 We have USIP staff on either side of the auditorium. I know a number of questions have already been collected. I have some here in the front. Let me begin though with Juan, while we're providing you some time to make sure that you are able to get your cards to our colleagues, follows that follows on Osama's observations about the role of the international community and what the international community might do to support both the SNC and the Syrian uprising. And the question is, what has the international community asked of the SNC? So far, the formation of the SNC has been greeted with some statements of support. It has also been greeted by expressions of caution about the willingness of Western governments to extend formal recognition to the SNC. We imagine that those exchanges also include guidance or feedback from your interlocutors in Washington, London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, other capitals about what the international community expects from the SNC in turn. It would be helpful to hear you say something about that and to say something about the steps you are taking to respond to the guidance you're receiving from Western governments. And I open that up. Osama, you may wish to address this. Najib, Dima, Murhaf. I mean, of course, we don't expect the formal recognition straight away. It has to take some time. Many key actors in Europe, also including the United States, they need to make sure that it is inclusive enough. It is functioning. It is well-managed. It can make a decision in a certain way that brings results. We've all seen the demonstrations in more than 120 cities and villages and towns. They even had celebrations when they announced the Syrian National Council with fireworks. I don't know where they brought the fireworks from, but they had fireworks. They grass-roots, they even created a kind of national anthem for the National Council. And now there is a, if you see all the videos and you follow the YouTube, every single video that coming out of Syria, they have a poster first with the SNC logo, then the location of the demonstration and an explanation. So the support, the wide, big, huge support inside the country is there. We understand that that kind of recognition is a huge step. Some countries, and I, you know, some regional countries here, I've been told that if they recognize the Syrian National Council, it will be a declaration of war against Assad regime and it's very serious. So, but they are moving that direction. Turkey, for instance, they not only welcome the Syrian National Council, but also agree to open a formal office. If you've seen the former recognition from Libya, the NTC, and they are now within the coming 24 to 48 hours we are going to, they are going to handle us, the embassy there, because they asked the embassy staff to leave and will be taken over. We hope that the rest of the countries follow suit. Many of the even high-level meetings with key leaders in the region have taken place, yet not publicly yet. Many of the concerns, obviously, it's a regional stability. It is the future of the missiles. It's the chemical weapons program. All these serious questions that we need to really discuss and talk and make decisions on. So, it is going to take some time, but yet we need to have that kind of positive progress that we can see and build on. Thank you. To build on what Osama said, the international community would like to see from the SNC a vision for the future, a political program. What happens the day after? Who is going to turn on the lights after the Assad regime has collapsed? Who is going to control traffic and so on? And these are very legitimate demands because Syria should not be made to go down in a spiral of chaos. And so the international community, legitimately, wants to see these things happen. Unfortunately, Mr. Riad Saif, who was going to give us his vision for the future, representing the SNC, is unable to be with us today. The SNC, again, is a work in progress. It has a history now of not over a week. And as we speak, the leadership of the SNC is putting together a political program to show to the international community to show not only the seriousness, not only the political will, but also to show the international community that Syrians know the need to have such a political program. Just one word on that. Adding to what my colleague said, I think the international community is very much concerned about the foreign policy orientation of the SNC, the alternative, what's their vision. And I think that this is not really a difficult one to articulate because Syrians have not necessarily been consulted in how the foreign policy of the regime was conducted over the last few decades. So I think as a result of that, Syrians are focusing on, are going to focus on their domestic, basically, agenda on questions of development, on question of building a viable political system. So they do believe in order to do that, they have to be a force of stability in the region. And I think of all of the maybe foreign policies of the current regime, the main maybe one that's not kind of popular among Syrian oppositions is its relations with Iran. It's kind of accepted to be a junior partner in that project. It's, I think, everybody within the Syrian opposition believes in a vision of maybe reaching peace with Israel based on the Arab initiative and basically on really being a force, again, of regional stability. So I think that's something, again, is going to be part of that vision. Najib, let me push you on the foreign policy question a bit recognizing that the imperative of the SNC in an initial post-Assad period will necessarily be on constructing a domestic political order. We had three questions from the audience that asked about different aspects of the foreign policy of a post-Assad Syria as seen by the SNC. One concerned Iran, you've already spoken to that a bit, I'll ask the question in case it introduces some different dimensions. The first came