Better in their words…

Of course, you understand that this tiny blog of my cannot illustrate, or copy, or forward all the communication and “dialog” that Obama is having with Syria in the US Adminstrations’ effort to protect innocent Syrians.
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By NOUR MALAS

Syrian opposition leaders said President Bashar al-Assad’s forces appear to have gained the upper hand in the eight-month revolt, after a weekend of one of the harshest crackdowns on protesters served another blow to a movement struggling to overcome divisions within its ranks.

Arab League states presented Damascus late Sunday with a plan to end the violence in Syria, to which they expect the government to respond on Monday, the latest in their ramping-up of pressure on Mr. Assad.

As those Arab leaders met Syria’s foreign minister in Qatar, a major Syrian opposition group said it saw little alternative but to press Arab states to take their demands to the United Nations, where efforts to censure Syria’s regime have so far been blocked.

“We hope that our demands, as the Syrian opposition, become the demands of the Arab League and that the group then backs us up at the U.N.,” said Bassma Kodmani, a spokeswoman for the Syrian National Council, an opposition coalition. The council has called for an international mandate for civilian protection in Syria, like humanitarian monitors or a peace-keeping force.

Details of Sunday’s Arab League plan weren’t revealed, but previous attempts by the group to broker a deal with Damascus have included demands for Mr. Assad to withdraw forces and move forward presidential elections, said diplomats familiar with the efforts.

“If they accept it tomorrow, they have to implement it immediately—that’s very important,” said Qatar’s prime minister, Hamid Bin Jassim Al Thani, who led the talks. “We have to find out a way to stabilize Syria,” he said. “We have to find a way to satisfy the needs of the people. We hope there is a no military intervention.”

The Arab League stepped up involvement in Syria’s crisis two weeks ago when it called on Mr. Assad to open talks with the opposition at its headquarters in Cairo and stop violence against protesters within 15 days. At Sunday’s deadline, Syrian activists said 343 people—including 45 soldiers—had been killed since the start of what they critically called a lax “notice period” to Mr. Assad from Arab states.

“We believe matters are going to take quite a long time,” the opposition council’s Ms. Kodmani said by telephone from Paris, where some of the Council’s leadership is based. “We won’t accept a truce based on negotiations as long as there’s still no right to peaceful protest in Syria and people are getting killed.”

Mr. Assad, meanwhile, brushed off the international pressure and renewed his government’s warnings against foreign interference in Syria’s crisis. “Syria is the hub now in this region. It is the fault line, and if you play with the ground you will cause an earthquake,” Mr. Assad said in an interview published in the The Sunday Telegraph. “Any problem in Syria will burn the whole region.”

Syrian activists said they weren’t surprised with Mr. Assad’s characteristic confidence.

Protests have outstripped the government’s control in just a few instances in the uprising so far, including a month-long hiatus of military presence from the city of Hama in the summer that was later met with a renewed regime attack. Some analysts say government forces have been able to control—but not contain—protests, which spread and swell when the military retreats.

But as Libya’s conflict draws to a close with the killing of Moammar Gadhafi, Tunisians voted last week to elect an assembly and Egyptians ready for parliamentary elections in late November, the protracted stalemate in Syria has frustrated antigovernment activists there.

“The government’s use of force is still capable of disrupting every move the street attempts to make,” said Louay Hussein, a writer and founding member of an opposition political movement, not affiliated with the Syrian National Council. “There are no clear solutions or decisive steps we can take.”

At least 60 civilians have been killed in Syria since Friday, according to activist network the Local Coordination Committees, making it the deadliest weekend since May. Protesters appeared to retreat on Sunday, but still, activists reported eight antigovernment protesters were killed by security forces.

The weekend violence was concentrated in Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, and a larger province of the same name that has hosted a growing base of dissident soldiers fighting the army. On Saturday, 20 soldiers were killed and a further 53 injured in fighting between the army and “what is presumed to be defected soldiers,” according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Syrians disagree on whether the incipient armed revolt in places like Homs is led largely by dissident soldiers or by civilians taking up arms.

Mohammed Saleh, a resident of Homs, said tanks sprayed machine-gun fire at homes in a central neighborhood—including his own—throughout the weekend as troops fought what Mr. Saleh described as groups of armed civilians. The groups destroyed four military armored personnel carriers, he said.

“I’ve never for a moment sided with this regime. But I won’t for a moment side with what is now called the opposition here,” said Mr. Saleh, a former political prisoner, who opposes using violence against the regime. “Homs has become like a foreign place inside the country—a city different than all of Syria.”

Ms. Kodmani, of the council, said dissident soldiers were leading the fight against the army in Homs, with many defected conscripts from other parts of the country converging on Homs to try to protect civilians.

Longtime dissidents inside Syria, like Mr. Hussein, warned that this violence, as well as divisions within the opposition ranks over how to respond to the regime, has reinforced fears among Syria’s religious minorities—including Alawites like Mr. Assad’s family and Christians—that Mr. Assad’s ouster could lead to chaos. This has bolstered the Syrian leader’s support and widened the divide between besieged cities like Homs and regime strongholds like Damascus.

Last week, massive crowds gathered in several cities, including Damascus, to pledge their loyalty to Mr. Assad. Syria’s state television, broadcasting scenes of crowds chanting “The people want Bashar al-Assad,” said some two million people gathered at the capital’s Ummayad Square last Wednesday. It broadcast fresh scenes of a loyalist demonstration in the southern city of Suweida on Sunday.

“At one point, what we call the silent majority came to be aligned with the street protests at least from a humanitarian and moral point of view. But now they’ve stepped back again,” Mr. Hussein said.
—Alex Delmar-Morgan in Qatar contributed to this article.
Syrian Activists Say Assad Gaining Upper Hand – WSJ.com.