Syrian opposition: Britain is best hope for the rebellion

British and American public positions towards Syria have remained broadly
similar, with neither advocating “boots on the ground” intervention and both
sharing a concern about weaponry falling into the hands of anti-western
jihadist groups.

Britain, said Mr Saffour, is however much more active in “helping” the Syrian
opposition.

“Britain wants to help. It has the inclination to help and this comes from the
Prime Minister,” said Mr Saffour.

Britain and France have not yet accepted the demands of the National Coalition
that a no-fly zone be imposed on northern Syria, but “they are gradually
coming around to being convinced by our requests,” said Mr Saffour.

The Telegraph understands that Britain is also one the countries present in an
“operation room” in Turkey that tries to manage the flow of weapons into
Syria, steering them towards the Supreme Military Council, the military wing
of the National Coalition.

Mr Saffour said the US needed to take the lead in supporting the rebel
opposition.

He went so far as to condemn US political efforts in Syria as “damaging”. The
policy to define the jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra “terrorists” was a
tactical error which only served to alienate the US further from the
situation on the ground, and would have done the same for the National
Coalition had they adopted the stance.

“The Americans asked us to classify them as terrorists, they were angry when
Mr Khatib [the NC leader] said we couldn’t call those who are serving to
free Syria terrorists,” said Mr Saffour.

A report in the US said that the White House seriously misjudged Mr Assad’s
ability to cling to power, and believed he was likely to be killed.

As Mr Obama and his advisers weighed the decision to intervene in the
conflict, they took false hope that Mr Assad would be assassinated and that
his death would bring an end to the fighting, according to the Wall Street
Journal.

US officials were encouraged by a series of bombings in Damascus last summer
that killed senior figures in the Syrian government.

Despite advice to the contrary from senior aides, Mr Obama has only taken
halting steps to help provide training, equipment and intelligence to
moderate rebel fighters.

The White House has been blamed for allowing Qatar to manage and shape the
political opposition into a Muslim Brotherhood-led, Islamist entity.

A well-placed Syrian source who advises Western governments, said: “There has
been little in terms of political leadership from the Americans. There have
been few real efforts to shape a political opposition body.”

“This disenfranchises huge parts of the population who don’t want to leave
Bashar al-Assad when there is no alternative but an Islamist government.
This, a total fear of the alternative is what keeps the regime in power. As
long as an Islamist state is the only alternative, then the regime will stay
in power.”

He added that the US are only ones with the “muscle” to strong-arm Qatar into
backing a more secular and representative political opposition.

“The US President needs to pick up the phone and tell Qatar to accept 25 well
respected secular opposition figures that represent Alawites and Christians
and Druze and all of Syria’s other minority groups. It is that simple, but
they are not doing it. There is no political leadership”.

Source Article from http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568301/s/2a30d127/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cnews0Cworldnews0Cmiddleeast0Csyria0C99639850CSyrian0Eopposition0EBritain0Eis0Ebest0Ehope0Efor0Ethe0Erebellion0Bhtml/story01.htm

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