"We are going to fight to victory or to death.”
“The regime is rotting from the inside,” Muhammad Zuka, the Syrian revolutionary who coordinates the Free Syrian Army’s Popular Resistance Bloc, tells my comrade Michael Weiss.
What I find striking about Zuka's assessment is how similar it is to the analysis of Afghans who observe that the Pakistani ISI is intervening in Afghanistan, as is the Khomeinist regime in Tehran, so if it's "intervention" that worries the NATO powers so much they could bloody well at least stand in the way of the unwanted interventionists. There's intervention, and then there's intervention.
“Why should foreign intervention be wrong when people demand it?” Muhammed asked Weiss. “Russia, Iran, Hezbollah all support the regime. That’s a form of intervention, isn’t it? We are not fighting just the regime, we are fighting foreign states that stand behind it. So make this an equal battle for us. We can take care of ourselves.” Further: “If the US wants to bomb the Fourth Division, then great! But there is now an understanding that the international community is not serious. Turkey has been blowing hot air about a buffer zone for months. Why should we wait for the Arab League or this or that country to veto something at the UN?”
Zuka sides with a growing body of opinion among Syrian revolutionaries that regards the Istanbul-based Syrian National Council (which enjoys support from Canada, the UK and France, for starters) is mostly a "vanity project" for Syrian exiles. “No one represents us,” Zuka said. When Weiss asks why the disaffected Syrian revolutionaries aren't drawing up their own program, here's Zuka: “You want a petition? Every day is a petition – look at our banners and pictures. We named four Fridays in a row ‘Foreign Intervention Friday.’ After that it was ‘The FSA Protects Us Friday’, then ‘No Fly-Zone Friday.’ Last week was ‘Arm the FSA Friday.’ How much clearer can we be?”
What I find striking about Zuka's assessment is how similar it is to the analysis of Afghans who observe that the Pakistani ISI is intervening in Afghanistan, as is the Khomeinist regime in Tehran, so if it's "intervention" that worries the NATO powers so much they could bloody well at least stand in the way of the unwanted interventionists. There's intervention, and then there's intervention.
“Why should foreign intervention be wrong when people demand it?” Muhammed asked Weiss. “Russia, Iran, Hezbollah all support the regime. That’s a form of intervention, isn’t it? We are not fighting just the regime, we are fighting foreign states that stand behind it. So make this an equal battle for us. We can take care of ourselves.” Further: “If the US wants to bomb the Fourth Division, then great! But there is now an understanding that the international community is not serious. Turkey has been blowing hot air about a buffer zone for months. Why should we wait for the Arab League or this or that country to veto something at the UN?”
Zuka sides with a growing body of opinion among Syrian revolutionaries that regards the Istanbul-based Syrian National Council (which enjoys support from Canada, the UK and France, for starters) is mostly a "vanity project" for Syrian exiles. “No one represents us,” Zuka said. When Weiss asks why the disaffected Syrian revolutionaries aren't drawing up their own program, here's Zuka: “You want a petition? Every day is a petition – look at our banners and pictures. We named four Fridays in a row ‘Foreign Intervention Friday.’ After that it was ‘The FSA Protects Us Friday’, then ‘No Fly-Zone Friday.’ Last week was ‘Arm the FSA Friday.’ How much clearer can we be?”
There is no possibility of a reconciliation with the regime of Bashar al Assad. Not any more. “Negotiations aren’t possible. We are going to fight to victory or to death.”
posted by Terry Glavin at 9:18 PM
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