Joel Brinkley
Sitting in his sumptuous palace, Syrian President
The world is finally closing in on him, and he realizes that to remain alive, or at least a free man, he must continue killing his own people. He knows that the minute he stops and withdraws his forces to their barracks, as almost the entire world is demanding, one of two things will happen: One of the rebel armies will capture and kill him, or Western forces will seize him and send him to
That dripping sound is the incremental increase in pressure. It took great leaps in the last week as
Meantime,
Drip, drip, drip.
The Syrian uprising is now one year old, and by most estimates, nearly 9,000 people have been killed. Assad's Alawite sect is part of a small Shiite minority, while about 75 percent of the population, almost everyone he has killed, is Sunni. That makes Assad guilty of genocide, the systematic killing of another national, racial, political or ethnic group.
In fact the Islamic world's reaction to the carnage has broken down along ethnic lines.
When Sen.
Obama called the indiscriminate artillery attack on Homs "heartbreaking and outrageous."
And German Foreign Minister
The problem is, on the day Westerwelle spoke, Assad's military killed 62 more. And the atrocities continue: Wounded hospital patients tortured with whips and electric shocks. Mass graves discovered outside Homs, one holding children whose throats had been slit.
Meantime, seven more Syrian military officers defected, bringing to 10 the number of generals who have left.
Drip, drip, drip.
But all of this amounts to little more than talk while the mass murder continues. No, the U.S. and
How about creating protected humanitarian corridors for food and medical-supply deliveries to Assad's victims? If the foreign forces threatened Assad, he probably wouldn't interfere.
As U.S. Secretary of State
Twitter: @ihavenet
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