Hussein Shobokshi
Asharq Alawsat (Opinion)
August 18, 2011 - 12:00am
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=2&id=26271


Among the notable events in the historical records of the Syrian army is the fact that one of its elements, Hosni al-Za'eim, was the orchestrator of the first military coup in the Middle East in 1949. By doing that, he opened the gates of hell in the region in general, and in Syria in particular, for the rise of despotic, hateful and corrupt faces who knew nothing but the language of oppression, autocracy and injustice. Those faces were obsessed with illusions of grandeur and supreme arrogance. People like Gamal Abdul Nasser, Saddam Hussein, Abd al-Karim Qasim, Muammar Gaddafi, Ali Abdullah Saleh, Gaafar Nimeiry, and of course Hafez al-Assad represent some of those faces. Each one of them was a past master in ways of torturing and humiliating their own people. Nevertheless, the al-Assad regime stands supreme as the most savage, bloodthirsty and barbaric of all, especially in using its own army to achieve its goals.

Under the rule of Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar, Syria's army turned into a suppressive instrument par excellence, employed to achieve "qualitative" goals for the regime. Thus the army entered into wars with Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon for different reasons, but all of them were irrational and illogical. Today the same despotic regime has unleashed its army with its tanks and armored vehicles on land, its missiles and helicopters in air, and its ships and frigates on the sea, in order to level Syria's towns and cities ruthlessly and relentlessly, thereby killing dozens of innocent civilians. This scene can be linked to the "suspicious" stance adopted by Hafez al-Assad and his son towards the Golan Heights, and the alleged resistance which the regime has adopted politically but not practically. The Golan Heights have practically turned into Israel's most secure area. For over a stretch of three decades, there has not been any form of resistance on the part of Syria's army. This army is being provided with enormous supplies of money and ordnance, and its masses of troops are infused with slogans calling for the liberation of the Golan Heights, and a confrontation with Israel. However, all this has transformed into an illusion and a mirage; the only real battle the al-Assad regime has ever fought was against its own people.

Today after Bashar al-Assad has convinced the Turkish government to offer him two more weeks to "quell" the revolution, the days are running out fast and there has been an increase in the frenzied security crackdown on the people. However, the mass protests all across Syria have not stopped, and the number of protesters has continued to soar, in order to refute the lies spread by the Syrian media that everything is stable. Meanwhile, internal rifts within the army ranks are increasing, and clashes between army dissidents and security forces affiliated to the Alawite inner circle are on the rise. Today the regime is facing its end and military intervention is inevitably on its way to stop the Syrian regime's crimes against its own people. The US president and the Turkish Prime Minister will, each on his own during the coming few days, announce the necessity of al-Assad stepping down and the end of his legitimacy. Turkey shall then carry out precise assignments inside Syria to stop the regime's army assaulting towns and cities. This will occur after the issuance of the UN Security Council resolution, on Thursday in all probability. It shall be followed by key economic resolutions pertaining to the oil and banking sector, to stifle the funding of the "declining" regime.

Iran previously tried to intimidate Turkey by threatening to unleash the Kurds upon it, before realizing that al-Assad's regime was drawing its last breath. The same goes for Iraq and Hezbollah, who discovered that they were backing a boat filled with holes, flooded with water, and sinking to the bottom of the ocean in a flash. As time passes by, the international community gets more convinced of the necessity of the departure of al-Assad's criminal regime. People are reacting in different ways to al-Assad's crimes against his own people: Demonstrations are intensifying in Arab capitals demanding his departure, articles are written and TV interviews are conducted to serve the same purpose. Furthermore, a Syrian restaurant in the Saudi capital of Riyadh has been boycotted recently, for displaying a picture of Bashar al-Assad. Likewise, in the offices of a Cairo-based Syrian airline, pictures of the Syrian President were torn up. Similar incidents have also taken place elsewhere.

But the world calls for a much stronger action. It calls for the recalling of all Muslim and Arab ambassadors from Syria, the expulsion of this criminal regime's ambassadors from all countries concerned, and the freezing of its membership in the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), and all other Arab and Islamic organizations without exception. The Syrian regime did not respect itself or its people. It did not show veneration for the Holy Month of Ramadan and continued with its genocide campaign. The Syrian army, with its "eccentric" positions, will not be remembered in history for its military coup, but rather for its current coup against morality. It is incumbent upon the free officers within this army to disown the regime; this would be the greatest Jihad they would ever embark upon.

In view of its conspiratorial practices against its own people, all the Arabs it has fought, and all the Palestinians it is currently annihilating in the Syrian camps, the al-Assad regime continues to prove, till the very last moment, that it is just as dangerous to the entire region as Israel.




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