Two big news items: the UN issued a comprehensive report on human rights abuses in the country and Arab League slapped economic sanctions on the regime. The emergence of the Arab League as a bulwark for democratic change in the region is a huge surprise to me. It should be an occasion for neoconservative cheering, surely. And hasn't Obama's "leading from behind" approach helped make that happen? By taking the US out of the equation as a global leader, Obama has allowed indigenous forces to do what needs to be done – and followed up with sanctions of his own. Colum Lynch is tweeting a summary of the UN Report, which Mark L. Goldberg labels "worse than you think:"
Testimonies were received from several men who stated they had been anally raped with batons and that they had witnessed the rape of boys. One man stated that he witnessed a 15-year-old boy being raped in front of his father. A 40-year-old man saw the rape of an 11-year-old boy by three security services officers. He stated: “I have never been so afraid in my whole life. And then they turned to me and said; you are next.” The interviewee was unable to continue his testimony. One 20-year-old university student told the commission that he was subjected to sexual violence in detention, adding that “if my father had been present and seen me, I would have had to commit suicide”. Another man confided while crying, “I don’t feel like a man any more”.
Could these harrowing facts help destabilize the regime? Maybe. But the Arab League sanctions are far more salient:
The Arab League sanctions cut real short term financial flexibility, predict to dramatic monetary losses, and show there is little future in investing in Syria. Finally, the freezing of both government and personal assets of high level officials – a combination that had high impact in Libya – now poses a moment of decision to the elites regarding where continued support for Assad will lead. In light of the bite of these sanctions, I suspect the next two to three weeks will tell us a lot about whether the elites supporting Assad will circle the wagons or will begin to defect as these sanctions leave them those two choices.
Daniel Serwer notes some evidence for pessimism. Matt Duss looks at the respective roles of Turkey and Iraq in enforcing the sanctions regime, and Micah Zenko cautions against an escalation to military action. Here's a night protest yesterday in Daraa:
This Syrian rebel taped his detonation of a security service car:
Finally, these two men - Ziad al-Masri & Abdu al-Hussain – were run over today by Assad's tanks:
The Dish 