US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, also at the Paris meeting, said that if the “increasing stream of senior military defectors” was any indication, then “regime insiders and the military establishment were starting to vote with their feet”. – Syria Manaf Tlas defection ‘hard blow’ for Assad
WHAT’S GOING on inside Syria is being represented by those fleeing the Assad regime.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius tells the Friends of Syria meeting after Brig Gen Manaf Tlas’ defection: “The regime is unsustainable.” [BBC]
Syrian Prime Minister Riyad al-Hijab, in a statement to Al Jazeera Arabic TV, now becomes part of what he calls the “dignified revolution.’
“I am announcing that I am defecting from this regime, which is a murderous and terrorist regime,” the statement said. “I join the ranks of this dignified revolution.” [Washington Post]
However, as you can hear from King Abdullah of Jordan above in his interview with Charlie Rose, none of this guarantees that Pres. Assad will give up power any time soon. Abdullah told Rose he doesn’t see the “system changing” even if Bashar al-Assad falls, and that the “clock is ticking” and that the international community has until the end of the year, otherwise sectarian and civil war will escalate.
Sad and interesting piece in Vanity Fair on the Assad family.