While the opposition Local Coordination Committees announced a new nonviolent campaign to begin on Sunday, analysts looked at Assad's interview with Barbara Walters (full transcript and video here) to get into the dictator's head. David Kenner found Assad "out of touch, at times incoherent, and delusional about the support that he still enjoys in Syria." Daniel Serwer thinks through a Western response:
Bashar al Assad is not a rocket scientist (only a physician), but he is more than smart enough to know what is going on and rational enough to stop it if he did not think it was in his interest. His focus is where it should be: winning the hearts and minds of the majority that is not yet against him, or at least keeping them neutral.
This understanding should inform the strategy of the opposition and the international community. Actions that turn this majority in Bashar al Assad’s direction (violence, sanctions that target vital commodities, rhetoric that suggests NATO is coming to the rescue) should be avoided. Actions that win over the substantial Syrian middle and lower classes (providing humanitarian assistance, international monitoring of the sort the UN has already undertaken or the Arab League has proposed, sanctioning non-vital trade and investment, denouncing regime violence, nonviolent boycotts, strikes and demonstrations) are the way to go.
Fares Chamseddine believes the interview is evidence that the regime is cracking up. Joseph Kechichian has the same read on a crazy presentation by the Syrian foreign minister. Ammar Abudlhamid, worrying about the efficacy of anti-Assad forces, sounds a more pessimistic note. Below is footage of a large Dara'a protest chanting "Get ready for your execution Assad:"
Here's a newly leaked video of what looks like soldiers torturing a man while he cries out in agony:
And this is a night protest in Aleppo yesterday:
The Dish 