Kerry told to sit with Assad first

From top clockwise: The Kerrys and Assads at Naranj restaurant in Damascus in 2009 and Kerry with Lavrov and Moaz 

A Syrian journalist today tells U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to first sit with his chum Bashar al-Assad to test the water before asking the Syrian opposition to come to the table to negotiate a transition.

Kerry told reporters Tuesday, “The world wants to stop the killing (in Syria). And we want to be able to see Assad and the Syrian opposition come to the table for the creation of a transitional government according to the framework that was created in Geneva, the Geneva Protocol, which requires mutual consent on both sides to the formation of that transitional government. That’s what we’re pushing for…” (See yesterday’s post, “Big Powers seeking table partners for Moaz”)

His remarks shocked much of the regional press.

Syria’s state-run media senses an American volte-face in Assad’s favor. Champress, for instance, declares ecstatically, “American body blow to the Turkish-Gulfite alliance: Kerry wants President Assad and the opposition to sit at the negotiation table.”

Likewise, Lebanese Hezbollah’s news portal, al-Manar, which reproduces the leader comment of pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi titled, “America retracts the call on Assad to step down.”

The Beirut daily al-Akhbar, which speaks for both Assad and Hezbollah, shouts from the rooftops, “Washington follows Moscow: A solution with Assad staying put.”

On the other side of the political divide, the Saudi newspaper of records Asharq Alawsat sounds downbeat, with its front-page banner announcing, “American position veers towards a ‘dialogue’ between the opposition and Assad.”

Editorially, eminent Syrian author and journalist Ghassan al-Mufleh writes in an op-ed for Elaph that Kerry – not the opposition -- should be the one to open the discourse with Assad.

Mufleh’s argument:

The U.S. secretary of state’s personal connection with the Assad family goes back more than two decades. It strengthened after the Syrian army’s exit from Lebanon in 2005.

Sen. Kerry was the main driving force in talks (1) to extricate the Assad clique from the clutches of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) mandated to identify and try those responsible for the assassination of Rafik Hariri, and (2) to then rehabilitate the clique.

I wrote about this at the time.

And when John Kerry was first nominated to the position of secretary of state, I wrote that the central reason for handing him the job is his familiarity with the Syria File and his personal relationship with the Assad clique. I also warned against the clique’s international exoneration as it still enjoyed a measure of international cover.

I also cited the Sudanese example, and how Omar al-Bashir is walking free after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of crimes against humanity. The price for his reprieve was the creation of the Republic of South Sudan and the South Sudan’s Chinese oil puzzle.

John Kerry did not take long to avow his wish to tackle the Syria File as the principal representative of the Israel-condoned Assad clique.

Incidentally, Kerry is also in favor of rehabilitating the Iranian regime and preserving its Mullahs at the helm. The Iranian opposition can thus expect to come under U.S. pressure as well.

The aforesaid is in keeping with the strategy of President Barack Obama’s inner circle. (Remember how the White House vetoed last year’s plan -- backed by Panetta-Dempsey-Clinton-Petraeus -- to arm carefully vetted Syrian rebels).

Bypassing the Obama-Kerry plan taking shape is the responsibility of the Syrian opposition and revolutionary forces.

But not to sound totally negative, the U.S. secretary of state can head to Damascus for a dialogue with the Assad clique before implicating the Syrian opposition in the game of the clique’s rehabilitation.

The follow-on would be a UN Security Council resolution, based on the Geneva framework, ordering the Assad clique to stop the killings. The opposition can follow suit. If the U.S. and Russia are in tune, what can prevent the UN Security Council passing a resolution calling for dialogue and a peaceful political transition following the cessation of violence as demanded in Geneva?”

Let Kerry kickoff a firsthand dialogue.

Should he fail, he would bear sole responsibility for the step without the Syrian Revolution bearing its consequences.

Big Powers seek table partners for Moaz al-Khatib

Syrian Revolution artwork by Manar Qanah

Moaz al-Khatib’s startling, six-week-old “personal” offer of talks with representatives of President Bashar al-Assad risks undoing the Syrian National Coalition he leads.

