RandomGuy
06-13-2011, 10:09 AM
A MONTH ago seasoned watchers of Syria reckoned that the regime’s ferocious crackdown would keep the lid on dissent, albeit with President Bashar Assad’s legitimacy badly impaired. Now the prevailing wisdom is changing. Rather than subside, the protests are spreading and intensifying.
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Across the country, a growing number of religious leaders are weighing in behind the protesters. More of Syria’s minorities, such as Christians, who have looked to Mr Assad for protection, may also be joining in. The several hundred thousand Palestinians who reside in Syria may also be turning against him (see article). On June 6th there were clashes in Yarmouk, the biggest refugee camp, on the edge of Damascus. “We’re getting to a tipping point, where groups waiting for a balance of power to change will move,” says a veteran analyst in Damascus.
The influential Qatar-based television channel, Al Jazeera, reported that a member of the Tlass family, a Sunni clan that has been close to the president, had defected. He contradicted the government’s line that the army is fighting against armed rebels.
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At first Western governments, including America’s, were loth to call for Mr Assad to go, hoping he could still set about reforms and open Syria up. But his exceptionally brutal use of force has alienated those who had hoped to embrace him.
http://www.economist.com/node/18805738
The elipses leave out the supporting details, and are worth reading if you want to familiarize yourself with the minutae.
I do not think momentum favors Assad at this point. If he hadn't quite been so brutal and desperate at the outset, he might not have pissed so many people off, inside and outside the country, so quickly.
I do not see either Assad or Ghadafi lasting to December. Libyan rebels have siezed the last supply route into Tripoli. Doubt they can hold it against a determined counter-attack, but the fact that they can threaten food/fuel shipments into Ghadafi's stronghold does not bode well for him.
There is a good chance I could be wrong about those predictions, but I think the odds against both butchers are mounting.
...
Across the country, a growing number of religious leaders are weighing in behind the protesters. More of Syria’s minorities, such as Christians, who have looked to Mr Assad for protection, may also be joining in. The several hundred thousand Palestinians who reside in Syria may also be turning against him (see article). On June 6th there were clashes in Yarmouk, the biggest refugee camp, on the edge of Damascus. “We’re getting to a tipping point, where groups waiting for a balance of power to change will move,” says a veteran analyst in Damascus.
The influential Qatar-based television channel, Al Jazeera, reported that a member of the Tlass family, a Sunni clan that has been close to the president, had defected. He contradicted the government’s line that the army is fighting against armed rebels.
...
At first Western governments, including America’s, were loth to call for Mr Assad to go, hoping he could still set about reforms and open Syria up. But his exceptionally brutal use of force has alienated those who had hoped to embrace him.
http://www.economist.com/node/18805738
The elipses leave out the supporting details, and are worth reading if you want to familiarize yourself with the minutae.
I do not think momentum favors Assad at this point. If he hadn't quite been so brutal and desperate at the outset, he might not have pissed so many people off, inside and outside the country, so quickly.
I do not see either Assad or Ghadafi lasting to December. Libyan rebels have siezed the last supply route into Tripoli. Doubt they can hold it against a determined counter-attack, but the fact that they can threaten food/fuel shipments into Ghadafi's stronghold does not bode well for him.
There is a good chance I could be wrong about those predictions, but I think the odds against both butchers are mounting.