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March 17th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
There were reports of a third bomb attack targeting a military bus in
Damascus. Nobody claimed responsibility for the attacks, which Syrians fear
may herald the start of prolonged suicide bombing campaigns of the kind seen
in neighbouring Iraq.
Hours earlier Kofi Annan had warned that the crisis could soon spread to
neighbouring countries. The former head of the United Nations has been the
latest international figure to launch an attempted peace mission to
Damascus, yet President Assad appears increasingly immune to international
pressure. His hard line supporters have rallied to his side, his army has
inflicted a series of setbacks on armed rebels in the cities of Homs and
Idlib, and the outside world has seemed powerless to influence events.
“We are winning on the battlefield, and winning the battle on television,”
Mr Assad told his supporters last week, apparently untroubled by internional
calls for him to face war crimes charges. Increasingly, he appears confident
that, of all the dictators shaken by the political earthquake of the Arab
Spring, he is the one who will survive.
But as the violence and death toll worsen, predictions are now being made that Syria
will increasingly be engulfed by an insurgency fought by the kind of
religious extremists who struck in Damascus on Saturday.
“Opponents of the regime are beginning to realise that there will be no
Tahrir Square moment,” said Joshua Landis, a Syria scholar at the
University of Oklahoma. “They are going to have to fight a long battle
against a regime that is not going to crumble.
“They will move to an insurgency, of hit and run attacks and
assassination. It will be more and more Islamicised, with people ready to
sacrifice themselves.”
Hardline preachers in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia are trying to rally support
and raise money for the rebels, and have so far been their only real source
of substantial foreign support.
Such preachers are bogeymen to Mr Assad’s supporters, who are bombarded with
propaganda about the foreign-backed conspiracy of armed Islamists that is
dragging Syria to the brink of destruction. Bombings such as those in
Damascus yesterday will only confirm their beliefs.
Tens of thousands of regime supporters turned out to massive demonstrations on
Thursday, the first anniversary of the revolution’s outbreak, waving the
Syrian flag and brandishing pictures of their president. It was the
strongest display of regime support for months.
”These crowds want to get a vocal message across to the whole world that the
Syrian people will remain united as ever in combating terrorism,” said
Monzer Mohammad, one of the demonstrators.
At least a quarter of Syria’s population still back Mr Assad, according to the
estimate of one Western diplomat. So too does the crucial hard core of the
regime, which has stayed loyal with no significant defections, unlike Libya,
which saw a stream of regime figures break away until Colonel Muammar
Gaddafi was killed by rebels last October.
Only a few weeks ago, the 46-year-old Syrian president, who styled himself as
a reformst when he took power a decade ago, had looked doomed to share the
Libyan dictator’s fate.
But then, urged on by his family and closest advisers, he took the fateful
decision to crush Homs, parts of which were in open revolt. He was following
the example of his father, President Hafez Assad, who in 1982 smashed a
Muslim Brotherhood uprising in the nearby city of Hama and killed an
estimated 30,000 people. It was one of the worst massacres in modern Middle
East history, but it ensured there was no serious opposition to the regime
for nearly 30 years.
The regime’s inner circle remains solidly loyal. There have been many
defections from the lower ranks of the army, but so far only a few senior
generals, and almost none from the government. Any hint of imminent
defection is swiftly dealt with – most of the Syrian ambassadors to European
capitals are believed to have been recalled last week, to guarantee their
loyalty.
“The hard core thinks they are in a fight to the death now,” said
one former senior Western diplomat. “They are conscious that they have
stirred up a hornet’s nest, and made a lot of enemies, and they think there
is no way they can surrender. And of course many of them have blood on their
hands. They also think they are winning.”
Although protests against the government are massive, and a large majority of
Syrians wants Mr Assad to go, a large minority still supports him.
When they see the regime’s crude propaganda about a convoluted conspiracy led
by America and Israel, with al-Qaeda and armed drug dealers doing the
fighting, many believe it.
“The situation became worse in the past four or five months, but now
everything will be OK,” said Shadi, a business student from Damascus in
his twenties, in an interview conducted via the internet. Although defending
the regime, he was still reluctant to give his full name.
“The military force of any independent state has the right to catch armed
militia,” he added.
Both the Christian and Alawite minorities, which have felt secure under Mr
Assad, fear that if he falls, a Sunni Muslim government would take over –
Sunnis make up 70 per cent of the population – and usher in persecution
against them.
“As long as Russia and China are behind Assad, I think he will last a
long time,” said Richard Ottaway MP, chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Select Committee.
“Options for the outside world are very limited, although we are turning
the screw on sanctions.”
Military intervention seems out of the question. Unlike Libya, Syria has a
huge, modern army, and foreign allies. Russia is still selling weapons to
the regime, and besides, few in the West are particularly keen to provide
weapons for the rebels, who remain an unknown quantity.
Some Syrians will be grimly pleased that the torturers and secret police of
Damascus have been struck by bombs. The state news agency, which stressed
the civilian toll, pounced on a chance to win some much-needed international
sympathy for the regime.
“These two criminal acts are an attack on international human rights,”
a spokesman said. “It is terrorism similar to the attack in the USA on
September 11th 2001.”
Additional reporting by Michael Gunn, Cairo
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