"I guarantee you if Bibi comes out today & says 'we are for the Syrian revolution', he'll be the most popular man in Syria!"

"Via FLC 

Remember that this clown's father was at one time rumored to have 'irrefutable' information regarding Rafic Hariri's assassination, and as such, bozo-pere was afforded a large ISF security detail in Lebanon by none other than Saad Hariri.



"...“Israel should do something. You shouldn’t just sit on the sideline and accept the fact that the US isn’t doing enough. I guarantee you if Bibi comes out today or tomorrow and says, ‘We are for the Syrian revolution and we need to protect these people who are being butchered like animals in Syria,’ I guarantee he’ll be the most popular leader in Syria today. Why? Because there’s a huge vacuum in Syria,” he said.

“Two days ago the Muslim Brotherhood came out with a big statement saying ‘We support the revolution.’ Well hello, good morning! Seven weeks, and you support the revolution now?” Ghadry’s Reform Party is arguably the most reformminded element of the scant and disparate Syrian opposition in exile. Larger opposition factions are headed by Abdul Halim Khaddam – a former Syrian vice president who six years ago defected to Paris – and Ribal Assad, the president’s cousin, based in London. ..."The Movement for Justice and Development, an Islamist group, is also based in the UK. 

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Farid Ghadri: "Arms flowing to rebels from Iraq, Jordan & Lebanon"

Via FLC

"... Syrian opposition sources said tribes in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon have been relaying weapons in an effort to oust President Bashar Assad. They said the weapons were sent to avenge the killing by Syrian security forces of tribal members over the last month.
"One of Assad's biggest mistakes is that his security forces have been killing members of powerful tribes with a presence in neighboring countries as well," an opposition source said.
The weapons smuggling to the Syrian rebels began in March when Assad forces shot and killed members of tribes in Dera near the Jordanian border. Some of the tribes in Dera have links with supporters in Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
On April 19, a son of a powerful tribal chief, Saleh Al Fadous, was killed by Assad forces in the northern city of Homs. Fadous is a member of the Fawareh tribe with allies in Iraq and Jordan, including Duleimeh and Bani Hassan.
"Arms are flowing into Syria in large quantities today by tribal leaders whose traditional bonds with the tribes of Syria make it impossible not to smuggle arms," the Reform Party of Syria said. "As Assad massacres continue against unarmed civilians, he is also driving the country towards an outright civil war."
RPS, in a statement on April 23, said Bani Hassan was a leading ally of King Abdullah in Jordan. For its part, Duleimeh, descendants of the Shaalan tribe, was connected to and supportive of the Saudi royal family.
The Assad regime has confirmed arms smuggling from Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon. In mid-April, an Iraqi truck driver confessed to receiving thousands of dollars for arms shipments to Syria.
On April 26, the Syrian-influenced Lebanese daily Al Akhbar quoted a Lebanese mayor as saying that an attempt to smuggle weapons to Syria was foiled. Al Hisha Mayor Mohammed Durgham was quoted as saying that villagers were conducting patrols to stop any smuggling."  

Syria .. In the Eye of the Storm - Part III

By Nidal Hmede

Translated by: Eslam al-Rihani

Lots of Syrian opposition parties inside and outside the country – rely on a western military interference against Syria, similar to what is happening now in Libya and previously in Iraq.


Farid el-Ghaderi (left), Abdul-Halim Khaddam (right)



That stance had been officially delivered to France, the US, and the UK, in a form of wishes by groups belonging to “Farid el-Ghaderi” and the “Damascus Declaration Abroad.”

The here above words were quoted from a French academic source.

That stance - demanding foreign interference – intersects with an old Saudi desire to interfere militarily against Syria; it had been repeatedly delivered by Saudi officials to western and French parties.

According to the French academic, “it seems that the stance was not rejected by the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, as Abdul-Halim Khaddam (former Syrian VP) reiterated in his communications with the players whom he knows in the west, and which have resurfaced after a period of isolation and frustration.”

However, that desire collides with a difficult reality for the West, especially in the Syrian case which is different from other Arab cases for several reasons:

A– The independence of the Syrian regime from the United States, with which it entered in direct and indirect conflicts over the past years in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine; contrary to the regimes of ousted presidents “Hosni Mubarak” of Egypt and “Zein El Abidine Ben Ali” of Tunisia, and Yemeni President “Ali Abdullah Saleh.”

B- The notorious western military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, emergence of the signs of faltering in Libya despite the weakness of the Libyan case compared with Syria, and the West’s unwillingness to get involved in a new conflict; a conflict with unguaranteed results.

C- The presence of Syria within a regional alliance that had achieved great victories in the ongoing conflict since the American invasion of Iraq.

D- The US need for Syria in Iraq, and the American unwillingness to face another chaos in the vicinity of the already exhausted U.S. military in Iraq.
E- The possibility that Syria would redirect the conflict towards a war against Israel, in case it sensed threat of interference by the NATO, which will give Damascus a large popular support in both the Arab and Muslim worlds.

F- The inevitable Russian and Chinese objection in the Security Council, because of the radical difference between the Syrian and Libyan situations in terms of importance to Russia.

G- The Turkish position which is fears chaos in Syria, given the common ethnic and sectarian composition between both countries.

Turkish PM Recep Tayyib Erdogan (left),
Syrian President - Bashar al-Assad (right)

In this sense, a radical change in Turkish PM Recep Tayyib Erdogan\'s attitude can be noticed, especially after the Syrian President\'s chancellor Bothayna Shaaban was quoted as saying that “Syria had been targeted on sectarian grounds.” However, after Turkey’s position was to closely monitor events in Syria, it evolved into support to Damascus. It was here where the impact of the Kurdish, Alawi and Sunni factors, along with their overlaps in both countries had emerged.

As for the possibility of military interference, Girard Bapt – Socialist Party MP and the head of Syrian-French Friendship Committee in the French Parliament - stressed in a phone call with Al-Manar Website that “there won\'t be any Western military interference against Syria.”

"The current situation is not serious. Western military interferences are looking for easy spots in the Arab world and black Africa. The year 2012 will witness the presidential elections in the US, France and Spain. All three countries are participating in the NATO military interference in Libya. Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy have benefited from the opinion polls on the war against Libya, which veterans and experts in military and political affairs agree that it is an easy war in this country that has little if no support in the Arab world, yet the operation is financially, politically and militarily impeded. If Qatar and the UAE didn\'t pledge to pay the full costs of the war, we wouldn\'t have seen NATO planes bombing Gaddafi\'s forces."

On the other hand, Alan Qorvis - the former colonel in the French army and the former military adviser to the French prime ministry - told Al-Manar Website that the situation in Syria is difficult and complicated.

"The regime in Damascus has retreated, made pledges, and is promising more," a French source said, adding that the persistence of the Syrian opposition\'s neo-conservatives in their imported Saudi intransigence, will only lead to a Syrian bloodshed in a battle of sabotage in the most important Middle-Eastern country.

"It\'s a losing battle in all standards," the source concluded.

Parts 1 and 2 here

In case you missed it: "The Syrian regime must change, or it will be changed" by Khalid Amayreh 

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian