Zakaria: “The various opposition groups are coming together to plan for a post-Assad Syria”
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria debriefed the meaning of recent defections from the upper ranks of Syria’s diplomatic and military elites on the Sunday, July 15th edition of FAREED ZAKARIA GPS. He describes why close Syria watchers feel that the recent defections are significant, and that some feel that some of the military unable to leave the regime may be “deliberately missing their targets.” Zakaria also says that the opposition is becoming more organized. Below is the transcript excerpt with Zakaria’s analysis of recent events inside Syria:
ZAKARIA: Over the past sixteen months of bloody conflict in Syria, observers have been waiting for one key development: top-level defections from within President Assad’s inner circle.
Suddenly, it seems a pressure valve has gone off. Pilots, ambassadors, and even one general have defected. What does it mean? The general is Manaf Tlas, a childhood friend of Assad, and an officer in the elite Republican Guard.
Tlas’s father was chief of staff and then minister of defense, for 30 years, under Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad. This is as close to the top of the Syrian regime as you might get. That’s why Hillary Clinton took special note of Tlas.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: Because if people like him, and like the generals and colonels and others who have recently defected to Turkey are any indication, regime insiders and the military establishment are starting to vote with their feet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAKARIA: But there are some crucial caveats. Tlas had not been a member of Assad’s inner circle for a while. He had actually been under house arrest for more than a year. Also, he was high ranking, but he was not an Alawite.
While Alawites make up only 12 percent of Syria’s population, they hold more than 80 percent of the positions in the powerful Republican Guard. They are the inner circle. According to some reports, when Sunnis are put on guard duty, there’s always an Alawite soldier assigned to monitor the Sunni soldiers.
But if the increasing number of top-level defections is a signal that the Sunni elite, which is comprised of generals, businessmen, and bureaucrats that have so far stuck with al-Assad, is now moving away from him, that’s a huge shift and one that will ultimately bring down the regime.
There is mounting evidence that the Sunnis are weakening in their support for the Assad regime. We’ve spoken with a former U.S. Marine Austin Tice. He’s now a law student and spending the summer reporting from Syria.
On a recent embed with a rebel group, he said he found that the government’s helicopters flew so high that they couldn’t really aim their missiles. He saw first-hand how hostile fire from al-Assad’s tanks and troops were poorly aimed and random. “The suspicion among many rebels at the time,” Tice says, “was that the predominantly Sunni pilots and soldiers were deliberately missing their targets.”
Another telling indicator of dissent is the number of silent objectors in the army. According to The New York Times, a growing number of Syrian soldiers, many of whom lack the means to flee, are staying home. But to ensure their continued silence and neutrality, these officers continue to draw salaries and pensions. Money is the main reason to believe that Assad’s regime cannot last. Inflation is said to be as high as 30 percent, according to some reports. Assad and his cronies are freely printing money. The Syrian pound has depreciated against the dollar by more than half on the black market. Meanwhile, the regime is running out of cash. 90 percent of Syria’s oil used to go to the European Union. But sanctions have put a stop to that. Tourism and trade have, of course, plummeted, and monetary support fromIran cannot be counted on indefinitely. Tehran itself is buckling under unprecedented sanctions. And, there was a report last week that Iran might be weakening in its support for Assad. An Iranian ambassador gave an interview in a Tehran paper criticizing his government’s support for the Syrian regime and saying that Assad’s days were obviously numbered.
There’s one more piece to the puzzle. The growing strength of Syria’s opposition. The Free Syria Army is getting stronger. Saudi Arabia and Qatar are now openly arming the rebels, channeling them through routes fromTurkey, Lebanon, and now even Iraq. Rebel attacks have become more focused, running deeper into two main cities: Damascus and Aleppo. The various opposition groups are coming together to plan for a post-Assad Syria.
The full transcript of this program is available at this link: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1207/15/fzgps.01.html.
FAREED ZAKARIA GPS airs Sundays on CNN/U.S. at 10:00am and 1:00pm and on CNN International at 8:00am and 3:00pm. All times Eastern.
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