Neck of the woods
“His story was as revealing as it was frightening. Damascus was about to be attacked. But the fighters were out of control. There were drug addicts among them. “Some of our people are on drugs,” the visitor said. “They will take anyone out. We can’t guarantee what some of these men will do. If they went into Malki [a mixed, middle-class area of central Damascus], we couldn’t protect any of the people who live there. ………. It was a true civil war story. There were bad guys among the good guys and good guys among the bad. But sectarianism is biting into the Syrian revolution. At the end of last week, one Syrian told me that “they are bayoneting people in the villages around Damascus”. Women, they say, have been raped outside the city of Homs – one estimate puts the number of victims as high as 200 – and the rapists are on both sides. . ……………”


Regardless of all this, Any respectable leader in a respectable country (that means any leader outside the Arab world) in a similar situation would resign office and go into exile. Bashar al-Assad “inherited” the power from his father with the approval of the Baath Party, misnamed Arab Baath Socialist Party with an Immortal (Eternal) Message to remain in power forever and at any price. And with the approval of all other Arab leaders, the Club of Arab Despots and Dictators and Absolute Tribal Kings. At some point even an Arab dictator, or lousy king, can decide that it is not worth the blood. Take a lesson from Bin Ali of Tunisia: he didn’t insist on staying, he gave it up rather than see more killing. al-Assad should resign and just get the hell out.
I don’t like the current opposition in Syria either, they are a nasty bunch as well, as nasty as the Baath regime, but with less weapons and less goons than the regime to do the dirty deeds. Many of them former henchmen who served the dictators and the part loyally and now pose as revolutionaries.
Syria should hold free elections under the supervision of various world powers, including Russia and China, after which a coalition of Muslim Brothers and Salafis will take power legally. The Kurds will get their nominally autonomous region, and that will leave only al-Qaeda for their allies to deal with. After that, the Syrian people should be left to their own devices to judge how good their new Islamist rulers are, or how badly they fuck up the country (a very likely outcome).
(Of course we know it ain’t gonna happen: nobody will leave the Syrian people to their own devices).


Cheers
mhg
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