Today’s Death Toll: 101 (including 2 children and 10 women)

28 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its Suburbs, 22 in Aleppo, 14 in Daraa, 13 in Homs (most of them in Tasneen), 10 in Hama, 10 in Deir Ezzor, 3 in Idlib and 1 in Lattakia (LCCs).

Points of Random Shelling: 294

7 points were shelled with warplanes, 2 points with cluster bombs, 122 points with mortars, 111 points with artillery and 51 points with missile shelling (LCCs).

Clashes: The Free Syrian Army clashed with the regime’s army at 150 points where they managed to block the regime forces’ attempt to storm Bustan neighborhood in Aleppo (with the defection of several personnel from the Police Academy). They also gained control of the Soldier’s Hotel in Khan Al-Assal and shelled Jarah Military Airport in Maskana in Aleppo. In Deir Ezzor the FSA surround the Political Security branch and dismantled several military machines and in Damascus Suburbs they blocked an attempt by regime’s army to storm Eastern Ghota, through Hteitet Al-Turkman road, and destroyed more than 15 military vehicles and 4 tanks. In Hama, they seized a lot of ammunition and a food unit on the agricultural road connecting between Soqailbiya and Tal Burhan. Also, they destroyed several military vehicles and captured several regime army personnel throughout Syria(LCCs).

Reports from local activists confirm that the son of the newly appointed Minister of Defense, Rustom Ghazali, one of the few Syrian officials accused in plotting the assassination of former Lebanese PM, Rafic Al-Hariri, has been kidnapped by rebels from his hometown in Khirbet al-Ghazali. This development led to increase in the intensity of clashes in the area, and throughout the Daraa Province. Authorities used loudspeakers threatening local of dire consequences should the Minister’s not be returned unharmed. Ghazali had only days ago replaced Mohammad Al-Shaar as Minister of Defense. Minister Al-Shaar had been injured in a rebel attack, received treatment in Beirut then returned to Syria where he disappeared from public view amidst increasing reports that he passed away.

News

Syria’s Assad rejects dialogue with “puppet” opposition Syrian President Bashar al-Assad announced what he described as a peace plan on Sunday, calling for a reconciliation conference with “those who have not betrayed Syria”, to be followed by the formation of a new government and an amnesty. “The first stage of a political solution would require that regional powers stop funding and arming (the opposition), an end to terrorist operations and controlling the borders,” he said in a speech in central Damascus, his first public comments in months. “We will not have dialogue with a puppet made by the West,” he said.

Defiant Assad’s peace plan rejected by rebels In his first public speech in six months, Assad laid out terms for a peace plan that keeps himself in power, ignoring international demands to step down and pledging to continue the battle “as long as there is one terrorist left” in Syria.

Defiant Assad Says Syria ‘Accepts Advice but Not Orders’ he offered no new acknowledgment of the gains by the rebels fighting against him, the excesses of his government or the aspirations of the Syrian people. Mr. Assad also ruled out talks with the armed opposition and pointedly ignored its central demand that he step down, instead using much of a nearly hourlong speech to justify his harsh military crackdown… Mr. Assad’s speech was a disappointment for international mediators and many Syrians who say they believe that without a negotiated settlement, Syria’s conflict will descend into an even bloodier stage.

Syrian opposition dismiss Assad call for talks amid attack on ‘western puppets’Rebels say Syrian president offered no meaningful concessions in his first public speech in seven months.

Morsy backs Syrian calls for al-Assad to face war crimes trial “The Syrian people through their revolution and through the movement will — when the bloodshed stops — move to a new stage where they will have an independent parliament and a government of their choosing,” Morsy, Egypt’s first freely elected leader, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in Cairo. “And then they will decide what they want to do to those who committed crimes against them. It is the Syrian people who decide.”

Israel warily watches shifts across its frontier with Syria Trenches lined with coils of razor wire have been dug along the Israeli side of the Golan frontier, and a new 15-foot-high steel fence is under construction, with plans to extend it the length of the boundary with Syria. Surveillance of the Syrian side, aided by cameras, also is being stepped up… Replacing a lower electronic warning fence, the imposing new barrier, encased in rolls of barbed wire, is intended to serve as a bulwark against infiltrators.

Special Reports

As Bashar Assad Shows His Defiance, Syria Nears Its Existential Cliff
While there’s a common perception in Western capitals that the regime is on its last legs, there are plenty of signs on the ground that it remains very much intact—and very dangerous. Assad’s security forces have been forced to relinquish control of many rural areas and  have even ceded the impoverished peripheries of a number of Syrian cities, but it has escalated its attacks on areas under rebel control in recent months, deliberately imposing a heavier toll in humanitarian suffering. And rebels in many areas appear desperately short of funds and military resources, despite promises of expanded support from outside powers.