The SNC politburo and assembly promptly and formally dismissed the proposal he made in late January (see my posts of Feb. 15 and Feb. 22).

But the suggestion is not going away and remains very much alive.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters at the State Department yesterday:

It is inevitable and true of every single opposition in any kind of circumstance like this that there are tensions and differences of opinion as they find their footing, and there’s no surprise in that. So we have to work quietly and effectively with the international community. There are lots of people involved and engaged with the Syrian opposition. You could remember a year ago that they were completely un-unified and spoke without one voice.

So we will continue to work with them. I’m not going to vouch on any process over which we don’t have control, but I will tell you that they are adamant, all of them, about what they’re fighting for. And the cause is the cause of the Syrian people. And they have committed themselves to a broad-based government that is going to represent all of the people of Syria, even as there may be some dissension as to tactics or process among them. So you have to have some patience in this process even as you approach it with care. And I think that’s exactly what we’re doing.

We want to stop the killing. And they want to stop the killing. The world wants to stop the killing. And we want to be able to see Assad and the Syrian opposition come to the table for the creation of a transitional government according to the framework that was created in Geneva, the Geneva Protocol, which requires mutual consent on both sides to the formation of that transitional government.

That’s what we’re pushing for. And to do that, you have to have President Assad change his calculation so he doesn’t believe he can shoot it out endlessly, but you also need a cooperative Syrian opposition to come to the table, too. We’re working on it, and we will continue to work on it.

Laurent Fabius

Laurent Fabius, Kerry’s French counterpart, elaborated further.

He told the foreign affairs committee of the National Assembly that France, Russia and the United States are trying to draw up a list of Syrian officials with whom the SNC can negotiate.

"We worked together on an idea... of a list of Syrian officials who would be acceptable to Syria's opposition National Coalition," he said.

Fabius said Khatib had said in a "very brazen manner" that he was willing to negotiate with some regime officials but not Assad.

"We have discussed this with the Russians and the Americans... There have been exchanges to seek a political solution," he said.

Farah Atassi

Overnight, Syrian American activist Farah Atassi reacted on her Facebook page writing in Arabic:

Which regime figures and Syrian officials would negotiate Assad’s exit? The Syrian revolution spent two years looking for them.

When Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, Sudan, Yemen, China, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia – the Assad regime’s official mouthpiece – avow publicly they can’t convince or force Assad to step down, which prodigious Superman, Batman and Grendizer will assume the task?

Are the French, the Americans and the Europeans pulling the wool over our eyes or their own?

James Clapper

America’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper yesterday told a Senate Intelligence Committee on global security threats that forces seeking to oust Assad are gaining strength and territory, but the Syrian opposition remains fragmented and is grappling with an infusion of militant foreign fighters.

"The question comes up, 'How long will Assad last?' And our standard answer is, 'His days are numbered. We just don't know the number.' Our assessment is that he is very committed to hanging in there and sustaining his control of the regime," Clapper told the Senate panel.

Assad's government is losing territory and experiencing shortages in manpower and logistics, Clapper said. But at the same time, there are "literally hundreds" of cells of opposition fighters over which leaders are struggling to impose more centralized command and control.

Clapper noted a growing presence among Assad's opponents of foreign fighters, many associated with al-Nusra Front, an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Iraq that has gained strength in Syria partly by offering services to a population beaten down by two years of civil war.

"They are, where they can, providing more and more municipal services in what is a very terrible situation from a humanitarian standpoint," Clapper said.

Henry Kissinger

Last Friday, Henry Kissinger took questions at the annual corporate conference of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan later wrote in part on Peggy Noonan’s Blog:

Kissinger of course is an iconic figure in the history of foreign affairs, a statesman and historian of statesmanship. He will be 90 soon but he’s taken the opposite of the usual trajectory of those formerly in power. Normally the longer you’ve been from high office the smaller you seem. Kissinger has retained his gravity and presence, and his foreign-policy mystique has in fact grown since he left the secretary of state’s office in 1977. In part this may be because he thinks about, writes about and supports the idea that great nations need grand strategies…

From my notes:

On Syria: “Someone who chooses ophthalmology as a career is not a man driven by huge concepts of state.” President Bashar Assad’s father would have been ruthless too in similar circumstances, but also “more skilled in diplomacy.”

