DESPERATION – AT 11:14 A.M.  ET:  Barack Obama isn't the only president acting like an amateur these days.  The president of Syria is throwing out some crumbs in the hope of stopping the rebellion in his own country:

(CNN) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Saturday that the country's state of emergency, in effect since 1963, should be lifted by next week at the latest -- but that the final decision is up to the newly sworn-in Cabinet.

Al-Assad made the announcement Saturday hours after the Cabinet was sworn in, and two days after he announced the formation of a new government.

Opposition forces have been demanding the repeal of the emergency law, which allows the government to make preventive arrests and override constitutional and penal code statutes. the law also bars detainees who haven't been charged from filing court complaints or from having a lawyer present during interrogations.

"We (will) lift the state of emergency contrary to the opinion of many others who think this might lead to imbalance in the state of security," al-Assad said as he chaired a meeting of the new government. "I disagree with this, and I think this will consolidate the security of the country." 

And...

Al-Assad had already said he was studying whether to end the 48-year-old state of emergency and provide citizenship for stateless people in the Kurdish region as a way to placate the demonstrators.

Activists, however, say the government has cracked down violently on peaceful protesters. That claim is disputed by the Syrian government, which blames armed groups for attacking security forces and citizens.

Human Rights Watch, a prominent humanitarian watchdog group, issued a report Friday detailing "torture and ill-treatment" of protesters over the past month, and U.N. human rights experts released a statement deploring the crackdown on peaceful demonstrations.

Apparently, Assad's sales talk didn't have much effect.  The answer came today:

(Reuters) - Thousands of Syrians chanted slogans calling for greater freedom at independence day rallies on Sunday, witnesses said, a day after President Bashar al-Assad promised to lift emergency law.

"The people want freedom," several hundred people shouted at the grave of independence leader Ibrahim Hananu in Syria's second city Aleppo, which has been mostly free of pro-democracy protests that erupted more than a month ago in the south.

Hundreds also turned out in the southern city of Suweida, in the heart of the country's Druze heartland. They chanted "God, Syria, freedom, that's all," before coming under attack from Assad loyalists, a woman at the demonstration said.

"They came at us with sticks and also hit us with the pictures they were carrying of Bashar -- the same president who was talking about freedom yesterday," she said.

COMMENT:  Syria is critically important, but the United States, in another policy contradiction, has given Assad only a slap on the wrist, in contrast to its harsh criticism of ally Mubarak of Egypt.  Put a community organizer in the White House, you get a community organizer with better accommodations, and that's all.

April 17, 2011