Though Bashar Assad’s Wednesday speech made no real mention of reforms, the Syrian government is said to be making its first steps, however minor, toward addressing some of the many demands that the massive protest movement has.
The state news agency announced that Assad had ordered a judicial committee to “study” the idea of lifting the “emergency law” which has been imposed on the nation since the 1962 Ba’athist takeover.
Though Syria was somewhat late in the game for the protester revolts, the movement has grown quickly, spurred by anger over violent crackdowns in the southern city of Daraa. Earlier this week, the cabinet also resigned.
With few concrete moves so far, the protest movement is pressing forward, with Friday declared the “Day of Martyrs” across Syria. It is expected to be greeted by the largest protests the nation has seen yet.
The protest movement in Syria has not been massive. Like what's going on in Libya, it is factional/sectional and also violent. They are probably also US/Israel backed, just as Assad says. Remember, regimes like Iran and Syria and Libya, as oppressive as they have been, have not been as oppressive and unfair to their peoples as US client states in the region, from Saudi Arabia, to Egypt, to Israel.
Remember, US media and 'intellectual' elites are very selective in terms of which uprisings they hype and which they don't.