 On behalf of the Institute of Peace, it's a real pleasure for me to welcome you to this morning's discussion with a number of the founding members of the Syrian National Council and organization whose formation was announced in Istanbul only about some days ago. I'm Steve Heidemann, I'm a senior advisor for the Institute on Middle East Initiatives and we are delighted to see all of you here this morning. As I'm sure this audience is aware, the Syrian opposition almost since the very start of the uprising in March has confronted a number of very significant questions, questions about its seeming fragmentation, questions about its lack of experience, questions about the difficulties it has faced in developing a unified leadership structure that would not only provide a more coherent leadership for the uprising itself, but would also help to demonstrate to the international community the viability of the Syrian opposition as an alternative to the regime of Bashar al-Assad. And now after an extended period of challenging and I think it's fair to say at times difficult discussions among the opposition, it has created the Syrian National Council as the unified leadership structure that the opposition has been struggling to develop for some time. The SNC was formally introduced to the world only 10 days ago. I think within that very short period of time it has become clear that the SNC is a significant step forward for the Syrian opposition. Perhaps the best indication of that has been the response of the Syrian regime itself to the formation of the SNC. You are probably all aware that foreign minister of Syria Walid Mualim warned the international community not to extend recognition to the Syrian National Council. And I think that speaks highly of the extent to which it views the SNC as a potential threat. At the same time, it's also clear that as a very young umbrella organization working with a number of different groups within the Syrian opposition that the SNC continues to face a number of significant challenges as it consolidates itself, both in reaching out to activists within Syria and in demonstrating its credibility and its legitimacy to the international community. And so we are very pleased at the US Institute of Peace to be able to host the first opportunity for Washington audiences and for the audiences that are joining us on the web and on Twitter. What would an event be if it were not webcast and tweeted to interact with a number of individuals who have played central roles in the formation of the SNC and have been deeply involved in the extended discussions among the opposition that resulted in the formation of the SNC? These are people who even though they are working outside of Syria have been very much on the front lines of the opposition to the Assad regime and we're delighted to have them here with us this morning to talk with us about and to answer your questions concerning what the SNC is about, how it sees its role, what its priorities are and what its agenda is for the immediate future. Unfortunately, we hope to have with us today by Skype a prominent member or leader of the Syrian uprising, an SNC member, a man who has been on the front lines, physically on the front lines of the Syrian opposition since it began and who dedicated himself to advocating for democratic change in Syria for much of the past two decades. I'm referring to Mr. Riyadh Seif whose biographical information we presented to you in the materials prepared for this meeting. As I'm sure you all know, Mr. Seif was attacked by agents of the Syrian regime last week. His arm was broken in the attack. He sustained other injuries which fortunately are minor. However, we received credible information that if he were to participate in the event this morning, he would be placing himself at risk, including the possibility of targeting by one of the regime's assassination squads. And so we decided with enormous respect for the difficulty of the conditions under which he works and with recognition of his commitment to political change in Syria, that it would be best if Riyadh Seif were not participating in the event this morning. Before we get underway and turn the panel over to our eminent speakers, I wanted to make sure you were all aware of the procedures that we're going to be following this morning. You have bio information on our speakers. There is in addition a packet, Osama I believe you have a copy to show the audience, a packet with further information about the SNC that is available for you to pick up on the table outside of the room. Each of our speakers will be making brief opening comments, five to 10 minutes. We want to move very quickly into the interactive piece of our activity this morning. After we have heard from our speakers, we're going to open the floor to questions, but we ask that you please write down the question that you would like to pose to a member of the panel that you identify which panelists you are addressing with your question or whether you would like the question to be addressed by the panel as a whole. You should have index cards for doing this. Those will be collected. They will be brought to the front of the room and filtered so that we have a chance to cluster, like questions, avoid duplicates. I will do everything I can to ensure that as many of your questions as possible are addressed to the members of our panel this morning. In addition, because the event is being webcast and we are tweeting about it as it unfolds, we invite those of you who are watching the event on the web or who are receiving tweets about the event to contact us with questions, and we will do our best to bring those to the attention of our panelists as well. So without any further ado, let me again welcome you and let me turn the panel over first to