Is time running out for Assad?

COMMENT

When Russia and China refused to endorse the UN resolution to ask President Assad ever so nicely to stop killing his own people, he must have thought he was bulletproof. The shootings, the shelling and the torture were renewed with increased vigour.

But now China is losing its patience with a regime which is now causing even that repressive administration a little embarrassment. They have strongly suggested that Syria adopts "Plan A", the Kofi Annan initiative to stop shooting and allow humanitarian aid to enter the wartorn suburbs of towns and cities up and down the country. There is, as an observer pointed out yesterday, no "Plan B".

Assad will have to play his endgame with great care. Above all, he does not wish to end up like his neighbour Moamar Gaddafi, who, once discovered by a furious populace, was torn limb from limb, to the grim approval of most of the citizens of Libya, if not the rest of the World. Assad and his henchmen, I imagine, dare not let up now with that potential fate awaiting them. But cracks are beginning to appear in their power structure; they'd better look out...