Show of Protest for Syria and Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus

BBC

AND YOU HAVE TO CHECK out this *video* (In Arabic)

This is quite the thing. This goes to show that as long as the "protests" are taking place in villages and in the borders of the country what is happening isn't a real movement yet. The upper and middle classes of society, in the main cities of Aleppo and Damascus, both Christians, Muslims and minorities don't want civil strife and would lose the most should a civil war break, thus they will continue to support the stability that is known under Bashar.

Here is a perspective and insight from Joshua Landis' blog

Another factor contributing to the loyalty of the Sunnis for the regime is the wide-spread worry about “foreign conspiracy.”...The implication is that the US and Israel are behind this plan.

The Syrian opposition itself is deeply divided over the notion of foreign intervention. The leadership at the Antalya meeting took a strong and united stand against any foreign intervention. The secular activists who live in the West are, however, trying to drum up support among Western governments for greater and more punishing economic sanctions, such as a blockade on Syrian oil and gas exports.

But this lobbying is not welcomed by all opposition elements which is rather critical of the Activists in the West who have taken money from Washington and who advocate greater involvement by Western governments in bringing down the Assad regime. Even in Turkey, there is opposition to Erdogan’s government joining the West in its efforts to undermine the Syrian government. Here is what one Turk wrote me today:

“I am a Turkish, but I really don’t understand what Prime Minister Erdoğan want to do. Turkish government is coming near US imperialist policies to the Middle East. What a pity. I think all Syrians should protect national unity and values of Syria. We both -Syrian and Turkish- reject foreign interference to Syria…”

I have asked several Turkish friends if they believe their government might allow a Syrian insurgency to organize and operate from Turkey, particularly if Western government pressure it to do so and offer to pay for it. They all said, “no” and explained that anxiety about the Kurdish situation, possible Syrian support for the PKK, and the fear of getting sucked into a Syrian civil war would preclude this.

The most obvious future for Syria is that the present situation continues for much longer than we think it can. The West, exhausted by foreign wars, economic overstretch, and the enormity of taking on Syria, will refuse to commit itself to the rebel cause militarily. All the same, it may add to the economic pressure on Syria by slowly ratcheting up sanctions. Even if the Assad regime can repress the uprising, it is hard to see how it can re-integrate Syria back into the international community and attract tourism and foreign investment again with the growing list of sanctions that have been imposed on it and its top statesmen.