The next great hope

It is easy to applaud the formation of the “National Coalition of Forces of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition” in Doha yesterday.  It claims to unite 90% of the civilian and military opposition to Bashar al Asad, including America’s last great hope, the Syrian National Council.  Particularly important is its claim to represent both military and civilians inside Syria.  If this turns out to be the case, it will soon gain credibility as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, perhaps even occupying Damascus’ seat at the Arab League.

But the Coalition is only the beginning.  It is essentially a representative body.  The failures of the Syrian opposition so far have been executive, not legislative.  The newly named leader of the Coalition is Ahmad Mouaz Al-Khatib Al-Hasani, a former Imam of the Grand Umayyad mosque in Damascus:

This semi-slick Youtube video tells us something of al-Khatib’s relatively moderate Islamist views, but little of his executive abilities.

That is the vital ingredient now.  What the Syrian opposition needs is a relatively small executive group that can take charge of political, military and humanitarian strategy, gaining credibility with donors by moving resources to where that strategy dictates and limiting extraneous efforts.  The key people appear to be secularist Riad Seif, who is credited with laying the groundwork for the Doha success, and human rights activist Suhair Atassi, who were elected vice presidents of the National Coalition, while Syrian National Council member Mustafa Sabbagh was elected the Secretary General.

The U.S. government, while hailing creation of the National Coalition, still seems unready to provide direct military support and is committed to a secularist vision of Syria outlined in documents prepared last summer.  How this will dovetail with Qatari and Saudi military support is not clear, since they are unlikely to be as committed to a secular outcome.  Nor is it clear whether the new entity will be prepared to negotiate with the regime before Asad steps down, something Syrians inside the country have been more inclined to consider doing than those outside Syria.

Still, the National Coalition is the next great hope.  Would that it will work better than the last one.