President Obama’s promise to bring “strong and stable democracy'' to Syria alarms its population, which sees the shining examples of Iraq and Libya and realizes what fate awaits it, says Dr. Ali Muhammad, editor-in-chief of the website Syria Tribune.
Delivering his speech to the nation, US President Barack Obama referred to Syria and said the regime of President Bashar Assad will soon discover that the forces of change – referring to the Arab Spring – cannot be reversed.“Every Syrian knows that the country will never go back to what it was one year ago, but at the same time the change will be decided by the Syrian people, not by the US or anybody else,”argues Dr. Ali Muhammad.In his speech, Obama also admitted that America has a huge stake in the outcome of the Syrian conflict. Dr. Ali Muhammad believes ‘the stake’ is nothing other than ‘a new Syria’ that will not support the resistance forces against Israel and will not be an ally to Iran, a scenario mentioned a couple of months ago by the head of the rebel Syrian National Council.There appeared to be an element of contradiction in Obama's words. On the one hand he said “It's up to the people to decide their fate,” while on the other he said “America will support policies that lead to strong and stable democracies”, the second statement possibly implying some kind of intervention. “How do you know what the people want?” Dr. Ali Muhammad asks. “Democracy has not proven to be good to Iraq, with its hundreds of thousands people dead since the beginning of the [American] intervention.”Dr. Muhammad also recalled the example of Libya in showing what the imposition of democracy can lead to – namely the deaths of civilians and the destruction of the economy.President Obama also said America will stand against violence and intimidation and for the rights and dignity of all human beings. Dr. Muhammad stressed that while it may sound noble, it is worth keeping in mind that the outcome justifies the means in America’s view.“He (Obama) is trying to portray a democracy that is really for the good of the people while the actions of America and its allies do not prove that.”The US, the EU and the Arab League are now busy working out a new Security Council resolution on Syria, requiring President Assad to hand over power to a new government. Syria has repeatedly rejected this scenario. The recent proposal to Syria from the Arab League with essentially the same demand quite expectedly brought the same cold response from Damascus.“Syria has always been proud of its independent decisions and the Arab League knew for a fact that Syria will never submit to the Arab League, the US, [the UN] Security Council or whatever,” Dr. Ali Muhammad stated, not forgetting to add that Russia is showing full support to Damascus despite all odds.Dr. Ali Muhammad predicts that having received a negative answer from Syria, the Arab League will use it as a pretext to further escalate the situation around Syria.