obama just as an exercise to cow the civilian population which can be turned on or off at will. It's using it to crush any centre of resistance or independence, the more so now that the resistance has become armed by army desertions.
If the Assad family and its Alouite supporters weren't willing to stop the onslaught even when observers from the Arab League were present, they certainly wouldn't just because of a UN vote. Given the growing armed strength of its opponents, the regime in Damascus must feel it has no alternative but to suppress with full force the revolt while it still lacks the weaponry or numbers to overthrow it. President Bashar al-Assad may make all the promises he likes to the visiting Russian Foreign Minister about stopping the violence and talking to his foes. He may even think he means it. But only once his regime has won on the ground.
Diplomacy in these circumstances, like sanctions, is essentially just a means of western politicians to sound as if they are "doing something" about a situation that anguishes their public, but about which they can do very little without direct military engagement.
Russia and China might well have been wrong to veto the resolution. It has cost them a good deal of credibility in the Middle East and elsewhere. Their diplomats, at any rate, must think it might have been better to have abstained. But that doesn't make the Russians wrong in the basic case they have been making. However the UN resolution was worded, the intention was regime change and, like it or not, it does smack of Western-inspired intervention.
The West would argue, just as it did over Libya, that the support of the Arab League and the refusal to put troops on the ground make this something quite different from Western interventions of the past.
Libyan intervention – which Russia and China went along with – does not provide a reassuring example, however. Arab League participation was entirely down to loathing of Gaddafi. Imposition of a no-fly zone quickly led to a one-sided bombing of the regime's forces and effective participation in a civil war. While it succeeded in unseating Colonel Gaddafi, it was at a high cost in casualties and a messy aftermath still to be resolved.
Regime change is the name of the Syrian game, now as it was then. It's far too late to talk of negotiated settlements. Too much blood has already been spilt. The question is whether it can be achieved quickly on the ground without full-blown civil war.
The best hope is that a horror at the civilian casualties will combine with a middle-class conclusion that the Assad rule is doomed to produce a mass insurgency which sweeps away the government. The more likely development is the arming of the rebellion by the religious groups in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, eased by Turkey and very probably helped clandestinely by the US and Britain.
In either case, diplomacy is now but a side-show.
America may have been down but it's beginning to get up
The most important news of the week may well prove to be not the escalating violence in Syria nor the continuing troubles in getting an economic package through in Greece, but the rise in the US employment figures.
Economists have been quick to dismiss the idea that the rise could represent a real revival. And they may be right. It's too early to talk of a return to growth just yet, or indeed for some years into the future. But six months of rising employment has to mean something.
So far, that something has been interpreted in domestic political terms. If the jobs figures go on rising, then so do the chances of President Obama being re-elected in the November vote (although that is not a given, as UK governments have learned). But the implications are far broader than that.
America means business. It's a cliché. But it's true. Much of the fall in America's influence abroad has been caused by the collapse in its economic growth and the failure of its financial model. Iraq and Afghanistan have shown up the limits of its military muscle. But far more important, particularly in Asia and Latin America, has been its decline as an economic powerhouse.
Restore growth, and with it self-confidence, and we will see a very different America, far more nationalistic in spirit and far more willing, I believe, to throw its weight around.
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Re: ‘Assad Must Go To Save Syria From Intervention’
By Tatsuo, Miyachi at Feb 17, 2012 11:30 AM
From Independent
Adrian Hamilton: Only a mass uprising will rid Syria of Assad
Friday, 10 February 2012
Don't be fooled by the outraged cries coming from London, Paris, Washington and now the UN Secretary-General over the Russian and Chinese veto of the resolution on Syria.
True, it spoiled the careful build-up of diplomatic pressure organised by western and Arab governments. But it's also quite convenient to put all the blame on these two countries for the continuing escalation of violence.
Of course President Bashar al-Assad must welcome the fact that he escaped the censure of the UN. But does anyone think for a moment that, had the resolution passed, he would have instantly ceased bombarding Homs or any other centre of resistance?
Given the growing armed strength of its opponents, the regime in Damascus feels it has no alternative but to suppress with full force the revolt while it still lacks the weaponry or numbers to overthrow it.
Assad may make all the promises he likes to the visiting Russian Foreign Minister about stopping the violence and talking to his foes. But only once his regime has won the battle on the ground.
Diplomacy in these circumstances is essentially just a means of western politicians sounding as if they are "doing something" about a situation that anguishes their public but about which they can do very little without direct military engagement.
Russia and China might well have been wrong to veto the resolution. But that doesn't make the Russians wrong in the basic case that they have been making. However the UN resolution was worded, the intention was regime change, and, like it or not, it does smack of western-inspired intervention.
The West would argue, just as it did over Libya, that the support of the Arab League and the refusal to put troops on the ground make this something quite different from western interventions of the past. Libyan intervention – which Russia and China went along with – does not provide a reassuring example, however. Imposition of a no-fly zone quickly led to one-sided bombing of the regime's forces and effective participation in a civil war.
Regime change is the name of the Syrian game now. It's far too late to talk of negotiated settlements. The question is whether it can be achieved quickly on the ground without civil war.
The best hope is that horror at the civilian casualties will combine with a middle-class conclusion that the Assad rule is doomed to produce a mass insurgency that sweeps away the government.
The more likely development is the arming of the rebellion by the religious groups in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, eased by Turkey and very probably helped clandestinely by the US and the West.
In either case, diplomacy is now but a side-show.
http://www.independent.co.uk/hei-fi/views/adrian-hamilton-only-a-mass-uprising-will-rid-syria-of-assad-6699957.html?printService=print
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Response by Carlos Martinez
By Koutroubis, Peter at Feb 16, 2012 17:55 PM
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