Haytham Al-Manna` criticizes the Syrian Natioanl Coalition

Akram kindly translated the article from As-Safir of the article by Haytham Al-Manna`:

"Following is the translation of the latest piece of Haytham Manna'a published in Assafir. Please revise before publishing [did not have time to revise, unfortunately].

During the last two month, anyone related, one way or another, to the SNC, were he being founder, resigned member, active member or promised to be member, was frequenting Doha in order to bring this body out of the intensive care unit after Dr. Eric Chevalier failed to do so alone. The collective photo of the SNC leadership with president Hollande and the financial and diplomatic support weren’t enough.

The pragmatic American way of thinking was more subtle by reformulating concepts presented by Ryiad Seif in a way suitable to the radical abandonment of the SNC. Hilary Clinton announced the expiry of this good and it was necessary to do a caesarian birth of a new born who is supposed to inherit the throne from his brother who failed to make use of the Gulf-Turkish-Western allegiance or to win the hearts and minds of the Syrian people or to develop a political rhetoric that keeps pace with the destructive violence in Syria.

Probably, the most important weakness of the passed SNC was his blind support of the militarization, and weaponizing armed groups which he failed to get them unified or to mature their political horizon.

We were encouraged by the speech of Sheikh Moa’ath al-Khatib who talked politics and religion rather that violence and weapons. But then we received horrible testimonies confirmed by a clear article in of the Syrian National Coalition. Mr. Khatib corrects deficiencies of his inaugural speech by expressing his desire to obtain European recognition and financial support to his coalition adding that, when the recognition is obtained, the coalition will act as government, will receive weapons, and thus all the problems will be resolved.

In a second letter published two days ago, Mr. Khatib unveils his opposition to the National Charter adopted in Cairo confirming that “the Cairo charter hasn’t been adopted in any way. I rejected, with many other brothers, this document and I issued a statement saying that, would anything contradicting the entrenched doctrine of Ummah be adopted, I will be the first to withdraw”.

What Mr. Kahtib was pointing at, is the deconsecration of the public domain given that human beings are responsible to their acts, and the equal citizenship between Syrians, two arguments rejected by some Islamists.

Despite the ambiguous relationship between the Council and the Coalition, and the relationship between the Arab League and the new project, and though the SNC has got the lion’s share (38 SNC members, 5 of them resigned) at the expense of the other present and absent factions, and regardless of the deliberate exclusion of Librahimi mission and Geneva conference, most of the Arab countries remained silent in the meeting of Cairo and tried to fix the scene. But as someone who was present there said: “They said what they wanted to say by ignoring us, and we said what we wanted to say in a non-binding way”.

France is giving another example of its cacophony towards Syria: the Defense Minister excludes the direct recognition, the foreign affairs delegate supports without recognition, while President Hollande says comically: “Today I announce that France recognizes the SNC as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people, and that it is the coming government of the democratic Syria that will put an end to the Bashar Assad regime”. No, it’s not a typo. President Hollande recognizes the SNC after being displaced, in a clear evidence on how thoroughly he follows the Syrian issue!

The ambiguities of the documents of Doha are many. Rejecting dialogue and negotiations doesn’t require a political body; it’s rather the fighters' mission. The problem is that there is someone who wants to dictate the Syrians what to do, forcing them to do what they want and what they don’t want, transforming them into flunkies, as Mr. Issam ‘Attar said.

Before Doha conference, Khatib said negotiating is a religious and political duty. But after living the Qatari generosity, he discovered he erred with this Fatwa and thus deserving one retribution only, while Ford and Chevalier deserve two."