Syrian President Defies International Pressure Amounted On Him

Bashar al-Assad

The U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos is expected to arrive on Wednesday to Damascus, where she will stay until Friday in a bid to convince the authorities of the restive country to allow humanitarian assistance to the people in the cities the military has been pounding for aver a month.

Her demand to do the same were rebuffed earlier this month, as the troops were engaged in attacking Homs, and now she comes at a time when Bashar al-Assad decided to defy the international pressure that is mounting on his regime and to say that he would continue to fight against terrorists that are supported by the foreign powers.

Assad has been blaming the entire uprising, which has been going on for about a year now, on an international conspiracy against Syria, and pledged to defend the country against the invaders. He even blamed the Arab League, when the country was suspended from the international body, of having fallen under the conspiracy’s spell.

On Tuesday, the British prime minister called the Assad regime “illegitimate and criminal” and advised the president of Syria to “step down now.” Cameron made these allegation in front of a parliamentary committee. Speaking about the possibility to aid the rebels with weapons, he alluded that the decision is a far-reaching one and must be made at an international level.

U.S. Senator, former president hopeful and chief of defense Senate Armed Services Committee John McCain was of the opinion that the only way to make a difference in the situation in the field in Syria is an air strike on the Syrian troops executed by the American air force.

The American president Barack Obama said that though the situation was tough, an attack on Syria would not be the best solution. American diplomacy is making ready a new U.N. resolution on Syria.

On Tuesday, it was said that the American diplomats at the U.N. were consulting the permanent members of the Security Council, China, Russia, France, and the UK, over a resolution that would demand of the president Assad to stop violence and would demand the same of the rebels.

Russia and China have opposed two prior resolutions on Syria, one on October last year and another in February. China has sent an envoy to Damascus to demand him to end violence and resume negotiations. In a sign of growing alarm, Chinese commerce ministry said Beijing demanded all Chinese workers to leave the restive country.

The Commerce minister on Wednesday said that most of the Chinese workers were brought back to China, and that there are only 100 people left to take care of projects, and assets and property. He added that it would wait until the situation in Syria stabilizes.

In a conference on Tuesday, Obama said that the fact that Assad is still doing wrong to his people is a consequence of the incapacity to muster the international community, like it happened in Libya, where an agreement was reached before the operation began.

The muster of the international community Obama is speaking about is nothing else than the opposition of Russia, which has declared that it would not make the same mistake that was made in Libya, where the wording of the UN resolution was interpreted to mean that helping the rebels was possible. The UN resolution made it possible for the regime to be toppled, and Russia lost on that occasion a very important business partner.

U.S. commanders in the Middle East told the president that the advanced weapons the Syrian regime bought from Russia could make it difficult for the American air force to impose a no fly zone over the Syrian territory as part of an effort to help the rebels.

Marine General James Mattis, head of the U.S. Central Command, told the defense committee that it would take a significant effort to even create safe havens in Syria, as McCain had suggested.

A week earlier, the U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton expressed her conviction that the regime in Damascus would fall, as the people who serve it now will abandon it. She also said that it was clear that the crackdown on the civilians has already amounted to making the regime guilty of war crimes, which means that they would be sooner or later referred to the International Criminal Court.

Hillary Clinton assured that those who are guilty in Syria of crimes against humanity and of war crimes would pay for it. The same assurance was offered by the European Union, which said that it was gathering data about the atrocities committed in Syria and that it could establish an international court as the one for former Yugoslavia.

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday said that the incumbent president of Syria will not escape punishment, like his father did before him. Erdogan demanded that humanitarian corridors be created so that relief can reach the people in need.

About 7,000 people were reported fleeing to Lebanon to escape the shelling in Homs, and the regime was said to have bombed the routes to prevent that from continuing. The latest reports say that the Syrian military is directing its efforts to the region of Daraa, another hotbed of the Syrian revolution. 7,500 people are estimated killed by the crackdown in about a year, and 70,000 dislocated by the violence.11