A Free Syrian fighter fires his weapon as another shouts during clashes with forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar Assad, in Aleppo’s district of Salaheddine December 29, 2012. Photo by Reuters

While a vehement letter by a member of Assad’s family spreads across the Arabic web, a resolution for the strife in Syria has no end in sight.

By Zvi Bar’el It seems that the Russians are no longer certain of their ability to control Assad’s actions. For the first time, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov admitted that Russia cannot persuade Assad to abdicate, and thus his country doesn’t think it is wise to condition a political settlement on his leaving. Russia is frustrated by the refusal of the Syrian opposition leadership to hold negotiations with it after Ahmed Moaz Khatib, the chairman of the Syrian National Coalition, announced that he will refuse their invitation to meet with Russian President Valdimir Putin in response to Moscow’s policy toward Assad.

“Look into your son’s eyes,” Ahras wrote. “Do you see in them the eyes of a child walking barefoot on the cold earth? Or a child embracing a loaf of bread as if it was a treasure he had found at the end of an arduous journey? Or a child gripping his dead mother in his arms believing it will bring her back? Did you feel the burn of his tears? I’m sure you never saw any of these. All that you see in the eyes of your son is the blue he inherited from his father. Feel your daughter’s head well, is it still in its place? What would you feel if it were brought to you detached from her body? Just imagine and come back to me with a response.”

“Our revolution will succeed,” Ahras warned Assad in her letter. “Know that you will be brought to justice before us and before Allah for all that is taking place in our country. Allah will take his vengeance upon you and upon all evil. I hereby notify you that I will not be angry about this, because your blood no longer concerns me, and if I could replace my blood I would.”

Ahras’s jarring words are being read across the Arab world just as reports are coming out of the United States that President Assad is becoming gripped with horror, isn’t leaving his home, and is making no public appearances. According to the Washington Post, which is basing its reports on U.S. government officials, Assad is regularly changing bedrooms in fear of assassination; he also stepped up the supervision over the preparation of his food fearing a poisoning plot, and doesn’t leave his office during the day for fear of sniper fire. Despite this, American officials are cautioning against making predictions of when Assad’s regime will collapse and of overly dramatic assessment of the frailty of his regime. “Assad is still in command and is sure that Syria is under his control,” one source said. And if the force of the attacks the Syrian military is conducting across Syria, including air raids in the southern suburbs of Damascus and in the rural north of the country, is any indication, the war is still far from being over.

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“We were surprised by Khatib’s response, which stems from his lack of diplomatic experience,” Moscow responded. But the belittlingof the opposition’s experience will not at this point help it promote dialog with the regime. The main question now is how the opposition plans to navigate its actions in the future and how much control it exerts on the forces in the field. There is a total consensus among opposition forces both civilian and military that Assad’s abdication is a prerequisite to any negotiation. This position is also supported by the U.S., France, the U.K., and Germany. On the other hand, Russia and Iran, fearing their position in Syria is in jeopardy, reject this condition and insist that any transition of power be made out of agreement by both sides. Which of these two opposing visions of the end of the conflict will win out will be either determined by one victory on the battlefield or agreement between the U.S. and Russia. Both of these possibilities are unattainable at this point, and it is hard to see when, if ever, they will.

Via Haaretz News

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