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| Riad Seif after his shabiha beating and behind his desk |
“Syrian opposition
leaders of all stripes will convene in Qatar next week to form a new leadership
body to subsume the opposition Syrian National Council,” according to Josh
Rogin, who covers U.S. national security and foreign policy and writes Foreign Policy’s daily Web column The Cable.
Rogin, whose article you
can read in
full here, writes in part:
U.S
officials are “frustrated with an SNC they say has failed to attract broad
support, particularly from the Alawite and Kurdish minorities. The new council
is an attempt to change that dynamic. Dozens of Syrian leaders will meet in the
Qatari capital, Doha, on Nov. 3 and hope to announce the new council as the
legitimate representative of all the major Syrian opposition factions on Nov.
7, one day after the U.S. presidential election.
“The Obama administration sees the new council as a potential
interim government that could negotiate with both the international community
and - down the line - perhaps also the Syrian regime. The SNC will have a
minority stake in the new body, but some opposition leaders are still skeptical
that the effort will succeed.
“The Qatar meeting will include dozens of opposition leaders
from inside Syria, including from the provincial revolutionary councils, the
local ‘coordination committees’ of activists, and select people from the newly
established local administrative councils.
"We call it a proto-parliament. One could also think of it
as a continental congress," a senior administration official told The Cable.
“U.S. officials and opposition leaders are calling the
initiative the ‘Riad Seif plan,’ named after
the former Syrian parliamentarian and dissident who was imprisoned after he
signed the Damascus Declaration on respect for Syrians' human rights in 2005.
He was released in 2011, beaten up by a Shabiha gang in October 2011, and
finally allowed to leave Syria in June 2012.
“Seif is central to the formation of the new council and is seen
as a figure with broad credibility with both the internal and external Syrian
opposition.
“‘We have to get [the internal opposition] to bless the new
political leadership structure they're setting up and not only do we have to
get them to bless the structure, but they have to get the names on it,"
the official said, noting that the exact structure of the council will be
determined in Qatar, not before.
“‘We need to be clear: This is what the Americans support, and
if you want to work with us you are going to work with this plan and you're
going to do this now,’ the official said. ‘We aren't going to waste time
anymore. The situation is worsening. We need to do this now.’
“…The U.S. government will be represented at the Nov. 7 Qatar
meeting by Ambassador to Syria Robert
Ford, who has been dealing with various opposition groups and weighing
in on the composition of the new council, a senior administration official said…”
