BICOM

Bouthaina Sha’aban, a senior adviser and spokeswoman to Syrian President Bashar Assad, said this week in an interview with the New York Times that she considered that Syria had now ‘passed the most dangerous moment’ of the uprising against the Assad regime. She added that she hoped that ‘we are now witnessing the end of the story.’ Sha’aban, who had largely disappeared from view in recent weeks after predicting reforms in the early days of the protests, appeared to be expressing a new mood of optimism from the Syrian regime. Over the last week, the Syrian armed forces have gone on the offensive against protestors. Troops and armoured units have penetrated strongholds of protest, such as Dera’a in the south, the coastal town of Banias, and Homs in central Syria. Hundreds are reported to have died, with human rights groups placing the death toll at around 800. The protests are continuing, but are currently not growing in size nor spreading, leading to the new mood of optimism on the part of the regime that it has succeeded in stemming the tide.

Another senior figure in the Syrian regime, tycoon Rami Makhlouf, also spoke to the New York Times in recent days. Makhlouf appeared to offer an indirect threat to Israel, saying that ‘there’s no way there will be stability in Israel,’ unless there is stability in Syria. Makhlouf controls the Syrian telecommunications giant Syriatel, and has been singled out by protestors because of his alleged corruption. He did not elaborate on his remarks about Israel, but his appearance in the international media also appears to reflect the new confidence on the part of the Syrian regime that the very heavy-handed approach it has taken in the last days has succeeded in ending the threat against it. If this does indeed prove the case, this will set an ominous precedent in the wave of revolts that have swept the Arab world this year, since it will offer an example of a dictatorial regime offering no concessions to protestors, and surviving by brute force alone.