Waiting Out The Inevitable

"The coalition is expected to announce a provisional government made of technocrats, a military command and a co-ordination centre devoted to humanitarian aid in the coming weeks.
"Lack of international support (for) the national coalition will only cause the civilian death toll to climb and allow radical elements to flourish....  We urge you not to let this opportunity pass, for the sake of our shared Canadian values, for the sake of humanity."
Syrian Canadian Council letter to Government of Canada

But in fact the newly established National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, which has received formal recognition from France and the United Kingdom, along with Turkey and six Persian Gulf countries, has been rejected outright by the powerful and dismissive Islamist and Salafist groups that have taken their inspiration from al-Qaeda, and which appear to hold much of Aleppo.

They insist that their new Syria will not resemble the old one.  Their new Syria will be a fundamentalist Islamist society, one where Sharia law is front and foremost, shaping everything that the new Syria is destined to become.  They have contempt for the newly-formed coalition of which the West approves.  Although the United States remains suspicious enough of their efficacy and purpose of inclusiveness to withhold recognition.

And Canada too, while taking the steps of international courtesy to congratulate the coalition on its formation and growing recognition, has chosen a path for itself of waiting and watching to determine what will ensue.  "Our government strongly believes that a united opposition must ensure that there is a place for all religious minorities in a new Syria", Rick Roth, spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird responded.

In light of the ongoing disagreement between the more politically secular-oriented Sunni tribal divisions and those thirteen or so groups representing the Islamists, a wait-and-see attitude seems to reflect common sense.  What is in the balance is the fate of the Shia minority population within Syria whose current regime, a Shia offshoot, protects them. 

What is also in balance is how the emerging power of the majority Sunnis will impact on Syria's ancient Christian population.  There is more than ample evidence that they will suffer under a new regime comprised of rigid Sharia law in a new Sunni-led Syria. 

As reflected in what has happened elsewhere where Arab Christians find themselves threatened, and worse.