SYRIAN OPPOSITION: ASSAD MIGHT FALL IN A MATTER OF MONTHS

JERUSALEM POST:

The blows to Syria's regime are mounting. The latest on Friday was particularly damaging, because a trusted former high-ranking member delivered it. However, erstwhile Syrian vice president Abdul-Halim Khaddam's criticism of the regime and his accusing Syrian President Bashar Assad of threatening former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri before the latter was assassinated, are not straws that will break the camel's back. The Syrian dictatorship remains strong and internal opposition remains weak.

According to Dr. Eyal Zisser, an expert on Syrian at the Dayan Center, there is not yet enough "critical mass" for the regime to fall. Still, some oppositionists are hopeful and one is doing his best to implement regime change. The recently self-exiled Syrian analyst and oppositionist Ammar Abdulhamid, on the eve of 2006, posted a plan of action in Arabic and English on his weblog, www.amarji.org. The plan, dubbed, "Managing Transition: A few guidelines for a velvet revolution in Syria," is "meant to help the opposition inside Syria get their act together over the next few months," wrote Abdulhamid.

Excerpt from MANAGING TRANSITION:

... the Assad regime must go. The Syrian people deserve a strong and modern state, a democratic state, a state for all its citizens where the basic civil rights of all are respected, and where the rule of law prevails and state officials are held accountable for their misdeeds. The time to act is now. It is time to show the world that velvet revolutions can take place in Middle Eastern societies and that our people are no less lovers of freedom than any in the world.

The human spirit longs to be free. Everywhere. We must do whatever we can to aid and inspire the opposition inside Syria. Stay tuned...