Speaking today on CNN, the US State Department’s deputy spokesman Mark Toner claimed that Syria’s opposition is becoming “more cohesive” across the country in general, pointing to a growing sense of unity in the movement.
The comments come just one day after another State Department spokesman, Victoria Nuland, rejected the idea of withdrawing Ambassador Robert Ford from Syria, saying he was key to keeping in touch with the opposition movement.
The claims of unity also come amid opposition talks in neighboring Turkey, where a number of key opposition figures are meeting in Istanbul with an eye on forming a “national council.”
The opposition may indeed be united on certain general principles, like the need to remove dictator Bashar Assad from office, but with a movement of hundreds of thousands of protesters representing Islamist factions, pro-democracy liberals and everything in between, the unity may be much thinner than officials are claiming.
And as the opposition moves more and more into exile, the differences are likely to become all the more pronounced, as internal goals of ousting Assad become clouded by growing pressure from the assorted international interests hoping to shape post-Assad Syria to their liking.
So, what business it is of US to spend time, money and energy on building "unity" of Syrian protest/civil war movement? It costs US millions of dollars (probably hundreds of millions) to support a few dozen "NGO"s to get them, along with the would be/presumed leaders of the "movement" to conferences. And millions more for organizational logistics, etc. And at the end of a day, what is the product? Are they the people that we should favor in Syria? Or are they a scum of the earth, interested in self-promotion and money? We will be responsible for yet another failure. From Bosnia and Kosovo, to Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and soon to be "free" Libya — all failures and frozen conflicts. And for each, more money down the drain. We are still propping up the Tutsi leader in Rwanda, since 1994 when he made his journey from the military training in US, to the Tutsi camp in Uganda, and his "victorious" two months rampage to take over the capital of Rwanda. Why getting into all this? Money for some, perhaps. But I am sure that the sheer arrogance, thirst for power, and abundant Hubris have much more to do with it.