While anti-regime protests continue across the country, the streets of the capital Damascus have played host to mass demonstrations in support of the president.
Thousands of people gathered in a western district of the capital to unveil a giant Syrian flag, hold aloft portraits of the president and chant pro-regime slogans.
"God, Syria, Bashar - that's enough!" they shouted, in scenes more like a carnival than a demonstration.
Processions of cars have been parading through the city, with youths hanging out of windows, waving Syrian flags and beeping their horns. Posters of Assad are hung in every shop, restaurant and office.
The businessman, Rami Makhlouf, a 41-year-old tycoon who has emerged as a lightning rod in the three-month uprising against Mr. Assad’s rule, is almost synonymous with the excesses of the Syrian leadership. Offices of his mobile phone company, Syriatel, were burned in protests, and his name was chanted in denunciation in demonstrations.
Though opposition figures doubted the sincerity of the move, even a symbolic gesture may prove important, as Mr. Assad faces the gravest challenge to his 11-year rule. For the first time since the uprising began, analysts said, a figure deemed a pillar of the leadership was forced to at least publicly step aside, a startling concession for a tightknit ruling elite bound by family and clan loyalty.
“The government is now using another set of cards, one that directly addresses the protesters’ demands,” said Bassam Haddad, director of the Middle East Studies Program at George Mason University. “Makhlouf is a symbol of the corruption in the regime.” But, he added, “as a change of heart for the regime, the decision has come too late, and it’s not going to be accepted seriously by protesters.”
In a news conference carried by the Syrian state news agency, Mr. Makhlouf portrayed his move as an act of generosity, though it was unlikely that any such decision could take place without the consent and perhaps the insistence of Mr. Assad.
Mr. Makhlouf said that he would offer shares of Syriatel, Syria’s largest phone company, to the poor and that profits would go, in part, to families of people killed in the uprising. He said profits from his other endeavors would go to charitable and humanitarian work. He vowed not to enter into any new business that would bring him personal gain.
Given NATO's Libyan intervention has been far from successful it would not take much to persuade Western leaders to abstain from getting involved in Syria. In its first three months NATO's Libyan campaign – originally designed to protect the population but de facto carried out to assist the rebel movement – has failed to play any significant role in the resolution of the conflict.
On the basis of the Libyan experience, would NATO leaders seriously consider military action in Syria, especially given that the domestic situation there appears less favourable to the intervention of external forces?
Any answer to this question has to consider this fact: while France and Britain have been the key driving forces behind intervention in Libya, the large majority of military operations there continues to be carried out by US forces.
Given the extremely volatile nature of Syria's ethno-religious landscape, it is highly unlikely that President Obama will agree to send US troops to Syria, especially if protesters align themselves along a Sunni-Alawite divide. Unrest could quickly morph into a fully–fledged sectarian conflict, which would be the worst case scenario for Western powers.
It can be reasonably assumed then that, when it is assessing the costs and benefits of dealing with Damascus, the United States will put in practice the lessons learned in Baghdad, as well as more recent ones garnered from the Libyan experience.
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