Professor Najib Ghadban who will provide some background on the SNC and the dynamic surrounding its formation and its next steps. Najib, please. Good morning. Thank you so much, Steve. Thank you for your SIP for this opportunity. In my brief remarks, I would like just to introduce some maybe points about the road to the formation of the Syrian National Council. I think it's, I feel it's important to emphasize at the beginning that the Syrian Revolution is situated within the Arab Spring and sometimes I think when people look at Syria, they try to look at it as focus on strategic stability in Syria, et cetera, and kind of overlook the right of the Syrian people to be part of this movement which demanding nothing less than freedom and indignity for Syrians. The second maybe introductory point, the road to forming SNC really started with the coming to power of Bashar al-Assad in 2000. We went through several phases, the first of which was known as the Damascus Spring Movement and our colleague who was supposed to be with us, Riyadh Saif, was a leading figure of that movement. That movement expressed itself in the desire of prominent Syrians inside and outside Syria basically to revive civil society, to bring political life back after it was frozen for three decades outside the father. And that movement issued some documents. Many of you are aware of the document of the 99, the document of the 1000, which included basic demands which are in fact endorsed right now in the SNC. Again, early on the document of the 99 was a very basic demands of lifting emergency laws. This would be one of the first demands of the revolution to release political prisoners, to allow exiles to go back. And then the statement of the 1000 added to that the necessity of reform, both economic and political. And of course that movement was nipped in the bud six months later and ended in the imprisonment of our colleague Riyadh Saif in here since he's not with us. I'll in fact refer to him several times because out of the 10 years of Bashar's rule he spent about eight years in prison under Bashar. We move on to 2002, 2003. Again, there was revival of those demands. This is when the US was ready to invade Iraq. Many voices inside and outside were telling the Bashar regime to reform the country. That would be the best guarantee to basically be able to withstand any external pressure. Then we come to October 2005 and this is the formation of something called the Damascus Declaration. And I think that movement was so significant because it's finally stated that the only way for Syria to move forward is to have comprehensive democratic change in the country. And the document received the most endorsement from individuals, from activists, from political parties. And it became the consensus, if you will, of the Syrian opposition. Then there was another attempt at forming the National Salvation Front, which is again trying to bring together various groups into a one front. And I think the idea, and this is, we continue this process with the SNC to emphasize that one of the maybe argument of the regime is that there's no viable alternative to the Assad regime. And I think it's been always our challenge to prove the opposite. So we come to 2010, things were not looking good for the Syrian opposition in 2010 and as they were not looking good for any actually of the Arab countries. It was a very dismal point. I remember I was attending a conference in Morocco about democracy and human rights in the Arab world October of 2010. And we looked around as we kind of were exchanging our experiences regarding democracy and human rights. And it really looked really, really terrible picture, I mean, for all countries. But then it was the Tunisian Bouazizi who let himself on fire and basically sparked the Arab Spring. And the discussion for Syrians was, would it happen in Syria? Osama remembers, I hosted a conference at my university on January 20 and 29. And we were talking about 10 years of Bashar's rule. And one of the question was, could it happen in Syria when, how, and under what circumstances? Again, most I think said that it's really, it's difficult to happen. But I think people underestimated a lot of the undercurrents that were taking place in all of those countries, including in Syria, where a whole generation was born, in fact, under the Assad regime. But they were looking for better opportunities which the regime could not provide. I think I would come to a point which is significant in this process of formation, the formation of SNC. And I would consider it like an important step. It was what I call spontaneous phase of individuals, of groups, trying to talk, trying to discuss things, and to see how can we prepare for something like what happened in Tunisia and Egypt. And at the same time, that phase, I'm talking here January to March 15 phase, we were still, many of us, hoping that Bashar would take the actually the initiative and bring about reform to the country. But he was, again, proving us over and over, kind of that he's not that kind of a man. I refer you to the interview he gave to the Wall Street Journal, end of January, in which he said, all we could do is improve media laws, allow some NGOs, et cetera. That's the vision he presented. It was very frustrating. And I think all Syria needed was a spark for the Syrian version of the Arab Spring. And it came in the city of Dar'a with the children. You know the story. So the second phase was many of us inside and outside felt especially as much as we were inspired by the young people who took into the street, by how not only actually brave they were, how kind of very open-minded in terms of emphasizing the peacefulness of the nature of the revolution, emphasizing national unity in order to deprive the regime of the opportunities