Skeptics of the Syrian revolution have long said that the opposition is incapable of unifying its ranks, citing as evidence the delay in the formation of the Syrian National Council, and the differences between the Syrian and Kurdish opposition. However, the al-Assad regime has in fact been able to dramatically unite the Syrian ranks.

Until recently, some were skeptical about the intentions and motives of the Syrian Kurds with regards to the unprecedented revolution against the Bashar al-Assad regime. Some were also skeptical – both states and individuals – about whether Aleppo would become involved in the revolution, and that as long as Aleppo and Damascus did not participate, the al-Assad regime would be fine. Yet the regime has spared everyone the trouble of such doubts and analysis by significantly contributing to unifying the ranks of the Syrian opposition, ultimately making them partners in blood. The latest example of this was the assassination of Kurdish opposition leader Mashaal Tammo, which meant that the al-Assad regime had forced the Syrian Kurds to be partners with all the Syrian revolutionaries, although they did not want to be. This partnership was not a form of collusion, but was formed out of other complex calculations.

The assassination of Tammo didn’t only mean the mobilization of the Kurds, but it also meant that Allepo was now on the verge of exploding, and this is something I mentioned earlier when I said that matters there were boiling over. The assassination of the Kurdish leader is a turning point in the Syrian revolution, like the attack on the Syrian opposition figure Riad Seif, which suggests, like the assassination of Tammo, that the regime in Damascus may be moving now towards Plan B, a plan to liquidate Syrian opposition figures having failed to impose its security vision.

Today it is clear that the al-Assad regime has been driven to insanity by the formation of the Syrian National Council in Istanbul, which has begun to receive international recognition, albeit limited. The council was the harbinger of doom for the regime of Saddam Hussein, and through this council the rule of Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown. It seems that for these reasons we are now witnessing an intensification of assassination campaigns against Syrian opposition figures. However, the truth is that these acts have not suppressed the Syrian revolution, but rather they have united its ranks, and united the street behind them. The errors of the al-Assad regime have galvanized the Syrian factions beyond all expectations, with everyone wishing for the demise of the repressive regime. Today we hear the Russians, for example, who are clearly practicing political hypocrisy, saying that Bashar al-Assad must reform or step down, whilst afterwards Moscow used its veto in the Security Council against a resolution condemning the al-Assad regime. There is no room to defend the al-Assad regime which has become its own worst enemy, instead of the West, foreign interference, or even the Syrian revolutionaries. Therefore, those who have committed these errors cannot continue in power, whatever they do.

The assassination of the Kurdish leader has come as a trump card for the Syrian opposition, for all its spectra, just as it came as a trump card for the Turks as well, who are also facing the al-Assad regime plots, in mobilizing some Kurdish parties against them. After the assassination of Mashaal Tammo, no longer can any of the Kurds be allies of the al-Assad regime, not to mention those who are committed to neutrality. [To rectify] the mistakes of the al-Assad regime would require an insane man to take rational steps. The Syrians today, of all walks of life, are partners in the blood that the al-Assad regime has spilled in Syria.