to us via Twitter. If the Assad regime does fall, how do you see Syria's relationship with Hezbollah changing? And how would the fall affect the Lebanese government? Second, which was addressed directly to Osama Monajid and Amor Jujati, LaFiguero reported Iranian delegates met with Syrian opposition in Europe. Can you confirm this? What is the likelihood of SNC dealing with Iran post-Assad? Third, what is the SNC's view of the special tribunal for Lebanon? And does the SNC have any relations with any grouping political or otherwise in Lebanon? So you may not be able to escape interest in your foreign policy orientation as much as you might like to. I'll focus on Lebanon. Maybe my colleagues could take the question of Iran. Thanks. Take it easy. Take it easy. In 2006, Syrian intellectuals, activists signed with their Lebanese counterpart a short document called the Damascus Beirut Declaration. And it really sets very basic principles as to the future relationship between the two countries. It's based on a very simple idea of respecting the independence of Lebanon. We Syrians believe that we suffered the mismanagement of the relationship between the regime and the Lebanese. Basically parties, groups throughout the process of Syrian military presence in Lebanon that's kind of led to many Lebanese to look unfavorably towards Syrians. So we believe that this relationship should be based on, again, respecting the independence and sovereignty of Lebanon on close but equal working relationship between the two countries. On the question of Hezbollah, and I think again this is a view, we believe that the best way for to solve the question of Hezbollah is to move toward disarmament of this movement and the integration of this movement into the political process. And so to add to the question of the tribunal, we believe that it should in fact be continued. We were basically supportive of its formation and we accept its outcomes. And so I think those are very basic principles upon which we see the future relationship with Lebanon. We, throughout the last couple of years, felt that we share maybe more with the so-called 14th March forces in Lebanon. And we kind of understand their willingness to assert their Lebanon's independence and sovereignty. So those are the basic principles. So we do have some in fact clear ideas as to how to have that relationship. More have Iran. I do not want to preempt the Syrian National Council leadership into putting them in a particular position. So I'm going to hypothesize, I'm going to speculate and say that the strategic alliance between Syria and Iran will be no longer. This is not to say that Syria would cut off its relationship altogether with Iran. It will probably maintain a diplomatic relationship that is not superior to other relations with other states. But I do not foresee that there would be a continued strategic alliance with Iran as is the case today. And Hezbollah, I think, would be function of that. And this dovetails nicely with what Najib is saying with regard to Hezbollah. Just to answer the question whether any members of the SNC met with the Iranians in Europe, it was not an SNC member that took place with an individual with the opposition. It is not an SNC member. There is still no position or the SNC on how to handle the Iranian outreach yet or any discussion with the Iranians. And it's not on top of our agenda, to be honest. There are far more pressing issues and important issues to deal with first. There are obviously signals from the Iranians we've heard in the past few weeks coming from the National Security Council that Assad should meet the demands of the people trying to signal out these. We've seen even Hezbollah leadership announcing such also positions from Lebanon signalling that they're trying to distance themselves somehow. They all see the collapse of the regime. Everyone sees the collapse of the regime happening as inevitable apart from the Assad. And I think they're calculating their steps accordingly. Post, again, post Assad Syria, not a single party in Syria will have in his manifesto or in its manifesto anything to do with having close relationship with Iran, including the far right or whoever is going to be running under a far right in Syria because everyone in the streets are chanting against Iran and Hezbollah. And they will straight away lose vote. So that's my take on it. Thank you. Dima, may I just say one sentence here to corroborate what Osama is saying. One of the chants on the street has been, La Hezbollah ola Iran, Nahna minhabbak Erdogan. Neither Hezbollah nor Iran, we love you o Erdogan. So that tells you something. Dima, you discussed the diversity of the SNC and its efforts to reassure Syrians inside of Syria about its commitment to diversity. We had a couple of questions pushing on that issue. One, and the author of this note card is to be applauded. There are seven questions on this note card. I will do my best, I assure you, to weave them into the conversation. One is how can the international community have confidence that the SNC genuinely determined, is genuinely determined to share power with minorities to include them fully in the distribution of power in a new Syria. How can Syrians have this confidence? And in a related question, it's an interesting one and we haven't addressed it thus far this morning, but it does have some connections to this previous concern. Which groups remain loyal to the Assad regime? And what, if anything, can be done to convince them to change their minds, withdraw their support? And I will add, perhaps even potentially participate in bringing about a change of regime. So, Dima, perhaps you would be willing to take the first stab at that and then we can hear from others with something to add. Sure, sure. As for the first question about the international community, how to assure that all groups will be represented, I think so far what we've done in the SNC itself, if you, as I had mentioned, if you look at the makeup