to repress this movement. Yet we were shocked by the level of response on the part of the regime, which was basically to open fire and kill demonstrators, peaceful demonstrators. It was extremely shocking. So that phase, I think Syrian communities abroad inside tried to do something. So it was around the world, you see Syrians demonstrating in front of this country, the White House, Syrian embassy. I remember the first demonstration in front of the White House had 22 Syrians. One month later, we had 800 in front of the Syrian embassy. So you see Syrians wanted to do something about what was happening in Syria. Then we moved to the next phase, which was the conferences phase. We had three or four conferences trying to come up with a body that represent the Syrian aspirations, the Syrian revolution. And unfortunately, those conferences really could not produce what we were hoping for. One thing, I mean, people needed to get to know each other. I mean, Syrians were not allowed. We're not giving that luxury of meeting. I mean, it's like whenever you have three Syrians, they suspect one of them is kind of an agent for the secret service. So you know that culture. So it really took a while for people to get to know each other, to exchange ideas. And I think one of the problems with these conferences, they did elect bodies. But they tried to get into the idea of having more representative bodies. And so getting into the whole notion of setting quotas for this group or that particular trend and so on and so forth. It was really the third conference, Al-Enqa's conference on July 15 that finally led us to think in a different way to come up with this council. The Al-Qa's conference was supposed basically to take place both inside and outside Syria. The day before the conference, the Syrian security forces stormed the headquarter in the neighborhood of Damascus, killed 19, injured 200. And basically it was a message, this kind of activities is not allowed. We were outside, we were shocked and we couldn't really do much about it. But then we started to think, maybe we need to do this in a different way. A small group of us, we call ourselves independence, technocrats call us whatever, decided to take the initiative and present a simple idea that what we need now to bring a group of Syrian activists who in fact would be able to chart a roadmap for forming a body which would represent the Syrian revolution. And I think this is how the process started and kind of we had of course to get in touch with the forces inside Syria, particularly the local coordinating councils and that took three weeks. And then to extend these consultations into the traditional political parties and to other prominent individuals. And finally, we came up with the formula, first it was sometimes in August, we formed the core group of SNC. This time really we emphasized qualifications and merit as the main kind of requirement for joining SNC, but without overlooking the question of representation. But we did not start with the representation as the main criteria for inclusion. As we were conducting more further consultation, we had to take into account the question of representation. But finally, I think you see more basic information about the SNC, what I wanna emphasize and I have what, two minutes? Okay, I'll end in two minutes. Couple of points. First, we succeeded in creating a balance between the inside and our outside. And from the very beginning we believe that any credible council must have representation, especially from the coordinating councils. And this word for Syrians is extremely important. Everything is about coordination now. So those are the young revolutionaries basically. Secondly, we try to again strike a second balance between what we call the independent technocrats and the political representation, which again would include ethnic, religious, geographic representation, which I think we had to take into account. Thirdly, we had to deal with the question of the representation of the Islamist. And again, this time, I mean, I think one of the first things that may be been said about this Islamist are overrepresented in this body. Based on the figures we have, and we did extensive mapping, the first actually, the core group of the 140 members, I think we had even percentages. And the percentage for Islamists in that was 21%, if I remember. And that would even be lowered this time because other groups joined, including more independent leftist liberals and other forces. So what's helped with solving this issue, the belief of the Islamists, that they are part of this process, part of this revolution, but they're not really eager to try to be the leading maybe force of this. Let me end by just mention that our work is still work in progress. We are very modest about our claims at this point. I think my colleagues are going to this other aspect of this, but we realize that one of the main challenges facing us, and I'll end with that one, is after the announcement of the council, we received a very impressive support inside Syria. That Friday after the announcement was called the Friday of the National Council, of the Syrian National Council. And the sign was carried that this SNC represents me. And as a result of that, I think it was a clear message that we are in fact in the process of forming a viable alternative to the Assad regime. It was so serious, as Steve said, that the regime in fact recognize us nicely. And we were in fact honored by that. But more seriously, I mean, the regime is really kind of going after the activists. I just want to mention, we talked about Riyadh Safe, but the same Friday they assassinated one member of this general secretariat, our colleague, Mashal Tammu, who's been very active throughout the 10 years of Bashar's rule. And again, it