“It would be better if Assad left,” Kissinger said. America’s concern is to have “a non-radical outcome.” The question is what Syria would look like after the fall of Assad. “In the abstract, an outcome that permits the various ethnic groups a certain autonomy” is desirable.

We should be aware of Russia’s anxieties. “They are genuinely worried about the spread of radicalism,” he said. “Radicalism that would fall from Syria would reach them first.”

“If we can make a strategic agreement with Russia, we would have to take it to the Arab world.”

“Whatever we do . . . in my life we’ve had four wars which we entered with great enthusiasm and did not know how to end.” We want an outcome that takes account of “humanitarian concerns” and “is not radical.” We should do what we can “short of American ground forces.”

On the Obama administration’s foreign policy: “They are skillful in handling tactical aspects of situations.” But “they have not been able to put this together into a strategic overview of where we’re going… I don’t think they’re disliked but they’re not fully trusted anywhere. Nobody knows where they’re going.”

Syria: An Alawite peace plan and the political novice

Painting of Alawite hero Sheikh Saleh al-Ali (from DP-News.com)

A group of Alawite religious leaders have unexpectedly put forward a 10-point plan for peace in Syria that would see Bashar al-Assad out by year’s end.

The plan comes as the United States and Russia try to settle their war of interpretation of the June 2012 Geneva Agreement, and after peace roadmaps by the Arab League, Kofi Annan, Lakhdar Brahimi and Assad dead-ended.

The Alawite peace initiative was posted yesterday on the Facebook page of Dr. Hassan Ali Eid, an Alawite thoracic surgeon who was killed by unidentified gunmen as he left his home in Homs on September 25, 2011.

The late Dr. Hassan was the son of Sheikh Ali Eid al-Ali and a nephew of Sheikh Saleh al-Ali, the most prominent Alawite leader to join the Syrian Revolt of 1919, one of the first rebellions against the French mandate of Syria before the Great Syrian Revolt.

The Free Syrian Army put up the Alawite initiative on the FSA's Facebook page with a one-line introduction stating: “Because of Alawite pain, there is this 10-point Alawite initiative.”  

The Alawite initiative says in a preamble, “The newly-founded Syrian opposition proved its weakness and inability to head society. It also does not represent the will of all Syrian people. In turn, the regime has turned weak and unable to manage the crisis and steer Syria to safe shores.”

It then goes on to list its 10 proposed peace points as follows:

1. Everyone to lay down arms, withdraw armed men and military checkpoints from cities and villages and cease firing. Let that commence on April 1. All sides release all prisoners, detainees and abductees. Consider all Syrians killed since the beginning of the events as martyrs, irrespective of their affiliation or political belief. A martyrs committee is set up to compensate the family of each and every martyr.

2. Ask all non-Syrians to leave Syrian territory within one week of the ceasefire going into effect. Each side is responsible for its militants.

3. Set up within a week of the ceasefire a sufficiently empowered national committee of wise men to oversee implementation of the initiative.

4. Abduction or arrest of opposition or loyalist politicians is strictly forbidden under all circumstances.

5. A clear and unequivocal declaration and undertaking by President Bashar al-Assad not to run in early presidential elections to be held in the last quarter of 2013.

6. Lift all restrictions on the homecoming of all Syrians.

7. Set up an all-inclusive national committee for national reconciliation.

8. Evolve Syria into a civil state where all Syrians have equal rights and obligations within one year from the date of implementation.

9. During the transition phase (one year from the implementation date) the president of the republic hands over all his powers to a national committee of civilians and military, none of whom would be able to run for public office in the new Syria.

10. Total separation between state and political parties and a blanket ban on the army meddling in politics so it can turn into a professional army tasked with defense of the homeland’s borders.

Editorially, political columnist Elias Harfouche all but suggests today that Syrian National Coalition (SNC) leader Moaz al-Khatib is proving to be a political novice.

Writing his weekly column for pan-Arab al-Hayat, Harfouche says while the regime continues to daydream about military victory the opposition still fantasizes about ousting Assad without agreeing a way to do it.

