The Editorial

The struggle for the future of Syria is witnessing several developments that deserve attention, as both sides – the regime and the opposition – struggle to see who can be more credible.
The Turkish city of Antalya is hosting a conference of opposition groups this week, and delegates are enthusiastically outlining their key objective, namely toppling the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Conference participants will certainly voice a number of goals and slogans; they will likely base most of their rhetoric on the past, whether this means the regime’s violent response to public protests over the last two months, or several decades of one-party-dominated rule by the Baath.

However, the opposition suffers from several problems, one being the level of support that these groups and organizations enjoy inside Syria. Another is that the “Syrian opposition,” as such, contains a number of disparate groups. When the conference gets under way, the Syrian public will likely focus on whether anything tangible, and feasible, comes out of the event.
Meanwhile, the Syrian regime has produced its own one-two punch this week, in the form of announcing concessions to the demands of protesters.
One is Assad’s announcement of a general amnesty for all crimes committed up to the end of May, as rights groups say that hundreds of people have been released from jail in the past few days.

The amnesty announcement will not cover everyone, such as organized groups that advocate a change in the regime, but activists have indicated that while insufficient, the move is certainly a step in the right direction.
Assad has also announced the launch of a national dialogue process, to be headed by a regime-dominated committee tasked with laying down the general principles to be followed. For many in the opposition, such a step is also lacking, since they believe that the regime’s actions are a case of “too little, too late.”

But the same could be said of both the regime and opposition, for now. The regime has put out signals that it supports change, but without enough convincing detail. The opposition, obviously, advocates change, but it is a long way from producing the kind of “road map” that is both credible and feasible, to gain mass popular support.
While the wave of protests, crackdowns and arrests in Syria has yet to die down, the Syrian public is certainly less than enthusiastic about seeing the uprising continue unless there is light at the end of the tunnel.

They are waiting for a clear alternative to the current state of affairs, and neither the regime nor the opposition groups has yet to produce something that will fill that gap. But if both sides can back up their rhetoric with decisive action, then the race will be on.