After four months of protest Assad has lost even the bare minimum, the sullen acquiescence of his people, to govern
Editorial
guardian.co.uk, Monday 1 August 2011
"....In 1982, Bashar Assad's father, Hafez, bombed the city flat after an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood. More than 10,000 people were killed in one of the most brutal single episodes in the history of the Middle East. The son's attempt to bring his iron fist down on this, of all cities, may well rank as his biggest miscalculation yet.
....But the overwhelming truth after four months of protest is that Assad has lost even the bare minimum, the sullen acquiescence of his people, to govern. After four months of videos of massacres broadcast on YouTube, there is no way back.
....Everything after the disappearance of the Baathists would have to be built from the bottom up. Worse still it would be done in an atmosphere of sectarian mistrust. The regime, cannot , like Saudi Arabia, spend its way out of trouble. So we are left with a grinding civil conflict which could take months more to play out. The one hope lies paradoxically in the same army formations that are sent in to shoot the protesters who defy them. It is impossible to quantify how many soldiers have defected. But conscript soldiers are drawn from the same homes, and the same classes that are bearing the brunt of the crackdown. Sometime, somewhere a tipping point must surely come. But it has not yet.
....These are clear warning signs that there is no future for Assad if he continues on his current path."
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