was a message how serious the regime is taking us. So our challenge, we feel that we have to deliver to those young people, we have to show them that we represent them, that we are able to voice their message. And at the same time, while we are still in the process of completing the formation of SNC, thank you. Thank you very much, Najib. You've touched on one issue that I'm sure we'll come back to again already, which is how the imperative to organize the SNC in a fashion that provides for representation of critical constituencies might introduce tensions when it comes to overcoming some of these representative groupings and building a more cohesive sense of the SNC's priorities and its agenda. I know you've been wrestling with these issues, but I introduce it as a question that we may want to come back to. Dima, please. Thank you for having us today here. The Institute of Peace. I would like actually to start by just talking a little bit about my personal experience and how I got to be here today. And it's a very, it's an honor to be among my colleagues here today. Having grown up in the Assad rule, Syria, I was very impressed when the revolution started and just seeing people taking the streets, asking for freedom, freedoms that we generally take for granted and facing bullets, I felt tremendous respect for them and pride in being Syrian. And I really, at many times, I wish I were in Syria alongside with them because having lived there, these are feelings that I think we all felt. And as the Assad regime brutally dealt with these demonstrators, killing them, torturing them, detaining them, the other things that we had to deal with were some misconceptions that this was a Muslim movement that minorities and certain sects weren't participating because they felt protected by the Assad regime. And among those were Christian Syrians that a lot of people in Syria and outside felt were pro-regime, that they were not participating in the revolution. So I felt it was very important to deliver a public message that that is not true, it's a misconception. Being a Christian Syrian, I felt very insulted that this would be what most people considered was the case. True that the Assad regime at some point gave a false sense of protection to certain minorities, but that was at the expense of the majority. And first and foremost, we're Syrian and this is a human rights issue. All religion aside, we need to make sure that we focus on the human rights portion of it. So I started participating in events and speaking as a Christian Syrian. And in fact, we have a lot of information about Christians actually going to mosques and participate to participate in the demonstration. So it had, the demonstration starting from mosques had nothing to do with it being a Muslim movement. It was just a place that made sense for people to gather on Fridays. And that's why Fridays also became the days of demonstrations. So to segue into the SNC, it became very important to reassure all people in Syria regardless of religion, political affiliation, ethnic background that they are represented. They are Syrian first and foremost and there will be no worries after the Assad regime is overthrown for them to be just as Syrian as everybody else. And I think Najib did refer to this in terms of the formation of the SNC taking into consideration all different backgrounds in ensuring all the groups are represented. So that in terms of the selection of the SNC, we wanted to make sure that all the groups within Syria regardless of their geographic location, their ethnic background, their political affiliation, any sectarian within even religions like Sunnis, Alawai, Druze, they're all represented. And that was taken into account in the matrix of the selection criteria. So when we look today at the SNC, we have participation from all groups within Syria. The Kurds have representation. There's seats for Assyrians, which actually is one of the smaller groups within Syria. There's many Christian Syrians in terms of the different sects of Muslims. There are representatives of all different sects. And this is a continuing process. This doesn't stop here. Right now the General Assembly has 230 members and those are divided. Is that 75 of them are from the interim committee that was announced back on September 15th. We have large representation of the grassroots movements and we have several seats for Muslim Brotherhood, for Kurds, for independence. And we have a few that are open still for people to be elected from the different groups that are still joining the SNC. We also have women representation. Of the 74 core group, there were 11 women, which is about 15%. And the demographic is in terms of the age, the experience in Syria abroad is very inclusive and is all taken into consideration. The amount of activism was also a factor in selecting the SNC members. The important thing at this point is for all Syrians to feel represented by this council. And we believe that the matrix that we used had taken care of that. And this was evident, as Najib I think mentioned, is that the Friday after the SNC was announced, the demonstrations were overwhelmingly supportive of the SNC in all areas, in all regions in Syria. And actually for, I think for the first time we had, the Kurds in the Northeast were mobilized also and they came out in large numbers as well. Especially after Mashal Tammu was also assassinated, they felt that they also were not protected by the regime and they are very much so part of this revolution. So in terms of the diversity, we feel we're very representative of all segments of the Syrian society and we are continuing that work. It's an ongoing process and we hope to one day have every Syrian feel represented by the SNC to make the transition to a post as a Syria, a very smooth one and supported by everyone. Dima, thank you very much also. You singled out what could be one of the critical factors in determining the fate of the SNC and that is the extent to which minorities in Syria perceive that they themselves have a viable future in a post Assad Syria. And it will be interesting to hear your sense and the sense of our colleagues on the panel about how the rise of an armed resistance affects this challenge on the part of the opposition. What new kinds of concerns might it create about the possibilities for creating an inclusive pluralist opposition that is seen by minorities as offering them a better future alongside of their Sunni fellow Syrians. Murhaf, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Steve. