Don't Expect Change from Bashar el Assad

Protesters gather near the site where the statue of late Syria President Hafez al-Assad was torn down in the southern Syrian city of Deraa, in this picture taken with a mobile phone March 25, 2011. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was facing the deepest crisis of his 11 years in power after security forces fired on protesters on Friday, adding to a death toll that rights groups have said now numbers in the dozens. Picture taken March 25, 2011 (REUTERS/via Your View via Yahoo!News)

NOWLebanon's Hanin Ghaddar sees no change in the Syrian dictatorship's behavior:

... The relatively young president, Bashar al-Assad, has not understood that the uprising calling for greater freedoms in his country cannot be isolated from similar desires sweeping across the Middle East. Calling it a conspiracy shows that Assad is not willing to open his eyes to the reality of the future of the region.

... The demands of Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans, Yemenis, Bahrainis and Syrians are focused on freedom and internal reforms. Their problem is their leaders, not anyone else’s.

Assad knows this, but the main reason he cannot, and will not, come through on any of his promises is that if he did, it would be the end of the regime. This emergency law is not a text that can be erased with a decision or a committee; it has become a fundamental component of the regime, one that was created to protect it from the democratic impulses of the people.

...

Everybody believed Assad when he said that Syria is immune because it backs resistance forces, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, which enjoy popular support among the Syrian people. That was the first mistake. He tried to convince us that the uprisings in other countries were about the Arab-Israeli conflict. They weren’t.

His second mistake was made after the uprising started, when Assad’s spokeswoman, Buthaina Shaaban, promised that the emergency law would be lifted and other significant reforms would be announced during the speech. However, the president uttered nothing but platitudes and invalid explanations of why the reforms were over ten years late.

...

Unfortunately, Assad still treats his people as stupid followers. He called their uprising a conspiracy, and at the same time made promises of reform that would probably not see the light of day. Their reaction: more anger and more demonstrations. The same happened in Tunisia and Egypt. Syria is not really that different. The people and their aspirations are the same everywhere.