The latest proof of the opposition’s disarray was Khatib’s foiling of today’s planned SNC meeting in Istanbul to elect a provisional prime minister after the Arab League directed the SNC to form an “executive body to take up Syria’s seat” at the League and the upcoming Arab summit in Doha.

“According to his aides,” writes Harfouche, “Khatib’s excuse for thwarting the SNC meeting was that he wants to leave open the door for a settlement with the regime based on Brahimi’s mission and the Geneva Agreement…

“The most serious objection to the SNC leader’s obstruction of the Istanbul meeting is that it was a personal step – much as his earlier ‘personal’ offer of talks with regime representatives, which caused an outcry within and outwith the Coalition.

“Reactions to such off-the-cuff Khatib initiatives are mixed. Some say the man is a political novice, especially as he is dealing with a master of Machiavellian plots and intrigues. Others believe the man is simply softhearted…

“What is much more alarming, however, is that Moaz al-Khatib is misreading the political realities of the Syria crisis. He, along with like-minded opposition members, believe the door to dialogue remains open” when Assad and Russia have locked that door and thrown away the key.

The problem, says Harfouche, is that political confusion in opposition ranks not only serves the regime well, but also undermines the resolve of Syrians dying and fighting on the ground and eats away the international backing they crave.

Iraq: A decade of abuses

From collapseofindustrialcivilization.com

Ten years after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein, Iraq remains enmeshed in a grim cycle of human rights abuses, including attacks on civilians, torture of detainees and unfair trials, says Amnesty International in a press release today (see the watchdog’s full report here).

A decade of abuses exposes a chronology of torture and other ill treatment of detainees committed by Iraqi security forces and by foreign troops in the wake of the 2003 invasion.

It highlights the Iraqi authorities’ continuing failure to observe their obligations to uphold human rights and respect the rule of law in the face of persistent deadly attacks by armed groups, who show callous disregard for civilian life.

“Ten years after the end of Saddam Hussein’s repressive rule, many Iraqis today enjoy greater freedoms than they did under his Baathist regime, but the fundamental human rights gains that should have been achieved during the past decade have signally failed to materialize,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director at Amnesty International.

“Neither the Iraqi government nor the former occupying powers have adhered to the standards required of them under international law and the people of Iraq are still paying a heavy price for their failure.”

Torture is rife and committed with impunity by government security forces, particularly against detainees arrested under anti-terrorism while they are held incommunicado for interrogation.

Detainees have alleged that they were tortured to force them to “confess” to serious crimes or to incriminate others while held in these conditions. Many have repudiated their confessions at trial only to see the courts admit them as evidence of their guilt, without investigating their torture allegations, sentencing them to long term imprisonment or death.

Adding to the injustice, the authorities have paraded detainees before press conferences or arranged for their “confessions” to be broadcast on local television in advance of their trials or trial verdicts in gross breach of the presumption of innocence and of the right of every accused to receive a fair trial.

The death penalty was suspended after the 2003 invasion but quickly restored by the first Iraqi government on coming to power, and executions resumed in 2005.

Since then, at least 447 prisoners have been executed, including Saddam Hussein, some of his main associates, and alleged members of armed groups.

Hundreds of prisoners await execution on death row. Iraq, where 129 prisoners were hanged in 2012, is now one of the world’s leading executioners.

“Death sentences and executions are being used on a horrendous scale,” said Hadj Sahraoui, “It is particularly abhorrent that many prisoners have been sentenced to death after unfair trials and on the basis of confessions they say they were forced to make under torture.

“It is high time that the Iraqi authorities end this appalling cycle of abuse and declare a moratorium on executions as a first step towards abolishing the death penalty for all crimes.”

Since December, thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in areas where Sunni Muslims are in the majority, to protest against arbitrary detention, abuses of detainees, the use of the anti-terror law, and an end to what they see as government discrimination against the Sunni population.

Meanwhile, Sunni armed groups continue to attack not only government targets but Shi’a civilians, including religious pilgrims.

Although the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region in northeast Iraq has remained largely free of the violence that has engulfed the rest of the country, its two ruling Kurdish political parties maintain a tight grip on power and incidents of detainee abuses have also been reported.

The removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003 should have been followed by a process of fundamental human rights reform but almost from day one the occupying forces began committing torture and other serious violations against prisoners, as the Abu Ghraib scandal involving U.S. forces and the beating to death of Baha Mousa in the custody of British soldiers in Basra graphically demonstrated,” said Hadj Sahraoui.

In the UK and the USA, despite investigations into individual cases, there has been a failure to investigate systematically the widespread human rights violations committed by forces from those countries, and to hold those responsible to account at all levels. Iraqi victims of U.S. human rights violations have found the route to remedy in the U.S. courts blocked.

The Iraqi authorities have periodically acknowledged torture and other ill treatment but they have generally sought to explain them away as isolated occurrences or, in a few high profile cases, have announced official inquiries whose outcomes, if any, subsequently were never revealed.

Yet, as Amnesty International’s report shows, torture and other abuse of detainees has been one of the most persistent and widespread features of Iraq’s human rights landscape, and the government shows little inclination either to recognize its extent or take the measures necessary to consign such grave abuses to the past.

Methods of torture reported by detainees include, electric shocks applied to the genitals and other parts of the body, partial suffocation by having a bag placed tightly over the head, beatings while suspended in contorted positions, deprivation of food, water and sleep, and threats of rape or that their female relatives will be detained and raped. Women detainees are particularly vulnerable and the report cites several cases in which women have alleged they were sexually abused in detention.

“Iraq remains caught in a cycle of torture and impunity that should long ago have been broken,” said Hadj Sahraoui. “It is high time the Iraqi authorities take the concrete steps needed to entrench a culture of human rights protection, and do so without further prevarication or delay.”

Syria: Doctors’ hesitation risks losing the patient

Artwork by Syrian artst Wissam Al Jazairy

By Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia’s analyst, author and kingpin of the impending Al Arab TV news channel writing today for pan-Arab al-Hayat

An ugly sectarian scenario is now in motion in Syria.

Some doctors are indecisive by nature.

If lab results confirm their diagnosis that a patient requires difficult surgery, they first prescribe medication, hoping this would help spare the patient a complex surgical procedure.

Skeptics would say the doctor sought to profit from prolonging the treatment or lacked confidence in his ability to perform the surgery. Optimists would argue the doctor simply tried not to put the patient’s life at risk.

U.S. President Barack Obama faces a similar problem with the Syrian patient. The intentions of the other treating physician – Russian President Vladimir Putin – are flagrant. But there is no escape from leaving the Syrian patient under the consortium’s care.

Obama and Putin know the medication they prescribed is not working. They asked their foreign ministers to get together and hammer out a political solution.

The two presidents are aware the regime totally rejects “peace” as a self-defeating proposition and that the opposition craves for peace after having been forced to take up arms.

The two presidents also realize the regime’s talk of “negotiations” is a PR gimmick.

To pave the way for peace negotiations between the two warring sides, the regime and the Russian Federation want arming of the opposition to cease.

But there are no “two warring sides.” There is simply a repressive regime bent on retaining power on one side and an enraged and revolting population seeking freedom and a new Syria on the other.

The regime is not facing one Syrian party or sect. The Free Syrian Army and the Syrian National Coalition embrace and enfold all the Syrians’ sects, which despite their different stripes and trends are now united “against the regime.”

They will break up into opposing groups and political parties once they contest democratic elections after the regime’s fall.

The majority of quasi-loyalist Syrians now living in Damascus and in parts of Aleppo and Homs that remain under regime control will take to the streets to demand change as soon as the regime security services begin to falter.

Obviously, one precondition for any peace agreement between the regime and the opposition – if Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry sponsor one – would be a cessation of violence by the two sides.

By definition, the cessation of violence would ensure freedom of association and the right to demonstrate peacefully without risking prosecution.

This would take us back to the starting point demanded by the Syrian people in March 2011 and then by the Arab League, the United Nations, Kofi Annan and Lakhdar Brahimi.

That starting point has been rejected by the regime all along. It will be rejected again and again for evermore.

Peace and nonviolence don’t work in the regime’s favor. The regime lives by the sword and won’t win except by the sword.

So why waste time on fruitless initiatives?