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is an important day in the young history of the SNC. Thank you for hosting us. I'm going to try to be as brief as I can. There are a million things to say about the Syrian revolution. I'm trying to, I will try to contain myself to only seven points that I feel are strategic. I agree completely with Najib. The Syrian revolution has to be viewed within the Arab context, the context of the Arab Spring. The Syrian revolution is cross-national. It is non-sectarian. It is non-ethnic. It is a revolution against 48 years of single-party rule, against 41 years of family rule. Point one, the bloodletting that has taken place in Syria and that continues to take place could have been avoided. I take, for example, the case of Dar'a. Initially, as you remember, there were teenagers that had been caught writing graffiti on the wall. They were arrested. Their fathers came to extricate them the following day from the hands of the cousin of Bashar al-Assad, the head of security there. And they were told to go make other kids. And if they were not men enough to make other kids to bring their wives to the muhabarah so they could make kids for them. I'll give you another example, the March 30 Parliament speech of Bashar al-Assad where everyone was expecting, really, that he offer a package of reforms to put this behind. And all he could do was to blame this crisis on a foreign conspiracy. So had he handled this situation well, there would not been a tragedy. And this goes to show that the uprising is more a product of Assad's mismanagement than it is a foreign conspiracy, which leads me to point two. The Assad regime's narrative that this is a foreign conspiracy is, to my mind, an insult to human intelligence. Assad wants people to think, certainly domestically, that the aim of this alleged foreign conspiracy is to break Syria's resistance to Israel's hegemonic ambitions. He claims that foreign powers, including the US, are in cahoots with Salafist gangsters who are shooting at both protesters and security forces alike. Of course, these foreign powers are in cahoots with Amnesty International and with Human Rights Watch and with the UN Human Rights Commission and with Al-Jazeera and with Al-Arabiya and with the International Red Cross, and I could go on and on. But, of course, that argument, his argument, does not explain why soldiers are defecting daily. It does not explain why anti-regime demonstrations are ruthlessly crushed while those supportive of him are not. Why sharpshooters atop buildings snipe at protesters and not at regime supporters. Why private hospitals are prohibited from taking the wounded to treat them and instead have to transfer them to public hospitals where, although they are wounded, they are arrested and detained. This foreign conspiracy argument is laughable even those in the resistance camp, including, mind you, Iran and Hezbollah, have called on Assad to meet popular demands. Point three, the Assad regime is unwilling to institute reforms. Significant reforms would cause the Assad regime to collapse and I totally identify with a very recent secret survey that was conducted by Professor Angela Hocken of Pepperdine University, a survey that was conducted in Syria, how she managed to do this I will never know, but in which she finds that eight out of ten Syrian surveyed want to see regime change and won't be satisfied with mere reform. Point four, the Assad regime is unwilling to share power. In Assad's proposed political reforms there are going to be political parties that will need to register in view of competing for parliamentary seats in February 2012. What Assad does not tell us is that these political parties need to have the consent of the Minister of the Interior in order to establish. What he doesn't tell us about the media laws is that media has to have the consent of the Information Minister in order to publish or to disseminate. And any criticism of the government is penalized, a fine of $25,000. What he doesn't tell us is that article eight of the Constitution, which makes of the Ba'ath Party superior to any political force and dominant of any political force in Syria will not be abrogated. Here the Assistant Secretary General Pheytan was courageous enough to come out and say it will not be abrogated. And what Assad does not tell us is that he has the very firm intention and determination of running for president again in 2014 and he will be the only candidate and he will win by 99 plus percent. You know, these so-called reforms I think are an accurate reflection of regime thinking. It is the continued regime hegemony that it wants over Syrian society. And this, the Syrian street has spoken to. Number five, the Assad regime will collapse. There is too much blood. The distance between regime and society is far too wide. The security forces are beginning to show signs of erosion other than the emergence of a free Syria army. The defense minister, as you know, General Ali Habib was replaced for quote-unquote health reasons. And shortly