Syrian President Bashar Assad told the United Nations chief that military operations in his country have ended, even as activists said Thursday that security forces shot dead 18 people nationwide and intense shooting erupted in the flashpoint city of Latakia.
Funny enough, the article mentions President Obama's pondering of calling on Assad to step down and notes that the UN Secretary General has called for the killing to stop, but does not mention the Turkish ultimatum. Indeed, the article downplays Turkey by writing that Turkey hasn't even joined in the imposition of sanctions that America and Europe have done!
But there is a hint of the ultimatum from the article:
Also Wednesday, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan compared Assad to Libya's Moammar Gadhafi. "We made our calls (to Gadhafi) but unfortunately we got no result," Erdogan said. "The same thing is happening with Syria at the moment."
Got that? Turkey warned Khaddafi. Khaddafi didn't listen. NATO attacked Khaddafi. A clear sequence.
Now, Turkey has warned Assad. Assad states he has listened, apparently interrupting the sequence. But has he? If not, the third part of the sequence is yet to come. NATO won't attack Assad. It is busy in Libya. But Turkey isn't involved in the Libya operation. Turkey seems intent on intervening on their own.
Assad hasn't beaten his own Arab Spring uprising. He can't afford to actually stop shooting at this point. So he's buying time. Eventually he'll need to order his forces to start shooting again (if indeed they have stopped in the first place).
The question is, what is Assad doing with the time he is buying?
Moving troops to the Turkish border?
Calling up reservists?
Readying ballistic missiles with chemical warheads and pointing them north instead of at Israel?
Getting ironclad promises of Iranian support if the Turks come across the border?
All of the above?
Or is Assad buying time because that is all he can do and he hopes something will happen to save him that he can't see yet?
The only thing I think I know for sure is that Assad can't afford to stop shooting demonstrators. So he will soon be shooting at demonstrators. What he does in the time between stopping and starting shooting is the unknown.
UPDATE: President Obama will very soon (like in the next fifteen minutes) call on Assad to leave. Given Turkey's determination to halt the shooting, this is looking like more "leading" from behind.
UPDATE: The announcement was made. So we've come full circle from those heady pre-Hopenchange days when Speaker Pelosi rejected isolating Assad. With a bonus defense of Pelosi's outreach based on the Libya model. Heh (with apologies to Instapundit).
