(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) DAMASCUS' RESOLVE to fight back is unsurprising. But the statement that President Bashar Al Assad has made, in an interview with an Egyptian daily, has created a déjà vu impact.
His utterance that foreigners are behind the uprising and there is no dissent among the Syrians against his rule is quite perplexing. This is exactly what Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi had said even days before his exit from the scene.
Gaddafi also believed that his fall was being engineered by the West, and that he would live to reign supreme. The Libyan autocrat had also challenged that his house would not collapse like that of Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.
Perhaps Gaddafi and Assad are in the same league, and they just failed to realise the change in ground realities.
It would have been prudent for Assad to have opened a new vista of opportunity by offering new solutions that would have paved the way for his honourable exit. His adamant attitude is likely to cost him dearly in times to come.
Assad's invite for a grand dialogue, however, is worth considering. Talking to Al Ahram newspaper, he said that he is open for dialogue, and negotiations are apparently the only way out. He, however, missed a crucial point in categorically saying as to whom he saw as stakeholders, and what could be the format of talks.
This is so because the ruling Baath Party considers the opposition as planted, and the rebels on the battleground as agents of neighbouring countries, who are allegedly busy in plotting his downfall.
So in such a confused and polarised political spectrum, the offer of so-called talks is nothing less than a stunt. It is here that one has to revisit the plan of action forwarded by the United Nations and the Arab League under former envoy to Syria Kofi Annan.
The peace plan had hinted at talks with the resolve and precondition to see Assad's exit that could lead to an amicable solution. Assad, from his fortified comforts, is yet to see the light of reality.
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