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11 April 2012 By
Tariq Alhomayed The al-Assad regime's
Foreign Ministry was completely right when it
announced yesterday that the tyrant of Damascus would
not withdraw his forces from cities in accordance with
UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's deadline on the 10th
April, and that the process of withdrawing troops was
fundamentally a "misunderstanding", as the Foreign
Ministry statement said. When I say that the
al-Assad regime is right when it says that the world
may have misunderstood, this is for one simple reason,
namely that merely believing that the al-Assad regime
would accept Annan's mission was a grave and absurd
mistake. The international community is fully aware
that the al-Assad regime has never fulfilled a promise
it has made. If the al-Assad regime was a customer
seeking to borrow from a bank, then regimes, like
individuals, have a track record of their positions
and reputation, and the reputation of the al-Assad
regime is one of manipulation and fraud. Thus, the al-Assad
regime was right to say that the world has
misunderstood, because this regime fundamentally
manipulates everyone, and it was assumed that everyone
already knew that. It is interesting that
Kofi Annan said that he is "shocked" by the level of
violence in Syria, and the truth is that no one knows
what to say. If Annan is "shocked", then what would
the Syrians say who are being killed every day in cold
blood by al-Assad's forces? It is puzzling that the
international community finds solace in silence as it
waits for Annan's pending deadline, while al-Assad's
forces continue to commit massacres and ethnic
cleansing in Homs, which makes one wonder: Is this
blood not of any value? Who will bear the consequences
of these crimes, committed throughout a whole year of
the Syrian revolution? Who will punish al-Assad for
his crimes? Therefore we can say that the
international community has not only misunderstood al-Assad,
but it has also been complicit with the regime by
granting it one deadline after another so that it can
commit massacres against the Syrians. All the facts and the
reality say that al-Assad and his killing machine only
understand the language of force, not the language of
diplomacy and international laws, and any attempt to
stop the crimes of this regime with diplomatic
initiatives, along the lines of Annan's initiative or
otherwise, certainly "misunderstand" the nature of the
tyrant of Damascus' regime. Al-Assad has haggled with
the international community in the name of Annan's
initiative, which his regime says today it will not
implement, and that it had been fundamentally
misunderstood in the first place. Al-Assad does what
he does because he cannot see any genuine moves
against him on the ground, all he sees are empty
threats, such as from Turkey, or the silence emanating
from President Obama, who these days only cares about
preparing for his re-election campaign, rather than
the numbers killed at the hands of the al-Assad
regime, which now exceed ten thousand. Therefore, the al-Assad
regime's Foreign Ministry was entirely right to say
that believing it would withdraw its troops was wrong,
because assuming that the al-Assad regime could
possibly have good intentions is a fundamental
mistake. Al-Assad and his regime only understand the
language of force, and using such tactics today has
become a duty not only to ensure his overthrow, but to
stop the Syrian bloodshed. In addition to this, all
Bashar al-Assad is currently doing is wasting time,
and by failing to act the world is effectively
conspiring with the Damascus criminal. Tariq Alhomayed is the Editor-in-Chief of Asharq
Al-Awsat, the youngest person to be appointed that
position. He holds a BA degree in Media studies from
King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, and has also
completed his Introductory courses towards a Master's
degree from George Washington University in Washington
D.C. He is based in London.
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