“Syrians should beware of ‘friends’ as much as enemies”

Brian Whitaker on the participants of the “Friends of Syria” conference:

There is something surreal about a group of “friends” promoting change in Syria that includes so many autocrats and, as one of its leading lights, the country most notorious for resisting progress: Saudi Arabia. […] The reality, of course, is that for all countries attending, national interests (or what they perceive as their national interests) come first and the Syrian people second. In some cases a distant second, even among the “brotherly” Arabs.

Great point, but Whitaker did not mention the honorable exception: The Democratic government of Tunisia, the organizer of the conference and arguably the only country that wishes for Syria what it had itself: A transfer to a real people-powered democracy.