European diplomat: Fall of Baba Amr part of solution

As battles between Syrian troops and army defectors rage across Syria – prior to the arrival in Damascus of UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan for talks with President Bashar Assad – it appears that the options of military intervention in the country or arming the opposition have become almost impossible. The untenability of these options is largely due to fear that the consequences entailed by the outbreak of fighting might engulf neighboring countries. Following the Russian initiative to end the year-long violence in Syria, which evoked the West’s objection because it treated the Syrian regime and protesters equally, a six-point Chinese draft resolution, which is to a certain extent similar to the Russian plan, has added ambiguity to the road map of the next stage. While many around the world believe that a fierce confrontation is under way between America and Russia in the Syrian arena, a European diplomat describes an American-Syrian deal which at first glance appears unrealistic and out of step with the bloody course of daily events in Syria. The diplomat insists that this scenario is based on reliable and accurate information, saying that this deal led to the surge in violence that ended the fighting in Baba Amr in the war-devastated Homs province. “The Syrian regime, with American cover, assembled fundamentalist groups and members of Al-Qaeda who came from Iraq and Lebanon, in this area [Baba Amr] before launching the strongest ever assault on them,” the diplomat said. He added that the aim of this attack was that Assad wanted to send a positive message to the Americans and Europeans that he had destroyed what those in the West feared would take power in Syria if his regime was toppled. Therefore, Assad offered tangible justification for US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to say recently that her country feared that if the Syrian opposition was armed, the arms would fall into the hands of Al-Qaeda militants, the diplomat said. He added that by taking control of Baba Amr, which was likened to the Libyan city of Benghazi, Assad also wanted to send a stern warning to the US administration that he can whenever he wants and decide the outcome of any military battle or a revolt against him. The third message Assad wanted to send through the fall of Baba Amr was to the radical Sunni opposition. He wanted to tell them that he had created them, financed them and sent them to fight against America and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that it was up to him whether to keep them or finish them off, the diplomat said. In return for this, the Syrian regime might receive a six-month grace period, to allow Assad to begin to carry out serious reforms that set the stage for holding parliamentary and presidential elections, he added. Therefore, the fall of Baba Amr probably comes in the framework of a settlement for the Syrian crisis. It is noteworthy that the activity of the Syrian opposition, namely the Syrian National Council based outside the country, has experienced a significant lull of late. The SNC, whose members have been shuttling between Paris, London and Ankara, is now waiting for the results of the current negotiations on the Syrian crisis, which are scheduled to take place Saturday during a meeting between Arab foreign ministers and Russian Foreign Minister Serge Lavrov.