Asad regime and resistance to Israel: dilemmas of some Arab progressives

Some Arab progressives yesterday were displeased with negative comments I wrote against Asad regime and against the "refusalness" (mumana`ah) stance of the lousy Syrian regime.  Their point is that Asad regime has supported Hizbullah's resistance to Israel.  My answer: I don't trust the Syrian regime: even when they, on rare occasions, take a verbal stand against Israel.  This is a regime that is motivated first and foremost--since Hafidh days--by the obsession with its own security and survival.   It killed resistance fighters against Israel when it suited its interests: i am talking about its murderous military intervention in 1976 when it crushed a nascent Lebanese-Palestinian alliance that was destined to win against Israel's death squads in Lebanon.  That victory would have been detrimental against Israeli interests and the Syrian regime collaborated with Israel in the war on Tal Az-Za`tar camp in the same year.  The Syrian regime supported Hizbullah's fight against Israel for its own reasons, and it also fought Hizbullah into the 1980s.  The Asad regime's calculations were never about liberating Palestine or about empowering resistance against Israel.  The Asad regime truly supported one PLO organization: As-Sa`iqah, which contributed nothing in the struggle against Israel, unless you count thuggery, blackmail, looting, and murders as struggle.  Asad was Minister of Defense when George Habash was put in jail in 1968, because the regime did not want any fight against Israel.  In the 1990s, PLO leaders in Damascus were summoned by `Abdul-Halim Khaddam (on orders of Hafidh Al-Asad) to tell them that they are barred from plotting any attacks on Israel, and were sometimes prevented from making political statements against Israel (according to a senior member of the delegation who told me about it).  So the progressive has a clear task: to support the overthrow of the regime, while opposing the reactionary Muslim Brothers and their liberal allies who are capable of replacing one lousy repressive regime with another.  Secondly, progressive owe it to the Syrian people to support their legitimate struggle against dictatorship.  And Syrian jails are full of leftists and communists who were the most daring in their struggle against the regime.  I am thinking about the brutal treatment of the leaders and members of Communist Action Party (which succeeded in recruiting among `Alawites).  Thirdly, the entire record of the regime vis-a-vis Israel is shameful: it was a record of defeats.  And a senior Minister in the government of Hafidh Al-Asad in 1973 shared with me deep suspicions about the defeatist role played by Hafidh at the time.  Fourthly, Arab progressive have no choice but to support the overthrow of every single Arab regime (and add Iran to the mix, and of course the Zionist entity which should be abolished and replaced by a liberated Palestine where people can live in freedom and equality without regard to religion).  No Arab regime is worth the support of any progressive.  Sixthly, Arab progressive should have more faith in the Syrian people: a free Syria can be more giving in terms of struggle against Israel than the present-day regime especially if we fight simultaneously against the Asad regime and the Muslim Brotherhood and their allies.  Of course, we should fight against the Asad regime on our own terms and not according to the Saudi-Qatari-Israeli design which want us to believe that real opposition to the Asad regime should translate into support for their chosen clients.  But since when we progressives take marching orders from oil dynasties or from Zionist hoodlums?