« SYRIA PRESS REVIEW » #53

Washington admits Bashar al-Assad’s ouster not on the cards

After hearing the terrifying report by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN General Assembly condemned the repression in Syria by 137 votes in favor, 12 against and 17 abstentions.

After Homs and Hama, the Syrian Army has taken back Deraa. The survivors of the Wahhabi Legion have regrouped in the north. It is to soon to tell whether they will flee to Turkey or launch a final battle in Idlib.

The Director of US Intelligence, James Clapper, has attributed the attacks in Damascus and Aleppo to al-Qaeda. On his part, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Ronald Burgess, stated that the Assad regime will not fall because it is cohesive and has regained control of the large cities it had lost, while his opposition is disunited and without a strategy.

The Chinese Vice Foreign Minister, Zhai Jun, intends to continue to play a mediation role in the crisis. He traveled to Damascus to meet President al-Assad after Syrian opponents were received in Beijing.

• Le Monde published an op-ed by Swiss journalists Patrick Vallélian and Hammouche Sid Ahmed who were with French national Gilles Jacquier when he was killed. The authors rekindle the conspiracy theory that official voices had already dropped. Above all, their piece opens the door for provocations.
They attribute to professor Boris Dolgov (Russian academician and authority on Syria, who was received in Damascus and whose writings have been published by Voltairenet.org in Russian and English) statements that he did not pronounce. This is particularly bizarre since the authors pretend not to know him, when in reality they met him twice in Damascus and even spoke with him at length.

• Michael Jansen in The Irish Times continues his account of the effects of the conflict on the population. Today, he shows that it is the poor who suffer the most from "sanctions" which were imposed by the West allegedly to help them.

• Anne-Marie Slaughter, policy planning director at the US State Department, published an opinion column in The Australian. She points to the rise of Turkey in recent years (since the Davos incident and the Freedom Flotilla) and considers that it that must now move from words to action: Ankara must support the Syrian rebels, and even attack the Damascus regime with the help of NATO.

Photo of the day

A young man poses in front of a burning pipeline. It’s Khaled Abu Salah, an opponent from Homs who is well known for his videos. Last week, he was portrayed as wounded and dying.
According to the authorities, the pipeline was sabotaged by the "terrorists", while the London office of the Muslim Brotherhood claims it was shelled by the "regime."
A first question arises as to why the Syrian authorities would have destroyed their own pipeline, thereby magnifying the impact of the Western embargo which they are under.
The second question is why an opponent who holds the government responsible for the sabotage would be posing proudly in front of the blaze.

Cartoons of the day

The Saudi Gazette published a classic propaganda cartoon to demonize al-Assad.

Le Monde has chosen to present Bashar from beyond the grave, brewing a beverage with the blood of the condemned.
Yet, during the ten months of civil strife and war, the Syrian government never hanged its opponents.
Moreover, to assimilate a political leader with a vampire feeding on the blood of his enemies is generally considered as a classic anti-Semitism statement. It applies this time not a Jewish leader, but to an Arab, who are also Semites.