Editorial
Desperation in Syria
Assad regime will have to go
The defection of Syria's Prime Minister Riad Hijab to the opposition has, in a pretty medieval way, outraged the embattled Bashar al Assad. He appears to think that he now needs to hit the rebels harder than before, a strategy which in recent times has often proved to be the undoing of many. By now the Syrian president should have gone for a major rethink about the options before him. The recent deaths of his interior and defence ministers in an explosion were proof, if proof were needed, of the grave danger his regime has fallen into. It is a reality much of the rest of the world recognizes. Only Assad and his loyalists go on believing that in the end they will triumph.
The unfortunate part of the sordid story is that some of Assad's friends abroad seem to think he deserves to be sustained in power. The Russians are unwilling to abandon him. And only the other day Iran made it known that it will continue to support the Syrian leader against what it called regional and global enemies of the axis of resistance. That must have cheered Assad to no end. He keeps pounding away at Aleppo, where rebels have been fighting a desperate battle against the army. Indeed, desperation is what has characterized Syria over the past sixteen months. With the regime deploying the army and the air force against citizens and with the rebels caught in a no-win no-defeat condition, it has been the country's civilian population that has been bearing the brunt of the conflict.
It should be obvious by now that the Assad regime has little chance of getting Syria back in its grip. With rebels engaging government soldiers in some pockets of the capital Damascus, it is hard to think that the regime will be able to wriggle out of the difficult situation it is trapped in. And that is where the international community must come in, with the clear message for Assad that he has to go. The crisis concerns a need for change. And change will not happen if Assad and his team hang on to power. They have ruined much of the country. And, arrogant as they are, they will go on wreaking havoc until they are run out of town.
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