of the SNC, we feel confident right now that the majority of the groups in Syria, based on sectarian or religious or ethnic background, are well represented in the SNC. And since this is a group that we want the recognition as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people, having representation from all ethnic groups and sects, I think is one step towards that assurance that everybody in Syria will be participating in the process, in the political process and the rebuilding process in the post-Assad era. For example, even within our, right now that we have three levels in the SNC, we have the General Assembly, which is the 230 members, we have the Executive Committee, which is 29 members and then we have the Presidential Group, which is seven members. And even within that, those seven, we have at least one, we have one seat for Assyrians, for example. That's a very small group in Syria. For those who don't know, it's an ethnic group, they're all Christian. So one out of the seven in the Presidential Committee is dedicated for that. So I think we're doing all we can to give these assurances that everybody will be represented. And there's no fear of overlooking any particular group within Syria. And this question about which groups continue to support the regime? First, I'd like to add something to what Dima said. I think one of the main guarantees of future representation of ulcerias, particularly minorities, is the kind of political system we set, we kind of chart. And I think here we are grateful to the Assad regime that most Syrians have reached the conclusion that we don't want to have any type of minority rule, whether that minority comes from different ethnic religious backgrounds or from the majority. I mean, any kind of group that's trying to monopolize power is going to be basically opposed by the consensus, the emerging consensus of Syrians who had enough of that kind of political structure. So I would say the charting a new political system which is democratic in nature, that benefits from the experiences of other countries. Now, with Syria, I think the question of minorities sometimes is really not clear. As Syria is not Iraq, neither Lebanon. I mean, we're not talking about very, very divided country. I mean, yes, the peculiarity of Syria was that the members of the particularly Alawites minority had disproportionate power in the security and army. And so I think we do have a clear majority in Syria, but whenever we talk about democracy being defined as majority rule, we always in Syria are more sensitive to the other side, which is with respect to the rights of minorities. And before all of that, I think a state that is based on equal citizenship is going, is something that's been embraced by everyone in Syria. The groups that are still kind of considered to be supportive of the Syrian regime, I would say they're more silent than supportive. And I'm one of those who believe that silence is positive silence. I think there are some fear among the Alawites and understandably so. And we have to work and reach out to them and in fact, make sure that they are part of not only the future of Syria, but of the leadership of the SNC and the movement that's trying to bring about democratic change in Syria. As far as the second kind of community that's considered somewhat waiting to see, and again, maybe there is some fear among members of this community is the Christian community in Syria. And I think we have to reach out, we have to send all kinds of assurances and not only in words, but in practice and by again inviting them to be part of this leadership. I do wanna say that by the way, I mean these activists in these two communities have been at the forefront of this revolution. The first fallen heroes of this revolution in the coastal area actually came from the Christian and the Alawite community. And I very much value how brave the activists who come from these communities, especially the Alawite community because they're under dual pressure in fact. And so we are very again cognizant of some of the fear that exists, but we are working extremely hard to assure everyone and what we want by the end is Syria for all. Yes, please. In addition to the minorities that Najib has talked about, there is of course the army and intelligence apparatus. And here it is the senior ranks that are supportive of Bashar al-Assad. The bodies of these two, not necessarily, they will go where the wind blows. But again, it's the senior leadership in the armed forces and the intelligence. It is also the senior leadership in the Ba'ath party. It's not on ideological grounds because the Ba'ath party has become an empty ideological shell, but it is out of opportunism and out of the necessity to continue in the corrupt ways of the Ba'ath leadership in cahoots with the Assad regime. The ministerial bureaucracy. And here you have a large apparatus of bureaucrats who again, after 48 years of this bureaucracy, now has all sorts of networks to receive bribes from and so on. And so they have a vested interest in the perpetuation of this status quo. And finally, and we hear a lot of talk about the business elite. Let me tell you that the business elite is no more than 10 to 15 people. This is the business elite and those who are in partnership, in business partnerships with the Assad family. Otherwise, the merchant class, of course, has been, I don't wanna say supportive, but has been silent for a long time because of the perception that the Assad regime provided stability. And stability is good for capitalism. Stability is good for making profits and so on. Well, now Assad has become a source of instability. And so it is not going to be too long before the business community turns against the Assad, except those 10 to 15 in this top of the business elite. You just want to elaborate on the business community. As I said, more than 45,000 detainees. When there's someone detained, he's the wage earner of that family. The whole family needs