"We must secure victory." "We have the means to defend ourselves." We heard these words from Syria's brilliant foreign minister this week on Tuesday, when he responded to the possibility of confronting the coming military strike against Syria. What victory was this brilliant official talking about? Walid Moallem is part of a regime that has the means to kill its people with Scud missiles and Sarin gas, and which Russia is providing every day with weapons, coming through the Port of Tartous. The images of the disaster in the Ghouta changed the stance of the United States, while the crime of killing the young Hamza al-Khatib, at the beginning of the uprising in Deraa, should have told us about the brutality of the Syrian regime that would come. The French president, Francois Hollande, who has been contacting all European leaders and the president of the US since the beginning of the week, has been aware since the beginning that a limit should have been set to this brutality, which he termed indescribable. Hollande strongly disagreed with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the topic of Syria. Since the outset, Hollande has tried to coordinate stances with the British prime minister to convince the Obama administration of the necessity of recognizing the Syrian opposition and help it confront what the regime was doing. Before Hollande, there was the former French foreign minister, Alain Juppe, who changed France's position on the Syrian regime. But he acknowledged that he failed to convince the Russians to change their pro-regime policy. After the disaster of the Ghouta chemical weapons attack, the US position changed. France, Britain and the US are now in the process of establishing the widest possible international coalition to punish Damascus for the chemical attack, while also giving practical support to the Free Syrian Army and the rebels to confront this murderous regime's strikes. Moallem asked why Saudi Arabia was supporting the military in Egypt against the Muslim Brotherhood, while it was opposing what the Syrian regime was doing. He is very well aware that Gulf countries gave the Syrian regime a number of opportunities to modify its actions while looking the other way at its crimes in Lebanon, led by the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and all of the martyrs who followed. Time after time, the Saudi monarch, the emir of Qatar, and Gulf leaders tried to convince the Syrian regime of the need for it to change its policy. But the regime constantly lied and manipulated things, and preferred to continue with its brutal policy against its people, who have been murdered and displaced, despite all the advice given to the regime. Who can believe that two years ago, at the beginning of the massacres committed by the Syrian regime, Bashar Assad and his wife Asmaa were touring the Louvre to become acquainted with art, history, and ancient culture, which he is now destroying with Scuds and Russian-made aircraft? Who can believe that a few years ago, Assad was reviewing troops with Nicolas Sarkozy on Bastille Day, and saluting human values? Who can believe that the Syrian president, the person described by the French media as a "modern and open young man," is the same one who is bombing his people with chemical weapons? The polisher of Assad's image in the French media, who organized visits to famous Paris museums, was his Lebanese friend Michel Samaha, who had good contacts with the French media and intelligence services. Assad tasked Samaha with carrying out explosions in Lebanon, to thank him for his active public relations effort to Syrian leader's benefit. Other Lebanese friends, along with Asmaa, were invited to an Italian restaurant in Paris, Le Stresa, to show how modern Assad was. However, despite these sterile efforts, the Syrian regime and its policies have lost the credibility that encouraged western countries and Israel to wager on. When he was in the Senate, the US secretary of state himself, John Kerry, constantly visited the Syrian president to give him advice and pass on American messages. Successive Israeli leaders have supported Assad's survival because he guarantees the safety of Israel's borders and because he always, like his father, has avoided confronting the Jewish state. It is no coincidence that Assad has lost all of his friends, from Kerry and Sarkozy to the former emir of Qatar. The military options that are currently being discussed confirm that a strike is coming in a few days, after as many countries as possible are assembled in an alliance that can give the move the widest possible legitimacy, to avoid blockage by Russia at the United Nations Security Council. The coming days in the Middle East will certainly witness changes, but their ultimate direction remains unknown, and many dangers await. A government minister from Hezbollah said once during a meeting in Paris that Assad will only leave Syria after burning it and the region! But how many more Hamza al-Khatibs are there for the Syrian people, before this regime falls?
