The architects of the organization succeeded in uniting all the various currents of the political opposition to the Assad regime.
Speaking after having met a delegation of Latin American countries (including Cuba and Venezuela) supporting Assad, the foreign minister said the following:
I am not interested in what they (the SNC) are trying to achieve. And we will adopt strict measures against any country that will recognize the illegitimate council.
What those measures would be he did not elaborate…
Formed earlier this month in Istanbul (after a long protracted process), the SNC is composed of 190 members representing the nation’s principle currents: the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic party, the Damascus Declaration, a pro-democracy organization led by dissidents; the Syrian Revolution General Commission, comprising forty opposition groups; representatives of various Kurdish parties, and other minorities, such as the Christians and the Alawites (a Shiite sect to which belong Assad and the dignitaries of his regime).
Significantly, it also represents those inside Syria leading the protest movement, the Local Coordination Committees. In fact, about 50% of the members are currently within Syria, resisting the regime.
A general assembly of all 190 members is to take place next month. A president of the council is to be elected then.
The council will function as a parliament, where policy options are to be reviewed and debated by its members.
The aim of the council is to offer support and encouragement to those protesting and thus risking their lives in Syria; propose an alternative to the vicious Assad regime; fill any leadership vacuum should the regime eventually collapse, and provide the international community with a legitimate representative of the Syrian people.
This had been a demand formulated by the West for some time.
I think the (international) pressure requires an organized opposition, and there isn’t one. There’s no address for the opposition. There is no place that any of us who wish to assist can go, declared last August Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The council’s spokesman, Bourhan Ghalioun, professor of Contemporary Oriental Studies at the Sorbonne in Paris, clearly affirmed the organization’s purpose: achieve the goals of the revolution to topple the regime, including all of its components and leadership, and to replace it with a democratic pluralistic regime, he said.
I think that this (Assad) regime has completely lost the world’s trust. The world is waiting for a united Syrian (opposition) that can provide the alternative to this regime, so that they can recognize it. The council denounces the (regime’s) policy of sectarian incitement…which threatens national unity and is pushing the country to the brink of civil war, he also declared.
The formation of the SNC did send an important message to the Syrians, but also to the international community, therefore.
The Syrian opposition had succeeded in bridging its differences at last, in order to achieve a common goal: hasten the demise of a brutal, illegitimate regime.
This is the real deal. I’m optimistic because finally we have a comprehensive council that we can say legitimately represents the revolution. This will reinvigorate the protesters and give us a voice with the international community, Shakeeb al-Jabri, an activist exiled in Beirut, told Liz Sly of the WP.
The council will also work towards obtaining the support and recognition of foreign powers in the near future.
We need to mobilize the international community to cut its relations with this regime and support the struggle of the Syrian people, Bourhan Ghalioun told Aljazeera.
Today, French foreign minister Alain Juppé, who had welcomed the formation of the SNC, declared that France would establish relations with it.
A number of urgent issues however, currently divide the council and will need to be addressed.
The first is whether to continue protesting peacefully against a regime unabashed about shooting at its own people, or take up arms as a matter of self-defense.
The other pressing question involves the role, if any, of the international community (and in particular of NATO), in ousting Assad.
The council rejects any outside interference that undermines the sovereignty of the Syrian people, Mr. Ghalioun declared in Istanbul. Yet, more ambiguously, he had also requested that the international community protect the Syrian people from the declared war and massacres being committed against them by the regime.
Can the uprising sustain itself without outside military help?
The situation is deteriorating rapidly on the ground. It’s a war, and the people inside are calling for all the help they can get, Radwan Ziadeh, a Syrian dissident based in Washington, and a member of the council, told Liz Sly of the WP.
Many Syrians inside the country, bearing the brunt of the regime’s brutal and savage repression favor an outside intervention. Many of those in exile do not…
The question has yet to be resolved. This will be the most difficult decision for the council to take, Ziadeh added.
In any case, NATO has yet to show any particular interest in replicating the Libyan campaign in Syria. We took on responsibility in Libya because there was a clear UN mandate and because we received clear support from countries in the region. None of these conditions are fulfilled in regards to Syria, and these conditions are essential, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen declared last week.
In order to ensure that the Syrian opposition (unlike its Libyan counterpart in Benghazi) does not have a foothold inside the country from which to march on Damascus, Assad has done his utmost to crush all attempts by the most virulent supporters of the uprising (army deserters) to resist militarily, particularly in Rastan and Hama.
If the regime can prevent the opposition from controlling even a swath of Syrian territory from which to organize armed resistance against Assad, then those currently in power probably have faith in their ability to outlast the protest movement.
The Syrian regime feels it can weather this storm, David Lesch, a professor of Middle East studies at Trinity University in San Antonio, suggested to the LAT.
In addition, the regime warned its enemies that it would not hesitate to launch missiles on Tel Aviv should the West intervene militarily…
In essence, Assad is ready to do whatever it takes to remain in power…
The Syrians need our help.
We really feel we are alone. We feel no one is helping us. And after all the bloodshed we have seen, we want any kind of help, an activist told the WP.
We owe the brave Syrian people all the help that we can provide…
Actively supporting the SNC would be a significant first step.
France seems to have taken it.
May their American, British, German (etc., etc.) allies quickly follow suit…
(the photograph above of Bouhran Ghalioun is by Reuters)
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