The Success of the Syrian Opposition Paris Conference

Harold's List
by: Oubai Shahbandar

The signing of the "Damascus Declaration" heralds unprecedented cooperation amongst Syrian opposition groups

The Syrian Ba'athist campaign against liberal opposition groups took a heavy blow last week with such disparate publications from the Weekly Standard to Le Monde to Al Jazeera citing the success of a comprehensive meeting of Syrian opposition figures in Paris that lead to the signing by all parties of the "Damascus Declaration". Calling for a "radical and democratic" change, the release of all prisoners of conscience, and the end of totalitarian rule on behalf of a "modern State, founded on a new social contract."

Signatories of the "Damascus Declaration" included individuals from both leftist, minority, and religious opposition groups. Indeed, in a telling portend of the consequences facing Bashar Assad's gross mishandling and mismanagement of the nation, the Muslim Brotherhood joined exile and secular groups in agreeing in principle with the main tenants of the Damascus Declaration.

Further indicative of Assad II's increasingly untenable political position, the nominally critical LA Times in an editorial today declared, that "whatever the cause of [Ghazi] Kenaan's death, the United States and the international community cannot let up on the heavy sanctions against Syria unless it offers sweeping policy changes. Scapegoating a few bureaucrats will not be enough."

In response to the increased pressure to its Minority Rule government, the Syrian Ba'ath escalated a campaign to clamp down on dissident organizations and meetings.
According to Al Jazeera, "The authorities have in recent weeks barred several public meetings by the secular liberal opposition organized to discuss greater democratization on the pretext they did not have legal permission."

Moreover, the American Ba'athist Bund where quick in following suit and condemning the Paris conference and the signature of the Damascus Declaration as a failure. Though membership of exile opposition meetings has increased exponentially and substantially expanded the coalition of major Syrian political organizations over the past years, notable American Ba'athist auxiliaries continue to predict (and certainly hope for) the impending failure of the unprecedented opposition's success in gaining broad backing for a resolute and specific call for the end of Ba'athist Minority Rule in Syria. In a thinly guised Ba'athist propaganda hit piece, the anti-anti Ba'ath movement resolutely declared its wishful sentiments for the failure of democratic opposition groups and the success of the reactionary Syrian government in maintaining its autocratic rule.

Indeed, the positions of those that are so ready to cheerlead a dictatorship at every turn and disparage a growing and increasingly active democratic Syrian coalition is readily indicative of where their loyalties abide in the struggle between civil society and the criminal Minority Rule that dictates Syria today.

The momentum of democratic opposition groups is palpable, and every indicator--from increased Ba'athist crackdown on dissidents and rhetorical admonitions form their Western enablers -- leads one to conclude that the Ba'ath have found something for which they should very much worry about in the newly galvanized cohesiveness of the exile opposition. Ba'athist rule is steadily crumbling, and if past lessons of history have taught us anything, dictators and the True Believers of the Regime are always the last to catch on to the realities swirling so mightily and explicitly around them.