What's Happening in Syria?

If you want to read a gripping account of the situation in Syria, take a look at Spiegel Online International's article, "Running from the Ghosts of Damascus."

For two hours, Nabil plays dozens of videos, including images even Al Jazeera won't show, images of heads ripped off, bodies torn to pieces, severed feet, targeted gunshot wounds to the ears, eyes, forehead. There are pictures of severely injured people being given basic treatment at improvised medical stations, which the resistance uses because people are often abducted from hospitals. In one scene, armed men jump out of an ambulance. "Shabiha or security forces," Awad says. "That's happened so often, people are afraid to take the injured to the clinics anymore."

According to the accounts in the article, the main source of terror and repression isn't the army -- although it is retaking control of cities, but the massive regime security forces and secret police, personally loyal to Bashar al-Assad.

the regime's true backbone is the security forces and secret services, believed to employ up to 400,000 people in their network of terror units, all competing to torture and kill. Their creator, former President Hafez al-Assad, managed all members as far down as mid-ranking officers.

If these forces remain loyal, and the army doesn't turn on the regime, Assad has a good chance of retaining power. There are, however, some signs of cracks in his control.

Hundreds of dead soldiers have been turned over to their families with bullet wounds and no further details about their deaths. Another 1,000 or more have deserted. In Deir ez-Zor, a colonel is said to have defected together with some of his troops. The regime is growing increasingly concerned about its own army, says a soldier in Damascus. "Until five weeks ago, you only needed a military ID to pass through checkpoints anywhere in the country," the soldier explains. "Now you have to have a permit for each leg of the trip, or they'll suspect you as a deserter."

If the conscript army decides to turn on Assad, that could bring him down. But so far it hasn't happened.

Tim Pawlenty's Middle East Speech

My first impression when reading stories about GOP presidential contender Pawlenty's speech was negative, and after reading the whole thing I think it's a mixed bag -- with the bad outweighing the good. First, the good:

• The criticism of Obama's foolish "engagement" policy is on point
• Recognition that strong U.S. support for Israel gives a better chance for peace than a pretense that we are some sort of neutral broker.
• Threat to cut off Palestinian aid.

And the bad:

• a strong fetish for democracy promotion, and a seeming failure to understand that democracy is other countries is not necessarily in the U.S. interest.
• call to pressure friendly nations over human rights issues
• a way too optimistic view of Arab uprisings
  
• offhand dismissal of realpolitik in favor of what I consider unwarranted optimistic idealism

Overall I'm not thrilled with Pawlenty's ideas as advanced in this speech. What he calls isolationism can be better categorized as realistic assessment of American interests. There was some talk of U.S. interests in the speech, but not nearly enough. In purely political terms, the speech appears to indicate that he has knowledge of Middle East policy and coherent, if unconvincing ideas. But in my opinion various portions of his speech could easily have been spoken by George W. Bush or Barack Obama. And that's not a recommendation.

Best Middle East Peace Plan Yet

Link to Video.

h/t Cold Fury

Terroristine

A must-read from Daniel Greenfield. Some excerpts:

There are states that support terrorists, and give safe harbor to them, but that's not good enough. We don't want another Pakistan or Iran. We're not half-assing it this time. What we want is the genuine article. Terrorists from the top down. Terrorists everywhere. A state where every branch of government and the entire country is nothing but terrorists.

AND

Why do we need Terroristine? Peace. There can be no peace without a terrorist state. Not a chance of it. The only way we'll ever have peace is to give the terrorists a country of their own. A country dedicated to terrorism. Only then will the Terroristinians finally give up on all the killing, and dedicate themselves to medical research, quantum physics and the arts. It hasn't happened yet to. But it's bound to.

AND

We know the Terroristinians want their own state. Every time they walk out of negotiations or end them with a round of terrorist attacks, it shows their deep and abiding passion for a state. They want it so badly they aren't willing to make a single concession for it. So committed are they to Terroristine. And who can blame them?

Obama's Mideast Speech

I found nothing particularly surprising in the president's speech. It was the sort of thing I would expect from someone whose foreign policy ideas are based largely on an exaggerated notion of the power of talking and on wishful thinking. Like some freedom agenda promoters on the right, Obama seems oblivious to the fact that democracy in other states is not necessarily in the U.S. interest. He dismisses such concerns as temporary, and exhibits a sort of childlike faith in democracy. As usual he shows no understanding of the difference between the collapse of regimes favorable to the U.S., and of those who are hostile.

Obama's remark about using the 1967 borders as a basis for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians has stirred up a hornets' nest. Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic points out that this idea is nothing new to U.S. policy.

This has been the basic idea for at least 12 years. This is what Bill Clinton, Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat were talking about at Camp David, and later, at Taba. This is what George W. Bush was talking about with Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. So what's the huge deal here? Is there any non-delusional Israeli who doesn't think that the 1967 border won't serve as the rough outline of the new Palestinian state?

As I wrote in the previous post, I think a Palestinian state is a very bad idea and should not be U.S. policy. But I agree with Goldberg that there has been an overreaction to this particular comment by Obama. The whole so-called "peace process" has been a bad joke for a long time.

Much more disturbing than the comment about the 1967 borders, is Obama's call to spend even more U.S. money in the region -- as if we aren't spending enough already. In Obama's world, there is nothing that can't be improved by more government spending, and this applies externally as well as internally.

We will continue to make good on the commitments that I made in Cairo – to build networks of entrepreneurs, and expand exchanges in education; to foster cooperation in science and technology, and combat disease. Across the region, we intend to provide assistance to civil society

He goes on to give a laundry list of things we are going to be wasting money on, no doubt in many cases to the benefit of people who despise us.