14 August 2012 By Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed If Syrian Vice President Farouq
al-Shara manages to cross the border into neighboring
Jordan, it will represent a new –but not decisive –
blow for the Syrian regime. Al-Shara is from Daraa,
the region that spawned the revolution against Bashar
al-Assad after a group of children were arrested and
tortured for writing anti-regime slogans. Daraa is an
important passageway for dissidents and arms smugglers
since it is located south of the capital Damascus,
about an hour's drive away. It is the gateway to
Jordan, and this is why al-Assad's forces have
conducted a continuous spree of killings and bombings
there for seventeen months, but as yet they have
failed to quell the uprising. Al-Shara's significance lies in the fact that he is
an integral part of the regime; he has known its
darkest secrets for decades, unlike former Prime
Minister Riad Hijab, who defected just forty days
after being assigned to the post. The Syrian regime is being hurt directly by the
defection of its military and security leadership.
This has happened on several occasions over the past
two months; most recently with Yaarab al-Shara,
Farouq's cousin and a security official in Damascus,
and prior to that with the defection of Manaf Tlass.
The importance of these dissident leaders and officers
lies in their support for the Free Syrian Army (FSA),
and their ability to support the rebels. The explosion
that targeted a military command office last week,
along with the attack on the national security
building several weeks ago, appear to be the result of
military defectors infiltrating and collaborating with
staff on the premises. The defection of a figure as important as Farouq
al-Shara, the Vice President of the Republic, and the
assignment of Lakhdar Brahimi as a U.N. envoy to Syria
to discuss a peaceful end for the Assad regime, are
two important events, but they will still not change
anything in Damascus because of Russia's determination
to protect the regime at all levels. What will change
the situation, topple the regime and end this tragedy,
is if we pay attention to the split in the military:
We must supply the FSA and its fighters with weapons
and intelligence information. The Syrian revolution
has completed the basic stages of change; it
highlighted that the regime's downfall is the desire
of the majority of the Syrian people, gained
international support, and then transformed into an
armed confrontation as a result of the regime's
violence. It is now certain that the majority of the
regime's senior officials are willing to flee and that
numerous members of the security and military forces
are also willing to defect, but it will not be easy
for them. The regime has lost dozens of key figures,
ministers, and security and military chiefs, but the
stubborn head, Bashar al-Assad, still remains. He has
displayed levels of ferocity and brutality that are
unprecedented in our modern history. The calculated
crimes he has committed against civilians over the
past months have gone way beyond the cruelty of his
father Hafez al-Assad, and even beyond the harshest
dictators in the region such as Saddam Hussein and
Muammar Gaddafi.
Al Rashed is the general manager of Al -Arabiya
television. He is also the former editor-in-chief of
Asharq Al- Awsat, and the leading Arabic weekly
magazine, Al Majalla. He is also a senior Columnist in
the daily newspapers of Al Madina and Al Bilad. He is
a US post-graduate degree in mass communications. He
has been a guest on many TV current affairs programs.
He is currently based in Dubai. Comments 💬 التعليقات |