It was four years ago today that Harry’s Place published our first post about the protests in Syria against the repressive regime of President Bashar al-Assad. There were non-violent demonstrations in Damascus and other cities.
Predictably:
The Syrian government newspaper al-Watan reported that text messages calling on Syrians to “join in the riots” had been traced to an Israeli military base.
Just as predictably, the Assad regime responded brutally to the protests, helping to trigger the armed uprising that continues to this day and has turned into a godawful mess– all of which has worked to Assad’s advantage, as he portrays himself as the only alternative to “extremist” rebels while simultaneously massacring Syrian civilians by the tens of thousands.
There’s plenty of blame to go around– and I don’t exempt Barack Obama, whose waffling on Syria’s use of chemical weapons, refusal to enforce a no-fly zone and half-hearted support for non-extremist Syrian rebels has been the greatest failure of his administration.
Anyway, in the wake of this and this, and on the small chance that he will take the bait, I have written (via the Syrian ambassador to the UN) to President al-Assad with a suggestion:
Dear Mr. President:
Considering that you have been the victim of so many lies and distortions in the anti-Syrian media in recent years, I think it would be an excellent idea for you to answer questions directly from the public, without interference from the media which are so biased against you.
I would suggest establishing an #AskAssad hashtag on Twitter, allowing people to ask you questions and allowing you to answer them directly and unfiltered. I think this would be a tremendous success for you and your government.