The answer lies in the game of so-called “international diplomacy.”

Obama, Jordan’s King Abdullah, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and all Arab and European leaders wish for something to happen in Damascus that would bring the conflict to a close without their intervention.

But there are no signs of such a thing happening.

Instead, the Syria crisis has started spilling over.

Seven Iraqis were killed last week as they escorted Syrian soldiers who had sought refuge in Iraq after being evicted from a border crossing. The Syrian “regular army brethren” were in a convoy heading to recapture the border crossing from the Free Syrian Army. Unidentified gunmen ambushed the convoy inside Iraqi territory. It is unclear whether they belonged to the FSA or to its Iraqi Sunnite allies. The latter are avowed supporters of the Syrian revolution, raising its flag in their uprising against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government.

Iraqis who are already divided over their internal affairs have thus added an extra discordant issue.

In turn, Iraq’s Shiites are not hiding their backing of the Syrian regime’s war despite claiming deployment in Damascus of their armed brigade, named after Abul Fadhl al-Abbas, is simply meant to protect the shrine of Sayyeda Zeinab.

Incidentally, the shrine is revered by Syria’s Sunnites, much as the Egyptians venerate the Tomb of Imam Hussein in Cairo.

It’s all pure and utter sectarianism.

An absurd exploitation of a 1,400-year-old conflict is rearing its head to entice the simple-minded into a fierce battle once the FSA breaches the walls of Damascus.

Further away to the West, the no-less sectarian Hezbollah is already fighting inside Syrian close to Lebanon’s northern borders.

Those borders were demarcated by the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, which tailored Lebanon’s froniers to the correct size of its sects. The borders were meant to geographically apportion predominantly Sunnite villages to Syria, ultimately serving as a buffer between Lebanon and the Alawite mountains.

Therein lies Plan B – an Alawite state that Bashar al-Assad would set up for his Alawite community.

Hezbollah is accordingly out to secure a supply line to the would-be statelet. Hence its offensive in the Qusayr region, such as the Serbs did in Bosnia.

Hezbollah’s drive to create a supply route to the rump Alawite state entails ethnic cleansing in an area stretching from northern Lebanon to Qusayr and all the way to the west of Homs.

However, should Syria remain whole in the hands of nationalist forces, the noose would tighten around Hezbollah’s neck. It would be cut down to size and turned into a political force on par with others in Lebanon.

Ensuring the viability of an Alawite state envisaged by the faltering regime also calls for a parallel ethnic cleansing campaign along Syria’s chiefly Sunnite coastline.

A gloomy sectarian scenario is unfolding. Denying it is wrong. Not so speaking about it. 

Khatib and Idriss delay Washington trip -- NYT

WASHINGTON (New York Times) — Leaders of the Syrian opposition have put off a visit to Washington for a series of high-profile meetings, including an expected stop at the White House, administration officials said Thursday, underscoring the challenge the United States faces in cultivating a still-evolving political movement.

The Obama administration had invited Moaz al-Khatib, the leader of the Syrian Opposition Council, and Gen. Salim Idriss, the leader of the opposition’s military wing, to make the trip this week, but Mr. Khatib told Secretary of State John Kerry last week at a conference in Rome on the Syria crisis that this was not a good time to visit.

No date has been set, but some American officials are hoping the visit might be possible in April…

(See my March 5 post, “Obama to receive Khatib and FSA chief of staff”)

Arab League allows members to arm the FSA

Syria's empty Arab League seat (top) and three dissenters, clockwise from R.:Medelci, Zibari and Mansour

Each of the 22 Arab League member states is now free to offer military aid to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighting forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

The 22-member bloc also wants the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces “to form an executive body to take up Syria’s [Arab League] seat” and represent Syria at the impending Arab summit in about three weeks.

The league suspended Syria's membership in November 2011 after the Assad regime failed to abide by an Arab peace plan that sought to end the conflict.

Meeting in Cairo yesterday, the Arab League Council of Foreign Ministers resolved:

1. To reaffirm recognition of the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces as the sole representative of the Syrian people and the chief interlocutor with the League of Arab States.

