Trusted source reports that a failed palace coup in December has
left the al-Assad clan of Damascus in an Elizabethan state, with no
safe resolution available. King Lear is dead, and the wretchedly
banal and predictable children fight on for the throne.
Aged, bitter Hosni Mubarak and the unstable Egyptian
Intelligence back the momentary President Bashar al-Assad, who
damaged his credibility as an Arab warlord when he ordered the
murder of Rafik Hariri last winter. King Abdullah of Arabia and
French Intelligence back a combination of younger brother Maher
al-Assad and his brother-in-law Intelligence Chief and skilled
assassin Assef Shawqat, both supported by sister Bushra al-Assad,
who is the vital powerbroker of the throne room; however, that
palace coup failed in December, leaving a stalemate between
brothers and sister.
Meanwhile Crown Prince Sultan of Arabia and his ambitious son
Bandar favor a Sunni solution, an unnamed alternative to the
al-Assads. Yet the Saudis lack conviction: they are reluctant
schemers, filled with self-doubt, inferiority, weak
imaginations.
Then the third act twisted within the last several days. A
Syrian Air Force general who knows all the secrets of the last 34
years of thuggery, intrigue, regicide, greed, and collaboration
with Saddam's Baathists defected to British Intelligence, and he
brought with him an iron-minded solution: restore Rifaat al-Assad,
the deposed, exiled, disgraced, bloody-handed brother of the dead
Learish potentate Hafez al-Assad.
The Americans, led by the frightened, deaf, naïve,
Davos-obsessed State Department, refuse to entertain credible
alternatives to the inept Bashar or vengeful Bushra; however, the
momentary American choice for the throne is a nameless weakling,
hiding in Los Angeles.
On Saturday, Great Britain closed its embassy in Amman, under
terror threat. Why the threat? Perhaps because the al-Assads are
paralyzed and must lash out to make Britain pay for aiding the case
for the return of the 1982 butcher of Hammah, Rifaat al-Assad.
What happens next is wormwood, wormwood, wormwood. Pull up a
seat. Not too close. Blood splatters.
topics:
Law
