Pressure is now mounting on Syria — and if trending continues, look for it to increasingly be a world hotspot. And a major problem. The Periscope Post reports:
Syria is looking increasingly isolated on the world stage, as the Arab League turns on one of its own and gives the al-Assad regime until November 19 to end its bloody repression of opposition protesters.
Protests demanding the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad began in January 2011, blossoming into a full-scale uprising by March. Al-Assad and his regime, however, have responded with violence — the UN estimates that over 3,500 people have been killed. The rebels, now called the Free Syrian Army and based partly in Lebanon, have made several attacks on the regime; they mounted their most audacious one so far on 16 November, on an air force intelligence base in the north of Damascus. This raises the possibility, said Jon Leyne on BBC News, of a “full-scale civil war.” The official Syrian news round up continues to call the protestors and rebels “terrorists.” Commentators are arguing for tougher sanctions economically, and not ruling out the possibility of intervention.
The pressure on Assad is rising: King Adbullah of Jordan has urged Assad to leave. The 22-member Arab League has suspended Syria, after it didn’t comply with a peace plan – a “bitter rebuke,” said Alex Spillius in The Daily Telegraph, for a nation that sees itself a “bastion of Arab nationalism.” The Arab League’s vote, said Gamal Abdel Gawad, an Arab affairs expert, shows that the Arab world is “scrambling to influence” the new regime. It’s a strategically important zone, with borders on Israel and a critical link to Lebanon. Syria’s allies in Russia and China are also keen not to see their interests in the Middle East compromised; on the other hand, Saudi Arabia, an ally of the United States of America, has been desperate to break Syria’s alliance with Iran for ages.
Crowds of pro-Assad demonstrators in Damascus have attacked the embassies of Morocco and the United Arab Emirates; whilst France and Morocco are withdrawing their ambassadors. France, meanwhile, is in talks with the Syrian opposition to find a viable replacement for the current regime.
Go to the link to read the rest of this must-read backgrounder.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.