support, needs financial support for education needs, medical and life, living expenses. Who is paying for all these families? And it's not only the immediate family that everyone have three, four children, but it's his brothers also in his family, his sisters and the rest bigger wider family. All of that is financed by the business people and Damascus. With the one phone call from someone, 10 million Syrian pounds is distributed in town X or in town Y. Or that amount of money is sent to someone to get medical supplies from Lebanon or from X or Y. We are talking big money and all being financed by the Damasin business elite we're talking about. So they are not obviously in the camp of the Assad's, but do not expect these people and their workers and supporters or families to go and demonstrate. It's just not their nature. The middle class or upper middle class, they will not go and demonstrate. I mean, even if Assad regime collapses in Tahrir Square in Cairo, majority of them, more than 80%, we're not from Cairo. So this is something that we need to address that when is Aleppo, Damascus gonna go in masses of millions, you will never see this. Mayhaps people coming from around Damascus and the people of Damascus are supporting, helping with networking, with finance, with other things, but they're not gonna go and chant. It's just their nature. This question of the role of the business community is really an important one. And it is the case, more half that, the peak business elite is very small. But the business community of Syria extends well beyond this. Osama's comment suggested that one of the consequences of the last six or seven years of economic growth in Syria prior to the uprising has been to spread. The wealth has been to increase opportunities for new business interests to prosper. And a number of questions were presented concerning the business community. They've been touched on in part. I want to pose them because I think they give us an opportunity to look beyond those peak business elites and think about where the broader middle class, traders, industrialists, small-scale business actors fall in this process. First question, has the SNC reached out to business interests in Damascus, but also in Aleppo, who've benefited from the regime and have hung back from supporting regime change? Second, what can the Syrian business community do to topple the regime? If Osama, as you indicate, they are reluctant to take a more public position in support of change, what can they do to help topple the regime? There's a question about whether the American private sector can play a role in advancing the aims of the Syrian uprising. And then finally, a question about the impact of sanctions and whether we can anticipate that as sanctions continue to bite, the sympathies or political orientation of the business community might change and make it less difficult for them to align themselves more explicitly with the opposition. So again, I turn that to whom over on the panel would like to step in first. Can I address the Aleppo effect? Yes, there has been a lot of discussion more than a Syrian activist about the lack of strong maybe support for the revolution in Aleppo, the city of Aleppo's second largest city in the country. And I think there are maybe a couple of factors that must be taken into account. I think the business community of Aleppo is actually is one of them. Aleppo has benefited over the last few years of this whatever you wanna call economic, I don't know, it's hard to come up with terms that describe, it's not really economic development, it's economic growth, that's the fruits of which are basically distributed at a small circle, but definitely one of them was the business community of Aleppo who felt a stake in the continuation of the system. And this is a fact, I mean that we have to address. But the second factor which explained maybe the lack of support for the revolution in Aleppo, I think has to do with a couple of things, one has to do with the memory of the 80s. Aleppo was one of the main cities that was really hit hard with the repression back then. It was Aleppo and Hama, people remember Hama but don't think of Aleppo. So there is that and there's heavy security presence in Aleppo that may be very close to Damascus and that again explains a part of it. The business community of actually Aleppo, we have several credible reports, recruited a group of thugs, those the word for those in Syria are Shabbiha. And they've been trying to go after activists and harass them and the number of those activists who've been arrested in Aleppo is actually a large number. And those who maybe might play the role in leading the activities. Lastly, I think with Aleppo, the official religious community, and here again we were talking about, maybe minorities not being very supportive of the revolution, we're talking about the Sunni class, including the Mufti of Syria who comes, this is the highest religious authority in Syria who comes from Aleppo. And I don't know if you followed two important things related to the Mufti. One, his son was assassinated sadly and it could have been by the thugs actually. It's part of the regime's attempts to again create this notion of the armed gangs. And so, and then second, he came out yesterday or the day before and threaten those countries that try to take action, military action against Syria that they are going to face suicide bombers of the magnitude they haven't seen yet. So you have those religious actually voices in the city of Aleppo playing to the advantage of the regime. They're part of that coalition that's really benefited from the Bashar's rule. So I think, but I think I agree with Usaman and Moorhaf that in Damascus at least we see growing number of the small business, small-scale business owners and businessmen, I think are kind of joining the revolution and are looking for a change of the regime. So I think we do again need to assure this community in Aleppo and elsewhere