The only language the Syrian regime understands

The Arab League Summit in Baghdad was followed by Kofi Annan's plan, to isue a deadline to stop the regime's violence against the Syrian people. Neither the summit nor Annan's plan will succeed in stopping the violence, thanks to the mentality of the  Syrian regime  which refuses to retreat when it is not being directly threatened. But again, neither the summit nor Annan have the ability to impose any threats towards this regime. Holding the summit in Baghdad has flagged up two major issues. First, is that the Arabs are not taking an antagonistic  stance towards the new regime in Iraq. They are not taking into account the sectarian bias of this regime, even though  if it is compared to the Iranian regime which is always stirring up sectarian tensions in the region. Second, that this summit has exposed once again, the Arabian inability to take a firm stand towards the major problems in the region as it goes through this transitional stage. Despite this critical period we are witnessing in the Middle East, the summit made no decisions save for complacent ones. The ambiguous decisions made regarding the Syrian crisis is sufficient evidence of this. The Syrian regime understands the Arab League's position in the way it always used to do - that there must be  recognition of its legitimacy, so that others -including the opposition - must  negotiate on the regime's terms, and overlook the crimes committed by it against the Syrian people.  What is more important, is that the Arabs are not willing to admit the illegitimacy of this regime, that emerged from a military coup and has lasted for 49 years. The coup began with the taking over of the Baath party, which retained  its civilian image for just two years, before the military seized power in 1963. Since then, three successive Alawite leaders have seized control over everything in the country. By 1970, just one man held all the reins. This man was the former Defence Minister, Hafez al-Assad, who inexplicably lost the Golan Heights while he was in charge of the army, and was devoted to sending arms to the militant groups in Lebanon to explode the situationthere. It takes a little bit of delving into the history books to understand the nature of the Syrian regime. Bashar al-Assad  inherited it from his father and has faithfully adopted its logic. The current President didn't have enough political experience to recognise that there is another way to govern in this world, which is a far cry  from that  of neglecting the basic needs of others. Bashar refused to learn anything from past experience.  His most important failure  is not recognising that the world has changed from that of the seventies, eighties, and the early nineties, and things that worked then, can never work in this post cold war era. Al-Assad the son,  failed to accept that he must lead his country through this different world, so he clung to the old one. He was a victim of his father's rhetoric,  he even believed in it. So he believed that Hezbollah represents the resistance, and it has succeeded in keeping a strategic balance with Israel from south Lebanon. He also believed in the strategy of losing the Golan Heights, and compensating for  that by exploiting Lebanon and its people, together with Palestine and its people. Perhaps the most distinguishing similarties between Assad the father and Assad the son, is their lack of will to take positive steps towards their neighbours, without  being exposed to external threats. We can find evidence of this going back to 1998, when the Syrian regime was forced to deport the Kurdistan Workers' Party  leader, Abdullah Ocalan, only after Turkey threatened to move its army to enter Syria from the north and leave from the Golan Heights in the south. Although the Syrian regime kept denying the existence of Ocalan in Syria or Lebanon which at the time was under the full control of the Syrian regime, Ocalan suddenly appeared as if by a miracle. This miracle was all down to threats,  which is the only language understood by the Syrian regime. This language of threat proved effective once again, when Turkey  forced the Syrian regime to accept that the Iskandaron region (always claimed to be  Syrian land by the Syrian regime), was in fact Turkish. If the Arab delegations in Baghdad had searched for the reason behind this admission, they might have taken a different position towards the Syrian regime. The problem may be that the Arab position was trying to reflect the nature of the transitional period that many Arab countries are going through, rather than reflecting the real facts in the region. That means they, the Arabs, are unable to grasp that using threatening language is the only way when talking to the Syrian regime. Unless they think they are dealing with a quite different regime altogether. One that is in touch with what is really happening in the world. A regime that was informed that the Berlin Wall had collapsed during the first half of January 1989!