Hazem al-Amin

Those who ponder what Syrian President Bashar al-Assad meant by saying during an interview with American network ABC that he did not order his army and security forces to shoot civilians reach only one simple and unintelligent answer: Assad is claiming his innocence regarding the daily bloodshed in Syria.

Is there a conclusion that is more self-evident and obtuse than that? Still, since the person saying those words is a head of state, coming to a conclusion is necessary. But what a wretched business this is, because we are forcing our intelligence to stoop to insulting lows.

The Syrian president said that the pictures of his forces slaughtering dissidents that are shown on TV are not true, that he does not believe in the United Nations and the Security Council, and much more.

Still, the most self-evident statement he made was when he said that he did not order the army to kill civilians. Does this indicate some kind of transformation in the official Syrian claims regarding the uprising?

According to Arab diplomats, the regime apparatus is starting to display some deficiency. These diplomats have picked up several signs, leading them to believe that the performance of the “system” in Damascus is flailing. This is noticeable in the failure to make proper economic decisions in light of international and Arab sanctions, and in the mistake made by Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem in his latest press conference in which he showed pictures taken in Lebanon of villagers lynching a man, claiming that they showed Syrian dissidents killing a security forces officer. Then came President Assad, saying what he did to ABC.

The only scenario Arab diplomats have regarding the Syrian crisis is that the regime’s predicament will grow worse and that something will happen, probably starting from within the halls of power.

These are people who have examined the information coming out of Damascus carefully. In their opinion, the successive deadlines granted by the Arab League to the Syrian regime to stop the violence and let in Arab observers are justified by saying that “every deadline hides some instability, the signs of which are noticeable through the regime’s response.”

One of the paradoxes noted by diplomats is that the Syrian regime sets the number of those killed every day according to the messages the president wants to get out. Conditional approval of the Arab initiative thus calls for one number, its postponement calls for another, and the foreign minister’s press conference calls for mitigating this number. The discrepancy noted by the diplomats is that when the number of those killed rises prior to a press conference by the foreign minister or his spokesperson, this means that someone is not in favor of holding the press conference in question.
These are messages written in blood, and those shedding it mistakenly believe that it is blood easily shed.

This article is a translation of the original, which appeared on Friday December 9, 2011