that in fact, they could grow under a democratic Syria. There won't be, there would be more equal opportunity. They would have chance to prosper as opposed to have to share everything with the Mahloof or one of their cronies. Just want to give one small anecdote, give an example of how the thinking of these top 10 or 15 big large names of business in Syria now started to think. Mr. Yadsaif was invited to one of the receptions at one of the embassies in Damascus and there was these top 10 names were present. I'm sorry, who isn't? Mr. Yadsaif was invited to a reception at one of the embassies and these top 10 were there. So he was talking to diplomats and ambassadors when the big names started to squeeze in and try to talk and appear and be seen with, you know, talking to Yadsaif and he started to ask him a question of, Mr. Saif, do you think this or think that? At the time where a few years ago where they distancing themselves, I mean, Yadsaif is part of that club. He's a millionaire businessman. I was at one time before they throw him in jail and he was telling me how the whole mood is completely different now. They try to approach and talk and be seen close because they realize how things are now changing. And frankly, we don't think that there's a huge impact to these 10 or 15 big names. Yes, they have big, huge companies but the vast majority of the workers or the working class is employed by SMEs in the country, small and medium enterprises or companies and those are certainly in support as I explained. What they can do, mainly financial support, that's what we need. And also they have connections worldwide because of the trade that they do. Also we need them to utilize these kind of connections. There's also, we need to distinguish between the business types in Damascus and Aleppo. Aleppo is more industrialist. Most of the factories and machinery are in Aleppo while Damascus is more finance and services and trade. So those in Aleppo, they fear for, like the capital invested in these also businesses. Unfortunately, most of the corrupt, most corrupt people in the business side in Aleppo, they deal with money laundering and drugs. They do all the nasty business for the regime through Turkey and channeling the drugs from Lebanon to Turkey to Europe. And they have been given free hand for everyone to create their own militia. Every business now they have their own militia. They even carry badges with different names for different businesses. They're being financed and paid by these. So it's very tough and intense in Aleppo but in Damascus it's moving much more in a better way and we expect even the big names to be supportive. And especially now that Mr. Saif is announced as a leading member of the SNC inside. There are several meetings scheduled with these big names. Thank you. With regard to the US private sector, how can it help? Well, other than your prayers, we need for you to cancel your agreements with those very well-connected agents of yours. This is a phenomenon of course that is not true only of the United States private sector but anywhere in the world is that large companies usually like to have well-connected agents so that they could sell more. Well, well-connected in Syria means part and parcel of the Assad family and its cronies. And so it's a very good thing. It's a blessing that Rami Mahloof, the most corrupt par excellence in Syria has been the subject of targeted sanctions but there are many, many Rami Mahloofs in Syria who represent US corporations. And so it would be a very good thing for these US corporations to rethink the kind of agents that they need. One brief point, Steve, about the business elite. There has been some trickle-down as a result of the openness in the economy by Bashar al-Assad in the past 11 years but it has not trickled down nearly enough, obviously. And there is an alienation by the Nouvelle Bourgeoisie that had been created under Hafez al-Assad that was allied to the regime that provided legitimacy to the barons of the regime and got privileges from these barons in exchange. These, this Nouvelle Bourgeoisie that benefited from the largesse of the state has been alienated by a newer Nouvelle Bourgeoisie which is the Rami Mahloof phenomena and so on of the Bashar al-Assad regime who has gotten the biggest pieces of the pie. Thank you. Najib got us launched this morning by situating the Arab uprising within the broader context of the Arab Spring. One of the most significant developments of the Arab Spring has been to vastly expand space for the political mobilization and political participation of women. At the same time, we've often seen that as transitions proceed sometimes to successful outcomes, the space for women's participation tends to narrow somewhat and opportunities to remain engaged in shaping post-transition political orders tend to diminish for women. And a question that we've received concerns whether the SNC has given any thought to the question of how to sustain opportunities and frameworks for the participation, active participation of women, both in the uprising, but also on the day after and beyond once the challenges of building a new post-Assad political order move to the front of the agenda. Well, I think women's participation in this revolution has been critical, even though it's, has not been really presented to the extent that it should be. At the level of activists on the ground in Syria, I think one of the two symbols of this beginning of this revolution are two women, Zuhair Latasi and Razan Zaitouni. Both of them are very well connected to the grassroots young revolutionaries who are actually very supportive of the leadership status of women. There are a lot of, again, other women who are less well-known in the various provinces, but these are two high-profile names I would like almost to mention and we're very proud of them. But we've seen, I mean at the beginning of the demonstrations in Syria, yes, we've seen mostly men taking into the street. It's kind