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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/30/last-gamble-syria-fascist-regime
The Endgame for Syria's Bloody Junta
(Guardian-UK) Burhan Ghalioun - The Syrian protest movement has achieved significant gains. This is not just in reference to the fear barrier having been broken. The existence of the people themselves as an active political reality has been established; hundreds of thousands of Syrians who had previously surrendered to the status quo have re-entered the political arena. Moreover, those who sympathize with the movement greatly outnumber those actively participating in protests. Large swaths of the regime's supporters and helpers are also breaking away. The losing battle the regime is waging against its own people has forced it to divest itself of all its political, legal and moral convictions and don the robes of a medieval militia. It has forfeited any hope of regaining its position as a political system, as it is not possible to regain the people's confidence through more killing, lies and deception. The writer is director of the Centre d'Etudes sur l'Orient Contemporain (Ceoc) in Paris, and a professor of political sociology at the Universite de Paris III.