thereafter, the deputy chief of staff, General Antakiali, died of a quote-unquote heart attack. I don't believe it. But my disbelief or my non-belief is I understand not evidence enough. And I think if in the end the military or units of the military do not topple the regime, it is going to be the crumbling economy that will. As you know, Syria has lost its tourism income, which was roughly a quarter of its entire income. With sanctions on oil, it has lost a third of its income. And so that is making the economy truly suffer. And I think it will tumble fairly soon. Six, the Assad family will not go away easily. The Assad's are of the view that Syria is their family farm and that Syrians are their cattle. Rami Mahloof, the corrupt cousin, makes this point very bluntly in a recent New York Times interview, in which he says, do not expect us to sail on about and to go away. To survive the Assad regime, of course, is attempting to push society to sectarian strife. It is carrying minorities into thinking that they are doomed if it's not for Assad. And simultaneously, the security forces are resorting to bestial brutality against the population so as to force the militarization of the revolution. The Assad regime would like nothing better than to battle an armed force that the security forces can then sweep away. Seven, as a result of all the above, Syria may be moving towards civil war with very grave consequences, not only for Syria and Syrians, but for the entire region. And so it is incumbent upon the free world to assist the Syrian National Council in getting rid of this regime, not through military intervention, but at least by cutting the cash flow to the regime with which it finances the security forces that are brutally brutalizing the population and by staring the Assad regime down into at least allowing international monitors to act as a buffer and as a deterrent to the security forces. The Syrian National Council proposes the establishment, as Dima said, of a civil democratic government in which Syrian citizens are equal before the law. No clan and no sect is responsible for Assad's misdeeds. And finally, what is happening in the Arab world in general and in Syria in particular is historic. The winds of freedom and democracy are sweeping across the entire region. The barrier of fear has broken. Do not let the cause of freedom down. Do not let the Syrian people down. Thank you. Thank you very much, Murhaf. You raise a very, very important point. You identified as laughable the narrative of the regime about the role of the international community and international conspiracies as forces behind the Syrian uprising. And yet this narrative has had an effect on debates among Syrians about what the international community might do to assist the Syrian uprising. And it is precisely this question of the role of the international community that our final speaker, Mr. Osama Munajid, will be addressing in his comments this morning. Osama. Thank you. Thank you, S.I.P. Ladies and gentlemen, imagine this. Imagine a new Syria, a democratic country where the universal human rights of all Syrians are respected without any discrimination. Imagine a country where Sunni Muslims, Alawites, Christians, Kurds, and all other ethnic and religious groups share a life of freedom, dignity, and equality. A country where political pluralism mirrors Syria's rich cultural diversity. Imagine a Syria where civil society exercises its rights to actively participate in shaping up national development policies. Imagine a country where freedom of speech unleashes the long suppressed creativity and entrepreneurship of the Syrian people. Imagine a new Syria governed by the rule of law and an active and obliging member of the international community committed to contributing to peace and stability in the Middle East and respectful of all nations and international agreements. This is the Syria that the Syrians imagine. This is the Syrian dream, for Syrians have dreams too. And we all, we are all too aware that this dream of freedom is priceless and has a cost, which we Syrians are prepared to pay to fulfill our aspirations and bring forth our dreams. But for this dream to come true, we need to support, we need the support of the international community. We need your support. We now stand seven months into the revolution against the Assad regime. The atrocities committed so far are beyond the wildest imagination of most. Thanks to the coordinating committees and the youth groups on the ground who feed us with daily updates, document the atrocities and continue to do all the groundwork against all odds. We know that more than 4,000 unarmed civilians have been killed, including over 400 women and children. There are more than 45,000 people imprisoned. You have heard of and seen the mutilated bodies. You have also heard eye witnesses, eye witness accounts of torture, not only of the activists themselves, but also their families and relatives and loved ones. The amount of grief and sorrow is unimaginable. The country is anguished with missing husbands, raped daughters, humiliated elders and dead sons. The crimes being committed against the Syrian people by this mafia regime are sickening. If things continue as they are and nothing changes, with a fast forward snapshot into the future a year or two from now, what can we expect to happen if the international community remains silent? How many more human rights violations can we expect? How many more deaths, tortures, and how will we, or you, as members of the international community feel if we take no action? Can our collective consciousness take on another hammer of 1982? The Syrian people have voiced their wishes. People demand the fall of the regime. And so you have heard from my colleagues we now have a unified and organized opposition, the