Syria Emerging As The Front Line For Arab Uprisings

Dissent in Syria Emerges As Front Line Of Arab Uprisings -- New York Times

BEIRUT, Lebanon — On the night that Libyan rebels poured into the citadel of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, inaugurating Libya’s future, his counterpart in Syria offered assurances borrowed from the past: Syria would stay steadfast, plots hatched from abroad would fail and calls for his removal were meaningless because the people supported him.

“I am not worried,” President Bashar al-Assad declared in a television interview on Sunday.

But with the end of Colonel Qaddafi near and rebellions elsewhere in the Arab world either repressed or dangerously anarchic, the uprising in Syria emerges as the front line of the Arab revolts. In eight months, three strongmen have fallen in a region renowned for decades for its leaders dying on their thrones. While Libya and Syria have little in common beyond their repression, the arithmetic of the region seems to be betting against authoritarian rule that fails to reform.

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My Comment: Syria is rapidly becoming the "poster child" for violent regimes that have no interest in accommodating and meeting the needs of its citizens. When the head of the UN himself breaks protocol by calling the Syrian leader "a liar", you know that the dye has been set for this conflict to not only continue .... but to get even more bloodier.

On a side note .... I predict that the next regime change will not be Syria .... it will be Yemen. But the change in Yemen will be ushered in by U.S./Saudi/and Yemen dissidents themselves .... and be far less bloodier.