The U.S. Department of State on Friday issued a travel warning urging all U.S. citizens to depart Syria immediately, “while commercial transportation is still available.” It warns, “Syrian efforts to attribute the current civil unrest to external influences may lead to an increase in anti-foreigner sentiment. Detained U.S. citizens may find themselves subject to allegations of incitement or espionage.”

Kuwaitis in Kuwait City demonstrate to demand expulsion of Syrian ambassador (AFP)

It was the first Friday in Ramadan and the first major day of demonstrations in the city of Hama since Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad’s regime began its bloody massacre on the unarmed civilians of the city, reportedly killing over 200 people. If Assad had hoped that the massacre would stop the anti-regime demonstrations, then his hopes were dashed on Friday, according to the LA Times.

In cities across the country, tens of thousands were willing to risk their lives by joining the demonstrations. At least 14 people were killed on Friday, 11 of them in the capital, Damascus, and its outskirts. “Because of the crackdown in Hama, people all over went out on the streets in solidarity. This is what happens when the government tries to stop us,” according to one activist.

Assad is particularly focusing on Hama because of the city’s historical significance. Syria’s last generational crisis war was the civil war that began in 1976, and featured a major armed uprising by people under the name of the Muslim Brotherhood. The crisis climax of the war occurred when President Hafez al-Assad, the father of the current president, bombed the city flat in 1982, killing tens of thousands of people, in one of the most brutal genocidal acts since the end of World War II.

Today’s president Assad is reliving those days. He imagines an armed uprising of “foreign activists,” like the Muslim Brotherhood in days of old. He actually claims that the violence and slaughter were being perpetrated not by his forces but by these armed activists. Maybe he really believes that or maybe he’s making a political statement, but either way, he’s trying to prevent the massive bloodshed of a new uprising like the one in 1982.

What Assad doesn’t understand is that such an uprising is literally impossible at this time. Syria is in a generational Awakening era, one generation past the bloody 1982 Hama massacre. The survivors of that massacre are still alive, and they’ve determined that nothing like that should ever happen again.

So we have a situation where Assad is acting in the belief that he’s in the beginning of a massive new armed uprising in Hama, although such an uprising is impossible. If Assad understood Generational Dynamics theory (or read my web site), he would know that the bloody massacre he’s perpetrating is completely unproductive.

Syrian’s demonstrators today are not perpetrating an armed uprising. They’re like the demonstrators in America’s last generational Awakening era, in the 1960s and 1970s. The young generation, in the same archetype as America’s Boomers of the 1960s, will continue to demonstrate and express outrage for years, until some climax occurs, such as the end of Assad’s reign.

Russian president Medvedev says that Assad is ‘in for a grim fate’

Photo of Assad scolding Russian president Medvedev

Although Russia refused to allow a UN Security Council resolution on Syria, it did go along with a toothless statement condemning the violence. However, even this represents a change by the Russians. But now, Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev says:

“In my discussions with President Assad during our personal conversations and in our correspondence I have been advocating one principal idea: that he should immediately launch reforms, reconcile with the opposition, restore civil accord, and start developing a modern state. Should he fail to do that, he is in for a grim fate, and we will eventually have to take some decisions on Syria, too. Naturally, we have been watching developments very attentively. The situation is changing, and so are our objectives.”

Voice of Russia

Hizbollah’s dilemma on Syria uprising

Lebanon’s terrorist group Hizbollah initially supported the “Arab spring” movements, with Hizbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah saying, “We cannot stand idly when the disputes takes place between the oppressed and oppressor, between right and wrong.” However, he’s changed his tune since the Arab uprising spread to Syria, and threatened the regime of Hizbollah’s close ally, Bashar al-Assad. Each wave of arrests and killings in Syria exposes the dual standards of his position. There have been reports of protesters chanting anti-Hizbollah slogans, and the organisation has come in for criticism from some former supporters in the Arab media. Financial Times (Access)