Syrian National Council, with whom the international community can engage with, as a legitimate body representing the vast majority of the opposition groups, who will act on behalf of the people. Having been legitimized by the people in Syria to work towards meeting the demands until the Assad regime topples and free and fair elections are held, what is the responsibility of the international community today? What can the international community do to assist the Syrian people and the Syrian National Council now? We need fast action from our friends close and far. From our neighbors, Turkey and the Arab countries, we need immediately an official recognition of the Syrian National Council as the sole representative of the Syrian opposition and as a legitimate representative of the Syrian people. This will provide the Syrian opposition with the moral backing and political recognition and support that it needs. By knowing that they have a legitimate representative speaking on their behalf, the moral and revolutionary stamina of the Syrian youth who are risking their lives on a daily basis will be significantly enhanced. We need the international community to conch all communications with the Assad regime and I'm specifically referring to regional here and regional powers in Turkey to conch all communications with the Assad regime to isolate it from the rest of the world and to make it clear to the regime that nobody condones implicitly or explicitly its violent repression of the peaceful uprising. Withdraw all of their ambassadors from Damascus to immediately optimize the regime and to send a clear signal that these governments regional and the Gulf and Turkey will not tolerate the current barbaric behavior of the Assad regime. This will encourage other governments in the region and elsewhere to take similar actions that will lead to the complete diplomatic isolation of the regime. Freezing the membership of the Syrian government in the Arab League and halting the activities of all the specialized agencies of the Arab League in Syria, banned Syrian satellite TV, state satellite TV, as well as private TV channels funded by the regime from broadcasting using Arab satellites such as ArabSat or Nilesat. This will reduce the influence of the Assad regime's propaganda among Syrian communities in the diaspora and undermine the regime's remaining support among these communities. Impose economic sanctions similar to those imposed by the EU and the US to deplete the financial resources of the regime and help undermine the support of the business community. Freeze the assets of all Syrian officials directly or indirectly involved in the violent repression of the uprising or in the financing of the regime. And kick regime business agents out of their countries. This will send a clear signal to Assad and his cronies that they will not be allowed to use these countries to launder their fortunes or to hide the stolen wealth of the Syrian people. What is needed from Europe and the United States? Again, recognize the Syrian National Council as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people. And as the only feasible and legitimate alternative to fill the political vacuum during the transitional period following the downfall of the Assad regime. The regime and its apologists can no longer hide behind the threat of civil war, political chaos, or a takeover by Muslim extremists as an excuse for the continued survival of the Assad mafia regime. Cut all political and economic ties with the regime to ensure its international isolation and to encourage all other countries to follow suit. Set up these sanctions on all individuals and businesses involved in financing the regime. Not only Syrians, but Arabs and other nationalities alike. Impose strict sanctions on the oil sector. Not only oil exports, but also all related upstream activities. Oil revenues contribute about third of the Syrian government's budget and these sanctions will dry up this important source of funding of the Syrian repression machine. Consider alternative options outside the mandate of the United Nations. To isolate the Assad regime and this could include collaborations between OECD, the Gulf GCC countries to impose and enforce economic sanctions. Show your clear support to the SNC, including meetings of high level officials with SNC representatives. This will have tremendous positive effect on the morale of the Syrian people and would encourage greater media exposure and coverage of the situation in Syria. While we greatly appreciate the efforts of the United States and the European Union to assist a UN Security Council resolution to condemn the Syrian regime, we are understandably very disappointed with the recent veto by Russia and China. However, some UN Security Council members chose to accept the narrative of the Assad regime by blaming the violence on armed terrorists and Muslim extremists. Then the US and EU should push for a new UN Security Council resolution to send UN monitoring mission to Syria. If the Syrian regime allowed such missions, the regime will certainly lose. If they do not, they will equally lose. Ladies and gentlemen, we believe in the moral and diplomatic power of the international community and in its ability to take action to help us topple the Assad regime and bring down one of the last vestiges of extreme totalitarianism in the world. The international community has done so before and we implore it to act again to fulfill its international responsibility. Edmund Burke once said, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. As good men and women, we all have responsibility towards Syria and to make the Syrian dream come true because Syrian's dream is your dream as well. Together, we can make this happen. Thank you. Thank you, Osama, very much.