News

Clashes in Syria shut down Aleppo airport

Syria’s grim toll continues into 2013

Syria ushers in New Year with more violence

Syrian Military Mounts Offensive in Suburb of Damascus

Special Reports

Why Russia Won’t Help on Syria
Many people in the Russian foreign-policy establishment believe that the string of U.S.-led interventions that resulted in regime change since the end of the Cold War — in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya — are a threat to the stability of the international system and potentially to “regime stability” in Russia itself. Russia did not give its imprimatur to these interventions, and will never do so if it suspects the motive is removal of a sitting government. The notion that Russia could eventually be the target of such an intervention might seem absurd in Washington, but suspicion of potential future U.S. intentions runs deep in Moscow. Therefore, Russia uses what power it has to shape the international system — particularly, its permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council — to avoid creating a dangerous precedent that could eventually be used against it.

As Regime Teeters, Jews Mull Outreach to Rebel Fighters
“There are many in the opposition who believe that Israeli concerns over change in Syria are, in part at least, behind the lack of a more proactive response by the international community to the situation in Syria,” said Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian pro-democracy activist. Abdulhamid is a fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a non-partisan Washington think tank that serves as an academic home for many neo-conservative thinkers. The group has emerged as one of the key players in forging ties with the budding Syrian opposition and urging a more active U.S. role in bringing about the demise of the Assad regime… “The agreed line by the opposition is that the status quo in the Golan Heights will be maintained until conditions permit for organizing peace talks,” said Abdulhamid, referring to Israel’s occupation of that area since the 1967 Six Day War. This approach could satisfy Jewish and pro-Israel groups whose focus on Syria’s future government in any event prioritizes other concerns.

Reflections On A Difficult Time: Spending New Year’s In Damascus
With all the absurdities of war, we still felt like something was missing in receiving the new year. But with barely eight guests in the hotel, the bar and cafe had been closed for months. So we ordered two coups of champagne from room service, and held up our glasses for better days.

Borzu Daragahi: How to defend Bashar Assad in 10 easy steps
Return to Arrogance

In his defense of the Obama Administration’s stance on Syria, Aaron David Miller makes this “erudite” argument:

We should not be the world’s top cop or caseworker, charged with fixing every calamity. We don’t control history. And it’s time we attend to our own broken house instead of running around the world trying to repair everyone else’s.

This is the kind of argument that was probably made by the American aristocracy in the first half of the 20^th Century regarding “intervention” in certain parts of their country and their cities. It was wrong then, not to mention classicist and racist, it is wrong now, and equally classicist and racist. This is world has grown too small and our destinies too interlocked for this kind of argument to be of any relevance or make any sense.

Indeed, not long ago, international leaders acknowledged this fact by endorsing a new legal notion designed to help them tackle exactly the kind of scenarios currently unfolding in Syria: The Responsibility to Protect. Of course, now, all are rushing to bury their heads in the sand, making up all different sorts of justifications as they go along. But world leaders, especially the American leader, cannot escape culpability and responsibility.

After all, all acknowledged the Assad regime’s role in the assassination of former Lebanese PM, Rafic Al-Hariri and his ongoing support for a variety of terrorist organizations around the world, especially in Iraq and Lebanon. Yet, with encouragement from the Democratic Establishment in the United States (under the leadership of Senator John Kerry and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi), even before Senator Obama became President, the world abandoned its policy of isolating the Assad regime and began circulating the idea that he was a reformer in the face of all evidence to the contrary. President Obama pursued this policy of rapprochement down to the dawn of the Revolution.

American officials were willing to ignore facts in order to pursue an illusion, and now they are doing the same. The facts of the Syrian Revolution are simple: this was not a sectarian movement, nor a civil war nor a radical uprising. But through dithering and downright cowardice, it was allowed to degenerate into the mayhem we see today because Assad was given every leeway to crackdown with impunity.

Miller is right in noting that the situation in Syria was quite different from Libya and that intervention in Syria is a more complicated affair and carries more risks. But the ethical imperative for the intervention and for America’s leadership in this matter is nonetheless clear. President Obama might want to turn his back on this, and he is not alone of course, but do spare us your hypocritical rationalizations.

Video Highlights

Leaked video shows pro-Assad militias killing two captives by stabbing them repeatedly laughing all the while http://youtu.be/PBHtjwXQUCQ It’s atrocities likes these coupled with global indifference that helped transform the nonviolent protest movement into a sectarian conflict. But indifference and hand-wringing in the face of such impunity will beget a backlash sooner or later, at which time the perennial “why do they hate us?” will make it usual appearance, and I doubt there will many sympathizers.