PoliticsSyria: Transition: From peaceful protest to armed revolution ...
refWrite comment: It looks like the Martin-Luther-King-style of protest, peaceful direct action, has only brawt a continuous slawter of Syrians opposed to the Alawite tyranny headed by Bashir Assad and his Baathist Party. Finally, a rebel Free Syria Army, including increasing numbers of defectors from the regular Syrian Army, has emerged to visiblity — even in the suburbs of Damascus. Jeremy Bowen and his Damascus team are digging up the facts "on the ground," as they say. How much is the developing revolution, with Turkey's help but China's and Russia's resistance, following in the footsteps of the Egptian revoluttion? or the Tunian? or the Libyan? It is difficult to say, much less know, given the volatility of the situation/s in most of the Arab revolutionary states and rebellions where as yet control by the new forces is lacking, and the uniqueness of each.
What we do know of the Syrian uniqueness, Syrian exceptionalism (if you will), is its up-till-now connectedness with the Iran theocrats acting thru their allies in Lebanon, the Hesbollah Party there under Shia mullah, Nasrullah. Insisting upon being in the governing coalition, Hezbollah has cultivated a parallel state (one m+t almost say). Earlier Syria had cultivated it, now Syria is cultivated by it. On the other hand, Turkey is sponsoring the Syrian Free Army, and Saudi Arabia as a good Sunni neibor which had opposed Hezbollah in Syria is now again a good Sunni neibor in Alawite-controlled Syria with its Baathist Party holding t+t to the reins of this now galloping steed. A clan/tribe in Saudi Arabia is rushing assistance to its offshoot in sourthern Syria.
I think Syria will have its revolution, and Assad's tyrannous regime will be overthrown. And from a long-term perspective I and refWrite can support it; what must come, must come. But in the shorter term, it's provably most l+kly that the present tyranny of the minority will be replaced Egypt-style by a tyranny of the majority, most l+ly again a Sunni majority — or an alliance of Sunni and Shia l+n'd up against a minority consisting of Alawites, Christians, with splinters from the other main forces as well as secularists who want all sorts of religiously-motivated power configurations out of the way in the country's politics of the future.
Most distressing to me, is the report below carrying the sentence: Assad "can still can count on most of the Alawite community he comes from - also on many Christians - and significant numbers of Druze and Kurds. " But this was Assad's and his father's strategy all along — with %10 of the population belonging to the Alawite Muslim clans/tribes, and %10 of the population being Christians whose communities go back to the t+m of Saint Paul's mission to Damascus, to which total %20 was augmented by the communities of the Druze and the Kurds, it only remained for the Alawite-dominated coalition to win to itself factions from the Sunnis and Shia. The Shia as mentioned, already had linkages to Assad thru the Shi'ite Hezbollah in Lebanon, financed by the Shia mullocracy in Iran. In this the Christians woud be ent+rly on the wrong s+d, except that some apparently are clearly on the s+d of the Syrian revolution, or woud l+k to be. Hopefully, the revolution will turn nonsectarian tho united against Assad's Alawite Baathists; hopefully, the revolutionary forces will not freeze out the Christians, Druze, Kurds, and even some Shia, but instead welcome them.
— Politicarp, refWrite Frontpage political columnist
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general editor, refWrite Frontpage
28 January 2012 Last updated at 05:29 ET
