Assad regime’s deception succeeds

The twin bombings in Damascus on Thursday indicate that the Assad regime has succeeded in its deception this time, and what a deceptive regime it is! Its deception has been ongoing for years, and not just since the outbreak of the revolution. After the international community was shocked by the attempt to target the international observer delegation in Deraa, we now witness the twin bombings in Damascus to completely draw attention away from this! It is sufficient to observe how the tyrant of Damascus’ international representative attacked all other states — Arab, regional and international — in New York recently. If we consider this carefully, then it is clear that this is a laughable attack, for the Syrian U.N. envoy is accusing Arab states and the international community of colluding with the Al-Qaeda organization, and this is an extremely pathetic accusation. However unfortunately we have also noticed the Syrian opposition and certain media outlets’ current state of disconcertion and this is something that exists even at the international stage. This is after it became clear that everybody has practically forgotten about the attempted attack on the international observer delegation in Deraa, which occurred just one day prior to the Damascus explosion. This was also the incident that prompted Kofi Annan to appear frustrated in his speech before the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday night, just hours before the Damascus bombings. In addition to this, we also have the statements by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in which he said that the targeting of the observer delegation in Deraa may lead to the U.N. reassessing the entire observer mission!Therefore we say that the Assad regime has succeeded in distracting everybody — whether we are talking about the Syrian opposition or the international community — thanks to the Damascus bombings. However the reality is that the reason for this state of confusion or distraction is very surprising, for if the Assad regime regrets the deaths of the 55 Syrians killed in the Damascus twin blasts, then the question that must be asked here is: What about the nearly 12,000 Syrians who were killed in one year at the hands of the regime? Throughout the Syrian revolution, the world has witnessed the deaths of an average of 50 Syrians per day, so why is the regime now rushing to claim that it cares about the Syrian blood, and why have some people been confused by a regime that only understands the language of assassinations, explosions and murders? One Western source also recently informed me that numerous Western political circles are now convinced that this regime will not hesitate to continue its daily killings, and that it is playing a numbers game with regards to the daily death toll! The reality is that the Damascus explosions represent new evidence regarding the necessity of Assad leaving power before it is too late, particularly as this regime will not hesitate to burn all of Syria to the ground in order to cling on to power, indeed it will even spread this destruction to neighboring countries as well, if this is what is required to remain in power! Here we see the envoy of the tyrant of Damascus in New York leveling accusations against everybody, even threatening that the Assad regime will retaliate against states or regimes that it has accused of supporting the Syrian revolutionaries; these threats were clearly aimed at the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, as well as Turkey and others. Indeed the Assad envoy to the U.N. even leveled accusations and issued threats against United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL); it is also important to remember the operation that targeted UNIFIL in Lebanon last year. Therefore, all indications point to the fact that the longer Assad’s departure from power is delayed, the greater the cost the Syrian people will pay. There can be no doubt that the tyrant is outgoing, however the more this is delayed, the more this will cost everybody, and the Damascus bombings, and prior to this the targeting of international observers in Deraa, represents the best evidence of this. (The writer is the Editor-in-Chief of Asharq al-Awsat. This article was published in Arab News on May. 12, 2012)