of really due to the fact that these men are met with life immunizations and they're shot at and killed and all that. But we've seen several women demonstrations in many, many towns and cities. Again, women have been providing a lot of support for the revolution both inside the country and outside. What SNC has done is really like, as I said, we were very, we believe that women should be represented at all levels, all three layers of the structure of SNC. As we were discussing the expansion of SNC, we agreed on one recommendation that all newly joined group should have women representation. This is something I could see, it was good to see that there was a consensus over that question and the guarantee for the future is really hard ones, Steve, and I agree with you that women were more active in the Egyptian Tunisian Revolution and now they're complaining that they've been marginalized. I think this is a challenge, this is a continued challenge. Building a democracy, I think, is something that's not going to end with the overthrowing of our regime. I think this is the first step. I think what could happen during the transition is many things could go wrong. But one of the points that we should continue to make is that we should promote women participation, as I said, at all levels, recognize their roles and give them the opportunity to take leadership position. That's, I think, something at least we're doing so far. And Dima mentioned at least some percentages and figures we were able to do. Again, there's something in the Arab culture that's very significant. As we were talking about women's participation in the SNC, we were very clear that we didn't want to talk in women. We wanted women who really are highly qualified of the same caliber that we wanted to be at the leadership and I'm very glad that we have a very prominent activist within SNC. In the interim period of the formation of the SNC, our spoke person was Dr. Basima Qadamani, who is a political scientist, very active, played a major role in the formation of SNC. I just want to add a little bit to that. Obviously, being a woman, it's an issue that always comes up, a question that's always being asked. And I think one of the important things for women who are involved in this process, who are in the SNC, myself included, is to work on encouraging other women. I think it's part of, we're not going to lie, it's part of our culture. I don't think it's the men necessarily not giving women opportunities because sometimes the women withdraw themselves from certain opportunities, whether there's intimidation or cultural pressure. I'm not sure what it is, but it's very important for those of us who are involved in this who know that working with our male colleagues, I personally never feel that my voice is not as loud as theirs or it's not as heard or as not as important. And it's really important for us to relay this to other women and to step up and to come and bring their work from behind the scenes because there is a lot of work being done by women. Their participation is equal to the work of men in this revolution and it's really important for them to come to the forefront and become part of it publicly. So I think women have a big part of this instead of the SNC going out and asking for women to come out is the women to God and speak to other women and have them participate. Is there a women's caucus within the SNC? Right now, we haven't reached that point and this is a two week old SNC group. So there are efforts, I know a lot of women have this idea of wanting to organize the women's movement and work. So I'm sure there's some of that in the future of the SNC. As of now, we're just members, just like everybody else. So, but that's definitely something to think about. Just want to mention that back in 2007 when Damascus Electoral National Council was formed, it selected the chairperson as was woman, Dr. Fida Horani, the first Arab opposition ever to have a chair as woman. Also now in the SNC when we originally launched in September, the Spokesperson of the SNC was also woman, Dr. Basmaka Mani. So Syria gave women rights to vote before Sweden, by the way. So that's true, 1949. Yes, before women, before Sweden. Universal suffrage in Syria prior to Switzerland as well. Yeah, so we have a history and culture that hopefully we can capitalize on. We introduced earlier in the discussion the question of militarization and there were a number of questions from our audience on different aspects of this problem. Let me cluster three of them and invite your responses to directed to Professor Joe Jatti and Mr. Osama Munajid. First, how could the role of the international community change if the revolution becomes militarized on both sides? Second, do you believe that international military intervention might successfully prevent civil war in Syria, which Murhaf was something that you alluded to as a possibility? And then finally, protecting protesters, and this is a question from a colleague at the Department of State. Protecting protesters is a question is a high priority for the SNC. What is the role of the Free Syrian Army in this? Could there be a role if it were to clearly espouse a view that it would take a more purely defensive role in protecting protesters? I'll just start with the FSA question on the protesters. The number of defective soldiers so far, as declared by the head of the FSA, Colonel Al-Assad, is about 15,000 now and counting. There are talks and connection, obviously, with the FSA and the leadership with the SNC. There's still debate whether to have a formal seat for the FSA in the SNC or not. That's still a position to be discussed and formalized. But the key role that FSA play now is not to launch assaults on Assad, Thugs and mercenaries, but rather to protect civilians, defend neighbourhoods. Unfortunately, within this mayhem that's taking place now in the country, every few security officers, they form their own mercenaries and Thugs. They go house to