Who will defect from the regime of President Bashar al-Assad after Riad Hijab, Colonel Yorob al-Sharaa (the cousin of the Deputy President Farouk al-Sharaa), and Manaf Tlas, the president’s friend and son of the most loyal defense minister to the Al-Assad family throughout its time in power?

This is the question that everyone is now raising as the movement of defection has become a quasi daily phenomenon and extends from diplomats to military men and politicians. In addition, there is talk about the retreat of some officials within Syria without announcing their dissidence or flying abroad. Thus, the Syrian regime now seems like a drowning ship and all its passengers are trying to escape to land before the inevitable end that everyone can see. The question here is: should one blame Riad Hijab because his conscience took too long to awaken and because he was too late to discover the “regime of terrorism and killings” as he described it yesterday now that the number of dead victims has neared twenty thousand within the past sixteen months? Or should one commend him for his courage in the face of the threats while the other passengers are waiting in their seats for the moment when the captain will drown the ship?

Riad Hijab was not known for having any political aspirations or for working for a coup against the regime in order to obtain a post in the post-revolution phase. He is a man of “agriculture” in military attire; and politics were by no means one of the characteristics that brought him to the head of the Syrian cabinet. Political proficiency was never a requirement for this post. At best, the Syrian prime minister is a first class or slightly more advanced officer. This is why all observers need to resort to Google or some other search engine to look up the identity of the prime ministers who came to power in the shadow of Bashar al-Assad such as Riad Hijab; and Adel Safar before him who saved himself and went back home; and Mohammad Otari; and Mohammad Miro; and now…Omar Ghalawenji.

It would be an exaggeration to think that the defection of Riad Hijab is more than a symbolic incident, because the defections that might really affect the regime are those that might take place within its close family and sectarian circle; or those that might take place among the security officers who oversee the implementation of the military orders on the ground. Nevertheless, the opposition’s ability to access and coordinate with the officials of the state services and the prime minister in person has to be worrisome for the regime and it must have pushed the regime to be more cautious in dealing with the ministers and all the different officials. Naturally, this caution will lead to a greater dependence on the people who are closest to the president, which will in turn lead to a rise in the defection rate among the officials of the wider circle because these will be cautioned against and pushed away from the decision making circles.

This outcome is the natural result of the excessive use of violence and killings. The regime has placed itself in a position of “animosity” with the majority of its people as per the term used by its president. Thus, it should have expected that its aides will abandon it since the amount of massacres and displacement in their regions has reached an unbearable extent. Thus, it is only natural that Manaf Tlas should think about Al-Rastan; that Riad Hijab should think about Deir al-Zour; and that Yorob al-Sharaa should think about Deraa, now that the regime is only thinking about its own people and the people belonging to its own sect and region. The regime is even waging a war in the name of these people against the majority of the population with the aim of maintaining power.

This is the real meaning of Riad Hijab’s defection, and this goes beyond any other meaning regardless of the regime’s numerous attempts at polishing the picture and playing down the value of the man – although the state’s media had described Hijab on the day he was appointed as being “the man of the current and future phase.” The defection means that Bashar al-Assad succeeded within the past two years in stripping his rule from all the slogans that his father had successfully used to adorn his regime such as Arabism and nationalism; or those slogans that provided him with a wide internal cover including all the different Syrian sects, thus shielding him against the accusation of the “minority rule.”