UN Mission in Syria Faces Criticism

For some anti-Assad activists, those aren’t enough to successfully overturn the regime. Ammar Abdulhamid, a Damascus-born activist serving as a fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said he does not expect the U.N. mission to work because of Russia’s current support of the Assad regime.

“Unless the monitors are willing to be stationed in targeted communities for weeks at the time, their presence will not have any serious impact,” he told National Journal in an email. “The words of the Obama administration are with us, but their policies and actions are not.”

Abdulhamid and his family were forced to leave Syria in 2005 because of their criticism of the Assad regime, and he currently provides strategy, slogans and supplies to activists on the ground. For him, all that will work is military intervention.