Syria’s new PM: Assad’s alternative or American puppet?
Syria divided over opposition’s Ghassan Hitto; Egyptian government faces potentially drastic cut in aid
Michael Bassin is a founding member of the Gulf-Israel Business Council, a co-founder at ScaleUpSales Ltd, and the author of "I Am Not a Spy: An American Jew Goes Deep In The Arab World & Israeli Army."

Debate is raging across the Arab world over whether Ghassan Hitto, the prime minister-designate of the Syrian National Coalition, should be looked on as a viable alternative to President Bashar Assad or as merely a puppet of the US government and Syria’s neighbors, the Arab media reports.
The London-based Al-Hayat reports that Hitto, a Syrian-born naturalized American citizen who left his homeland at the age of 17, is preparing to form his government somewhere in Syrian territory near the Turkish border. He is expected to create twelve ministries and gradually restore law and order to Syrian lands occupied by rebel forces. Hitto has also called for his government to reflect Syria’s ethnic diversity.
Hitto and Moaz al-Khatib, the president of the Syrian National Coalition, have already demanded that the Arab League and the United Nations grant the seats reserved for Syrian representatives to members of their government.
The US, Turkey, Jordan, and Gulf states have expressed approval of Hitto’s election, praising him for his humanitarian aid efforts and his decision to abandon his bourgeois American lifestyle to rebuild Syria.
Nabil Elaraby, the secretary-general of the Arab League, told the Doha-based media channel Al-Jazeera that “the temporary formation of the Syrian government is the culmination of efforts to unite the forces of the Syrian government and reach agreement on common political ground.”
However, support for Hitto is by no means unanimous. 12 members of the Syrian National Coalition have already frozen their membership in the body to protest his selection.
“The coalition is not an elected body and does not have the right to choose a prime minister on the basis of receiving a majority vote,” says Kamal al-Labwani, a leading figure in the opposition from the early days of the uprising. “We members of the coalition were not [formally] elected to represent the Syrian people. Hitto represents only the 35 people who voted for him. This is a boon for Bashar Assad.”
‘The coalition is not an elected body and does not have the right to choose a prime minister on the basis of receiving a majority vote’
The Syrian daily Al-Watan, which is used as a mouthpiece by the Syrian regime, mocks the coalition’s choice of Hitto.
“After months of disagreements on positions, the [Syrian] Muslim Brotherhood, supported by Turkey and Qatar, appointed an American of Syrian origin, Ghassan Hitto, to head the interim government without ministers to manage the so-called liberated areas,” the paper taunts.
The newspaper goes on to describe Hitto “as someone who parachuted down from the sky and who doesn’t know anything about Syria. He left at the age of 17 to run away from performing his military service to move to the United States.”
However, controversial as Hito’s new position may be, Assad is not exactly making any great diplomatic strides himself. Yesterday his air force bombed areas just east of Damascus and his army now stands accused of using chemical weapons on his own people.
According to the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi, NATO Commander James Stavridis has publicly come out with the statement that certain NATO members are planning military operations against Assad’s strongholds, similar to what ensued in Libya.
Egypt’s economy threatened on all sides
An Egyptian court yesterday ordered the state’s attorney general to prevent 23 Egyptian businessmen from withdrawing their money from the country.
These businessmen, which include former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s sons Gamal and Alaa, “are accused of manipulating the Egyptian stock market and profiting unjustly from the sale of the National Bank of Egypt to the National Bank of Kuwait,” the Saudi-owned A-Sharq Al-Awsat reports.
An investigation by the Attorney General’s Office revealed that these men profited unfairly from their activities and severely damaged Egypt’s investment climate, causing investors from the region and beyond to pull their money from the country.
The Egyptian government, which has dwindling supply of currency reserves, fears that a quick withdrawal of money from the country will induce widespread economic panic the like of which the country has never seen.
Egypt is already in serious danger of having European Union aid withheld for not passing necessary economic reforms. The Cairo-based Al-Masry Al-Youm reports that the government of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi will lose out on a $6.5 billion aid package unless critical reforms are enacted.
A report by the European Commission states that “Cairo has not shown sufficient progress since the revolution that toppled former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.”
The report also bashed Morsi’s government for “serious setbacks in human rights.”