Protester i Syrien

Qatar, which is leading Arab pressure on the regime, is urging that the hastily deployed, 67-strong observer mission be reinforced with help from the UN – a move that Syria would resist fiercely. Hamad bin Jassem al-Thani, Qatar's prime minister — and a hate figure for Damascus — said on Friday that "some mistakes" had been made. "If the killing does not stop immediately, I think having observers or not having them would be the same, and this even makes us part of what is taking place in Syria, and we don't want to be part of that," he told al-Jazeera TV. Syrian opposition groups have also warned that the monitors must improve their performance or withdraw and have the issue referred to the UN – the outcome of "internationalisation" that is most feared by Damascus.

Omar Idlibi, of the Syrian National Council, said: "We want additional Arab observers to be specialists; to be provided with logistic tools; and we want them to be neutral, not to be subjected to policies of regimes who help the Syrian one."

Dabi, 63, attracted controversy from the start of the mission because he is a former head of Sudanese military intelligence in Darfur. He is also close to the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted for war crimes there by the International Criminal Court.

Dabi complained about attacks on him in the US media as well as charges that the mission was ineffective and providing a fig leaf for continuing repression. "Nobody can be happy with such coverage," he said.

The general was widely criticised after visiting the city of Homs – the scene of many killings by security forces — for saying that "some places looked a bit of a mess but there was nothing frightening".

"A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm (commonly known as the "Clean Break" report) is a policy document that was prepared in 1996 by a study group led by Richard Perle for Benjamin Netanyahu, the then Prime Minister of Israel.[1] The report explained a new approach to solving Israel's security problems in the Middle East with an emphasis on "Western values". It has since been criticized for advocating an aggressive new policy including the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.

---“Other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself,” Saudi King Abdullah was reported to have said last summer, “nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria.”

By December, senior United States officials were explicit about their regime change agenda for Syria: Tom Donilon, the US National Security Adviser, explained that the “end of the [President Bashar al-] Assad regime would constitute Iran’s greatest setback in the region yet – a strategic blow that will further shift the balance of power in the region against Iran.”

Shortly before, a key official in terms of operationalizing this policy, Under Secretary of State for the Near East Jeffrey Feltman, had stated at a congressional hearing that the US would “relentlessly pursue our two-track strategy of supporting the opposition and diplomatically and financially strangling the [Syrian] regime until that outcome is achieved”.

What we are seeing in Syria is a deliberate and calculated campaign to bring down the Assad government so as to replace it with a regime “more compatible” with US interests in the region.

The blueprint for this project is essentially a report produced by the neo-conservative Brookings Institute for regime change in Iran in 2009. The report – “Which Path to Persia?” - continues to be the generic strategic approach for US-led regime change in the region.

A rereading of it, together with the more recent “Towards a Post-Assad Syria” (which adopts the same language and perspective, but focuses on Syria, and was recently produced by two US neo-conservative think-tanks) illustrates how developments in Syria have been shaped according to the step-by-step approach detailed in the “Paths to Persia” report with the same key objective: regime change.

The authors of these reports include, among others, John Hannah and Martin Indyk, both former senior neo-conservative officials from the George W Bush/Dick Cheney administration, and both advocates for regime change in Syria. Not for the first time are we seeing a close alliance between US/British neo-cons with Islamists (including, reports show, some with links to al-Qaeda) working together to bring about regime change in an “enemy” state.

Arguably, the most important component in this struggle for the “strategic prize” has been the deliberate construction of a largely false narrative that pits unarmed democracy demonstrators being killed in their hundreds and thousands as they protest peacefully against an oppressive, violent regime, a “killing machine” led by the “monster” Assad.---

Aisling Byrne is Projects Co-ordinator with Conflicts Forum and is based in Beirut. This article was first published in Asia Times."

"---religious minorities have been generally supportive of the Ba'ath regime, due in part to its secular character. Hafez al-Assad, who governed the country from 1970-2000, dealt harshly with religious dissent, most notably crushing the Muslim Brotherhood-led revolt in Hama in 1982.