“What difference can the SNC make if it gets international recognition and loses its legitimacy among the protesters? And what difference can the FSA make, if it fails to get all the emerging paramilitary groups to accept the authority of its Military Council and its leader?” Ammar Abdulhamid, a U.S.-based Syrian dissident who has been critical of the SNC said recently. Abdulhamid has criticized the SNC’s “lack of transparency” and claimed that several independent Syrians who wanted to attend the conference in Tunisia “as monitors” were not allowed in. “So long as SNC leaders remain more preoccupied with winning international recognition than they are with internal cohesion or outreach to their own people, they are destined to become as irrelevant and cut-off from realities as Assad is today,” he said.
Tag: UN
Saints Need Not Apply!
Comment 1: Multilateralism does not preclude the need for leadership and decisiveness, especially when we have many dangerous facts on the ground moving at too fast a pace.
Comment 2: ElBaradei is already facing an uphill battle and he needs everybody to mount a serious campaign that has the least bit of a chance to shake the system. ElBaradei needs to cast a wider net and do some ego-stroking. His old-style as a UN technocrat might lend him credibility but it is not going to work in the political field. Continue reading “Saints Need Not Apply!”
THE STATE OF SYRIA UNDER THE ASSADS & PROSPECTS FOR CHANGE
On April 24, 2008, I became the first Syrian citizen to deliver a testimony in the U.S. Congress. My co-panelists included my colleagues from the Brookings Institution: Martin Indyk and Peter Rodman. In the testimony I try to set the record straight on the deteriorating internal situation in Syria focusing on Assad’s weakening grip and signs of growing popular discontent. The text of the testimony can be found below, and also on the House Foreign Affairs Committee website. Continue reading “THE STATE OF SYRIA UNDER THE ASSADS & PROSPECTS FOR CHANGE”
Neither Sleet Nor Snow
New York City greeted our planned Sit-In calling for the release of prisoners of conscience in Syria and which took place in front of UN headquarters with severe cold and much snow. But that did not deter us. Khawla, Mouhanad and I spent the whole day, but then we had to get back to Washington. Others braved it for 2-days.
A brief interview (Arabic only)
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 