The war party is falling apart

The Muslim Brotherhood has officially denounced the Arab League observer mission, claiming that its presence is giving the Bashar al-Assad regime extra time. Such statements coincide with the position of the Qatari authorities who unsuccessfully attempted to shorten the mission, arguing that if the observers did not back up their information it was because they were being shrewdly manipulated by the regime.

Moreover, the Western and Gulf press cite the observers’ preliminary report by twisting is meaning. The continuing violence to which the mission bears witness is typified as an ongoing repression, when the observers linked the violence to the armed groups infiltrating the country.

In his annual address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, Pope Benedict XVI allusively expressed concern about the possible threat to religious freedom posed by the Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world.

At a televised news conference, the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan once again condemned the Syrian government. However, he publicly acknowledged the policy shift that has been in the air for the past two weeks by anxiously alluding to a possible civil or sectarian war in the country next door. After the squabble between France and Turkey about the Armenian massacre, which broke up the anti-Syrian military coalition, Ankara urges the Free Syrian Army to exert restraint - while providing it with a rear base - and calls for only peaceful protests.