house, door to door searches and arrests, not only that, to get the prize and money, although they don't have any names to arrest, but just to arrest to get the prize to release those people. And also they take everything. They clear the house from microwave, fridge, TV sets, everything, including jewellery. So it's becoming, and whoever opposes these, they get shot in the head and they tell their son was demonstrating and their father was helping demonstrators and so on. So what the FSA is doing, at least for the time being, is protecting neighbourhoods through various levels have the snipers on top, at least if these Thugs and mercenaries came with the intention of launching assault to wipe everyone in this neighbourhood, they would just stop that. And also, allowing, defending as much as they can, as we've seen in Rastan, for several days, three days, defend the city until they are free and they secure certain passages for civilians to evacuate and leave to certain neighbouring villages and make sure that then they withdraw and that was exactly what happened in Rastan, for instance. So that's the key role of FSA. This is the key issue. Having more FSA activities of defending civilians and protecting them does by no mean, has absolutely no connection to militarising the uprising or civilians carrying weapons. The FSA has been releasing videos and statements that we are going to take this responsibility of defending certain neighbourhoods. You do not have to carry weapons. To confirm, demonstrators always have these banners and chanting that FSA is our defenders and we're not going to, this is a peaceful revolution. So this is the distinction that we want to keep. Yeah, if I may add to that also, working with some of the activists on the ground, I know, especially in the city of Homs, which has been one of the hardest hit cities, the FSA has pretty strong presence there. It's because it's in central Syria and a lot of the effecting soldiers are originally from the area. A lot of the activists have emphasised the importance of the FSA in protecting them from the state security and from the Assad hired thugs. And they all have confirmed that, has it not been for the FSA, the number of people who have been killed especially around Homs, and I'm focusing on that because that's where the people that I work with, the number would be almost double. And what they do is, obviously it's very hard for them to be everywhere, but when the demonstrators go out, they are prepared, like Osama hinted to, or as he stated, they're prepared to, once security or thugs start aiming firearms and weapons at the demonstrators, the free Syrian army steps up and defends them. So it becomes more of a self-defense, but it's carried out by the FSA. The other point that I want to make is that the FSA has stressed from the beginning that their purpose is, and the reason they do all of this is to ensure that these demonstrations, that the whole movement, that the revolution remains a peaceful one. And I think that's one of the most important things that we've seen in the Syrian revolution that for seven months, it still remains a peaceful one, unarmed civilians going out and facing bullets, and the FSA wants to ensure that continues. And the last point I want to make is that from the first moment that the FSA started forming and coming out, they received requests from some people wanting to volunteer to join it, and they actually turned them down because they don't want to be known for arming the civilians. Again, it's in the spirit of keeping this a peaceful movement. These are some very important qualifications in understanding how militarization is becoming organized within Syria, and I think go some way toward giving us a more informed sense of some of the different trends and dynamics. Some of those are difficult to see from the outside, and I don't doubt that this question of militarization and armed resistance will continue to be a significant concern among international actors thinking about the kind of role they might play in Syria in the future. And I suspect that if we were to see the escalation of armed resistance, it would at some point have to be taken into account in the calculus of international actors thinking about what role they might play. Time is getting short. We have a large number of additional questions. Let me try and get through at least two sets of questions that came in that I think do draw us to some important issues. The Syrian uprising as it has unfolded given the challenges that the opposition has confronted in reaching a critical tipping point in its efforts to overthrow the regime seemed to me to have provoked several main lines of response. One is militarization. Another has been to spur the opposition to accelerate and amplify its own efforts to become organized and develop the kind of coherent structures that would establish its viability as an alternative. But the third, and this is the focus of the questions, has been to revive discussions about the feasibility of a negotiated settlement with the Assad regime. And we have two questions along that line. First is, does the Syrian opposition, especially the SNC, is the Syrian opposition, especially the SNC, prepared in any way to negotiate with the regime and or enter into a power sharing arrangement with the regime, i.e. a negotiated power sharing arrangement? We have seen some proposals offered in this regard by the Arab League in particular, one of them. There were others. The second question is, what is the assessment of the SNC about the capacity of the Assad regime to negotiate? We have heard all kinds of claims about internal divisions within the regime, about hardliners and softliners, about the possibility that Bashar himself and others may in fact be open to the prospect of a negotiated settlement, but have been overruled or marginalized by hardliners. What is the SNC's assessment of the potential for this regime to enter negotiations? Two sides of the same kind