Syrian cabinet resigns, but not Assad
Image via WikipediaThe entire Syrian cabinet has resigned amid the country's worst unrest in decades, state television has announced.What the protesters really want is for Assad and his secret police to go. Those are the changes people are really looking for and they are the ones least likely unless the demonstrations become even more widespread.
President Bashar al-Assad accepted the cabinet's resignation after a meeting on Tuesday. The move is the latest concession by the government after more than a week of mass protests calling for more political freedom. But it will not affect Assad, who holds the lion's share of power in the regime.
The president, whose family has controlled Syria for four decades and has a history of crushing dissent, is expected to address the nation in the next 24 hours in a speech that may include a promise to abolish emergency laws.
Earlier, hundreds of thousands of regime supporters poured on to the streets of the capital, Damascus, and at least four other major cities, waving pictures of the president and flags as the government tried to show it has mass support.
Assad is facing down the most serious threat to his family's longstanding authority in this predominantly Sunni Muslim country, ruled by the minority Alawite sect.
Assad, who has been president for 11 years and is one of the most anti-western leaders in the Middle East, is wavering between cracking down and compromising in the face of protests that began in a southern city on 18 March and spread to other areas. There was a swift crackdown by security forces and at least 61 people have been killed, according to Human Rights Watch.
The unrest in this country of 23 million people could have implications beyond its borders, given its role as Iran's leading Arab ally and as a frontline state against Israel.
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The cabinet is not ordering the shooting of the people, Assad and his apparatus of control are the ones doing that and they are not quitting, yet.
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