Assad as bad as Gaddafi

An estimated 120 Syrian soldiers have died under unclarified circumstances. Indications increasingly point to a mutiny that was murderously put down by troops loyal to the government. The Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is relying on the same tough approach as the Libyan dictator, writes Pierre Rousselin in his blog Géopolitique: "Bashar al-Assad belongs in the same group as Gaddafi, and he will lead his country into perdition. A regime that tortures children, shoots women and deploys tanks against unarmed crowds has lost any hope of one day regaining even a modicum of legitimacy. ... Within its boundaries it relies on escalation rather than dialogue. Internationally it plays the Palestinian card to provoke Israel and divert attention from its own transgressions. For years the Assad system has been given the benefit of the doubt. With the thousands of deaths in the past eleven weeks that's a thing of the past."

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