The Kingdom has asked the Syrian ambassador to leave Riyadh and has requested its diplomats working in the Saudi Embassy in Damascus to return home. The Kingdom's decision comes at the right time. The Kingdom cannot remain silent about the massacres being carried out by the Syrian regime which has used excessive military force against its own people. Innocent men, women and even children have lost their lives in this bloody confrontation. The Kingdom was among the first countries to have advised the Syrian regime to listen to reason. When the Syrian crisis started, King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, sent the Syrian leadership a letter, calling for a halt to the bloodshed. But this call fell on deaf ears. Despite efforts exerted by the Arab League and Western countries to persuade the Syrian regime to conduct a dialogue with its people and implement necessary reforms, the regime has remained stubbornly adamant. The Syrian regime does not seem to realize the risks that it is taking. GCC countries have tried to resolve the Syrian conflict without internationalizing it, but to no avail. Now that all options have been exhausted, the Syrian regime must bear the consequences of its wayward behavior. On Thursday, it was reported that Arab League foreign ministers will meet in Cairo on Sunday to consider whether to extend or scrap an observer mission sent to Syria in December, which has failed to end Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's crackdown on protests. Whatever the result of that meeting may be, we hope that the bloodshed in Syria will stop for the sake of the people who have rejected Al-Assad's rule and want a new democratic government to govern the country which has been ruled with an iron fist for several decades. __