2. To invite the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces to form an executive body to take up Syria’s seat at the Arab League, plus its organizations, councils and branches, and to participate in the upcoming two-day Arab League summit to be held in Doha on March 26-27. That will be the case until an elected government assumes office in Syria. This [decision] is in recognition of the Syrian people’s sacrifices and extraordinary circumstances.

3. To reaffirm continuation of the quest for a political solution to the Syrian crisis and to uphold the right of individual member states to offer, as they choose, all means of self-defense -- including military – to prop up the steadfastness of the Syrian people and Free Syrian Army.

4. To convene an international conference at the UN for rebuilding Syria.

The resolution carried three footnotes.

One said Algeria expressed a reservation on the second article.

Another said Iraq took issue with the second and third articles.

The last said Lebanon “dissociated” itself from the resolution altogether.

Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon were represented at the meeting by their respective foreign ministers – namely Mourad Medelci, Hoshiar Zebari and Adnan Mansour.

Syria’s own foreign ministry reacted by restating its "rejection of any role for the Arab League in a peaceful resolution of the crisis in Syria," accusing the League of being hostage to Qatar and Saudi Arabia and manipulated by the "monarchies of money, oil and gas."

Lebanon’s al-Akhbar, which speaks for Assad and Hezbollah, said “العرب للسوريين: اقتتِلوا”  -- i.e. the Arabs effectively tell Syrians to keep up their internecine warfare.

Al-Akhbar commentator Hassan Olayk separately defends Adnan Mansour, who represents the Shiite Amal Movement in the Beirut government. Olayk says the Lebanese foreign minister simply called for peace in warmongering times championed by oil-rich kingdoms.

By contrast, Rajeh el-Khoury, who writes for Lebanon’s independent daily an-Nahar, wonders: “Are we in the Republic of Lebanon or the independent Republic of Adnan Mansour, who yesterday stood at the Arab League and talk as if he were the foreign minister of Syria and Assad’s spokesman?”

The Arab League met in Cairo on the same day the UN refugee agency was saying the number of Syrians who have fled their war-ravaged country and are seeking assistance has now topped the one million mark.

"With a million people in flight, millions more displaced internally, and thousands of people continuing to cross the border every day, Syria is spiraling toward full-scale disaster," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, said in Geneva.

The Syria conflict is also depriving hundreds of thousands of children of their education.

Among findings in an education assessment conducted by UNICEF and released this week:

• At least 2,400 schools have been damaged or destroyed, including 772 in Idlib (50 per cent of the total), 300 in Aleppo and another 300 in Deraa;
• Over 1,500 schools are being used as shelters for displaced persons;
• More than 110 teachers and other staff have been killed and many others are no longer reporting for work. In Idlib, for example, teacher attendance is no more than 55 per cent;
• In Aleppo, children attendance rate has dropped to as low as 6 per cent.

Syria healthcare system has also collapsed, according to medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

MSF said in a report published today that hospitals, doctors and patients had come under direct attack, and many trained medical staff had fled abroad.

One-third of public hospitals are no longer functioning and healthcare has been forced underground, MSF said in a summary by the BBC .

The charity has more than 200 staff working in rebel-held areas of Syria.

It said repeated requests to the government for wider access had not been granted.

Despite its limited access, the charity said it had carried out more than 20,000 consultations and 1,560 surgical procedures since the start of the conflict in March 2011.

It has also opened three hospitals in opposition-held northern regions.

But MSF said the conflict had "made a mockery of the concept of healthcare".

"Medical aid is being targeted, hospitals destroyed and medical personnel captured," said MSF's Dr Marie-Pierre Allie.

The exodus of trained medical staff had left inexperienced workers trying to provide care, the charity said.

"Dentists are performing minor surgeries, pharmacists are treating patients and young people are volunteering to work as nurses," the report said.

Doctors had been labeled "enemies of the state" for treating the injured and both sides were now using hospitals as a war strategy, MSF said.

While government air raids targeted medical facilities, the rebels had begun to label their facilities "Free Syrian Army hospitals", increasing the risk of attack.

Increasingly, medical care has been forced underground, with makeshift hospitals set up in caves, homes and farms.

But MSF says these facilities are still being targeted in air raids.