of question. Can I start? I think it's worth all of us commenting on that. We clearly don't have an official position of SNC on this, but I think we do embrace the revolutionary's position on basically rejecting to negotiate with those who have been responsible for killing civilian protesters. I think this is a clear position by now of SNC and all Syrian opposition and in fact most Syrians. Up till really very recently, as I said, prior to the revolution in the first week or two, we were still appealing to Bashar al-Assad to take a leading role in the transition of Syria and kind of more gradual transition into democracy, and Bashar has proven over and over and over that he's not capable nor maybe willing to do so. I wrote a book back in 2006 about documenting the lost opportunities of the regime and the subtitle of it, Bashar of lost opportunities, and that was my assessment back in 2006, and I think he has not proven me wrong, at least academically, that's good for me. But the point is he really has not shown leadership at any level and he sided with the forces, his brother that's really responsible for the killing. He has not shown any distance from those forces which makes it extremely difficult, almost impossible for us to negotiate with him. However, we do extend the idea of negotiation to anyone in the regime that has not been responsible for the killing of Syrians. In fact, we consider that possibility as one of the good scenarios for making that transition, including members of the army, those professional generals. This is why we do encourage defection at the highest level. We do know that in order for that to happen, we need certain conditions that be present and this is likely to happen at an advanced phase. Some of them is to isolate the regime diplomatically, maybe create some safe haven somewhere at one point, continue to send assuring messages and willingness that they are part, in fact, of the future of Syria. So the principle of negotiation should not be ruled out at all, but clearly not with those responsible for the killing of peaceful protesters. And at this point, we believe Bashar and Mahir al-Assad are directly responsible for that. So other than a few individuals, and we're trying to make this as narrow as possible and the head of the security apparatus are clearly included in that circle, other than that, I think we extend the idea of negotiations to any Syrian that they have the right to be part of the future of Syria. I think that's the starting point. Thank you. Actually, I'm going to ask that we move to one last question. And this concerns the relationship of different groupings within Syria to the SNC and their participation in the uprising to important, very different, but important communities. What is the relationship of the SNC and the local coordinating committees in Syria? Is one question. And the other is how involved is the Kurdish community in the uprising? Is the Kurdish community itself, which represents about a third of Syria's population, something around that number? No, it's 10%. 10%? Yeah. The Kurdish issue. Yeah. Okay. Forget that. 10%. Does the Kurdish community, is the Kurdish community itself united, or are there factions that are for and against the uprising? And a quick answer to this one, if you can. Just a quick one on the Kurds. It is a big myth that the Kurds have not been demonstrating since the beginning. The Kurds have been demonstrating since March 18. And we have tens of videos every day, and big, large numbers every Friday. But that being said, they still think that they paid a heavy price in 2004, where many of them were hanged in front of their houses. And the rest of the country did not really pay much attention. That's number one. Number two is that their political leaders still wanted to have some kind of negotiated position with the rest of the political figures or leaders or opposition before they mobilized in big numbers. And when, and a direct reason of the assassination of one of their key leaders, Michel Temel, is that he became part of the SNC Executive Committee, and he had several conferences in Skype, live conferences with them, and he met with different other figures inside Damascus, including Riyadh Saif, on discussing the details. And that's why when the regime realized that the Kurds will go and mobilize in huge numbers. And yes, when they assassinated them, now we've seen hundreds of thousands in the street, not only in the Kurdish areas in Syria, but now there is a huge sympathy with the Kurdish, with the Kurdistan Iraq. Now, not only moral, political support, but also financial and also many of the families on both sides. So there's a huge shift in the Kurdish map in all the region towards supporting the SNC and being part of the revolution now. Thank you. Yeah, and then for the question about the local coordinating committees, I think that was one of the big steps of leading up to the October 2nd meeting in Istanbul, announcing the additional seats, additional members of the SNC, and that was a huge step of the LCC joining the SNC. And as of now, there's a large number of seats dedicated to the grassroots movements, including the LCC in Syria. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Minorities collectively about a third. Right. Thank you. Okay. I was not able to pose all of your questions to our speakers. I have to say that if I were to think myself about the range of questions that it would be important to ask them, you did a fabulous job in raising them yourselves. And so thank you all very much for your participation. And I think what we have seen today in our comments from our Syrian colleagues is precisely why the Syrian government takes the formation of the SNC so seriously. They pose a formidable challenge, I think, to the Assad regime. And I would like to make sure that we all thank them for their participation today and wish them good luck and best wishes in the success of your work in the future. Thank you very much.