Assad's cousin: West is right to back Syrian opposition, but it is backing the wrong one [View all]

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The 36 year-old cousin of Syria's president Bashar Assad, son of the former vice-president and security chief, attempts, to clear the family's name.

"Only two members of the Assad family are in the regime," he insists. "The rest of the 99 percent of them are sitting at home without jobs" and he tells how the stooges of his cousin the president have persecuted his father, siblings and assorted cousins. He never calls the government in Damascus – the Assad regime. "It is a corrupt regime, a regime of killers, the worst dictatorship, but don't call them the Assad regime, or the Baathist or Allawite regime. There are two million members in the Ba'ath party, most of them are members because that is the only way they can get a job, not because they are killers."

He also believes that the only solution to the current situation within Syria has to be peaceful. "International intervention means a tug of war between Iran on one side and Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar on the other side. Iran will do everything in its power to support the regime and will use the Quds Force and Hezbollah and their militias in Iraq, they will never let the regime fall? They know that if the regime goes they are finished. The superpowers, Russia and China are already preparing to make Syria their proxy-playground.

The Saudis are financing the Islamist elements because they don't want to see a democracy emerge in Syria. Military intervention will be a disaster and hundreds of thousands will be killed."

He believes that the only solution is for the western countries to back the democratic opposition groups and insist on negotiations with the regime. He insists that if free elections are held in Syria, the Islamists will not take control as in Egypt and Tunisia. "Democracy is possible in Syria because 45 or fifty percent of the country are classified minorities. The Curds are twenty percent and the Alawis and Christians are each 17 or 18 percent. And the rest who are Sunni are not mainly Islamists either."

http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/assad-s-cousin-west-is-right-to-back-syrian-opposition-but-it-is-backing-the-wrong-one-1.421582