The excessive diplomatic civility employed by Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu's to describe the outcome of his visit to Syria could not hide the meager results he returned with after six and a half hours of extensive one-on-one talks with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Indeed, the moment his airplane left Syria's airspace, Damascus announced that it would “not be tolerant” in moving forward with its blood-spattered campaign to subdue the protesters. This is talk that was heard by the Turkish minister, along with the usual Syrian attempts at being clever by playing on the element of time, and in addition to promises that were made to him of “major reform steps” that will be announced over the next few days and of limited security steps that can easily be retracted. The priorities were perfectly clear in the Syrian statement about the talks: first the uprising must be repressed, and then one can talk of reforms that remain obscure and of pure form. Such obstinacy, which was faced by Ankara, is what drove Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain two days earlier to announce that they had lost hope in the regime in Damascus ceasing to make use of the security solution to address its people, and had therefore decided to withdraw their ambassadors in protest of the continued bloodshed. This is also what drove Cairo to emerge from its silence and warn that Damascus was headed towards the “point of no return”. Qatar, the country which had sincerely wagered on Assad and invested in his country politically and financially, had reached the same conclusion earlier: that the regime knows only deceit and cannot be trusted, as one cannot trust in the alleged reforms. By wasting its last “Turkish chance”, the Syrian regime would have chosen confrontation with the whole world, and would have only Iran and its followers in Lebanon left to rely on. Indeed, Russia and China have begun to reconsider their stance on Damascus, to avoid unconditionally supporting it, and to call on it to put a stop to the confrontations, as a result of the embarrassment caused them by the news and images of massacres coming out of Syrian cities, and because they could not continue to resist international consensus indefinitely. Yet the real problem is that the increasing isolation the Syrian regime is being subjected to may not reflect in swift change in its behavior. In fact, the regime might make use of it, as it has in the past, to tighten its security grip on the street through more killing and arrests, because it knows that the world is very hesitant to intervene directly to stop it. Even Turkey, which considers the Syrian crisis to be of its concern as a result of the long borders as well as the political and security intertwining between the two countries, prefers at the moment not to provide Assad with any pretext to turn his refusal to recognize popular demands into a problem between Damascus and Ankara. This is why Davutoğlu made sure to choose his words very carefully and not to hint at any military or security action, as long as this is not one of his country's priorities. What can then be done to save the Syrians from their regime? It is a long and complicated process, one that requires tremendous efforts before international consensus on effective steps to take can be reached. Doubtless the Syrian opposition is well aware of this, and is relying on its own capabilities to carry on the protests despite the heavy price it is paying for them, but it hopes at least that the countries of the world, and in particular the United States, will escalate their language with Damascus and clearly call on Assad to step down, and that Arab countries will stop hesitating and take part in imposing economic and financial sanctions against him, in addition to taking a unified stance to denounce his methods within the framework of the Arab League, in order to help the opposition remain steadfast and bolster its hopes of change.
