« SYRIA PRESS REVIEW » #29

Qatar isolated within the Arab League

While the mandate of the Arab League observers expires on Thursday, the Prime Minister of Qatar raised the possibility of deploying Arab troops to Syria, without even waiting for the end-of-mission report and the meeting of the Council of foreign ministers on Sunday in Cairo. The emirate is taking advantage of its rotating Arab League presidency, which it holds until the end of March, to try to precipitate events.

President Barack Obama indirectly endorsed this move during a White House press briefing in which he denounced the unacceptable level of violence in Syria. For his part, Free Syrian Army commander Colonel Riad el-Assad, from Turkey, urged for an international military intervention.

The Syrian government categorically rejected this option. Several members of the League denounced a strategy that would open the door to an intervention by the great powers and break up the organization. For its part Russia has already forestalled the UN Security Council by introducing on Monday a new draft resolution and refusing the amendments introduced by the West.

• The call by the commander of the Free Syrian Army for international military intervention shows conversely that the armed opposition realizes it will be unable to seize power on its own.

• The French Christian intellectual Michel Kilo in Le Figaro urges civil society "to overthrow the Syrian dictatorship." He alleges that if the opposition continues its protests, the repression will cause at least 46,000 deaths. Moreover, he acknowledges that the Free Syrian Army has no chance of winning against the National Army, that most leaders of the National Council lived in exile for a long time and are unknown to the people, and that the "revolutionaries" have yet to rally the people to their cause.

• In the Jerusalem Post Ray Hanania wonders how Assad can claim to be the champion of the Palestinian cause when he oppresses his own people? As the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Switzerland), it noted that Syria is indeed the country where the Palestinian refugees are best integrated.