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Syria has been in an uprising for the past 11 months; Homs has been under siege since Feb. 4 and there is no relief for the citizens of Homs, Baba Amr and Hama among other Syrian cities.

An activist using the alias Abu Abdo stated on Feb. 9 in an interview with Anderson Cooper that, “it’s impossible to get supplies to Homs right now. The city is entirely isolated, surrounded with all types of tankers, machine guns and snipers…the [civilians] … can’t move inside the city and they can’t go out or get in. At the same time, nothing can go out or in to the city and the hunger has started to spread around…I think in one week it will be a total catastrophe, because people will start dying, will start dying [of] hunger, besides shelling and rockets.”

By watching daily video footage of Homs’s turmoil, it’s clear that Abdo isn’t exaggerating the city’s condition. Gunshots and screams can be heard in the background of each video; carnage can be seen in many.

Syrian activists are collectively opposed to President Bashar al-Assad’s sectarian regime, and support the Free Syrian Army, which is composed of defected soldiers who don’t support the Syrian government. When Cooper asked Abdu later in the interview what he wanted Assad’s regime to know, he responded with his bleak outlook for Syria if it continues to be ruled by the current power.

“We just want the al-Assad regime to know that this criminality will not solve the problem. This criminality that he is doing, it takes the country into hell. He’s killing entire cities. He’s trying to banish these cities and to destroy it into the ground…we don’t know why. We’re civilians here. Civilians live here. He’s not only killing the people and shelling with all types of heavy weapons. He’s also isolating the city, isolating this city from all sides, so if people will not die from rocket shelling and machine guns and snipers, they will die from hunger. That’s the situation in Homs. Everybody is sitting at home waiting for their death.”

Accounts like these are the reason the United Nations and Arab League have grown critical of Russia and China’s rejection for their joint plan to aid Syria. The UN Security Council attempted an effort to end the violence in Syria on February 4 just hours after Homs fell under attack. A large reason for the double veto is because the Arab League draft didn’t detail if the “peacekeepers” would be an imposed military presence in arms or not. China’s history reveals it to only fight when attacked and never to interfere in other countries’ domestic affairs.

Liu Weimin, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman commented that, “China calls for and supports the Arab League’s continued efforts at political mediation, which plays a proactive and constructive role with regard to peaceful settlement of the Syrian issue.”

Weimin didn’t mention whether China would ever support the draft as written. China is similar to Russia who believes that in order to approve of a peacekeeping effort, Syria needs to approve of the movement. Syria has, thus far, denied every attempt to help its condition.

The United States supports the UN and Arab League draft for peacekeeping in Syria. In the time being, the only option the US has given itself to do until the draft passes is to strengthen economic sanctions against Assad at an attempt to put Russia on the defensive. It doesn’t appear that Russia will consider any draft until the stipulations that Assad must step down and withdraw his military are dropped.

Syria was expelled from the Arab League in late 2011 after President Bashar al-Assad broke a peace agreement and increased attacks on protestors. According to The New York Times, the UN stopped tallying the Syrian death toll in January after the count passed 5,400 saying, “they were too difficult to confirm accurately, and since then the toll has mounted, with hundreds said to have been killed in the attack on Homs alone.”

Anderson Cooper remarked on Feb. 8 about al-Assad’s repeated broken promises to end the domestic violence of his citizens: “…the [atrocities are] unfolding despite al-Assad’s commitment or stated committed to ending the violence. He made that promise to Russia’s visiting foreign minister only yesterday. He’s made that promise before, of course, and that promise has always been broken. By this morning his sincerity could be measured in dead men, dead women and dead children.”

How Syria got to this point

Al-Assad has modified the date of a scheduled referendum to the Syrian constitution to Feb. 26, more than a month earlier than originally planned, said Syrian news media on Feb. 15.

Syria has been ruled by the Baath Party since 1963, when it took power with a coup d’ etat.

In April, Assad ended the state of emergency that had been in place since the Baathists seized control. Only days after this monumental change, Assad’s government began condemning protestors who were demanding amendments to Syria’s constitution.

The current constitution names the Baath Party as head of the state.

The new draft details a state based on political pluralism and a democratic voting system. It goes on to further elaborate how the president, as a Muslim man, can serve a maximum of two seven-year terms, setting constraints to the presidential office for the first time in decades.

Al-Assad’s father, Hafez al-Assad, ruled for 29 years before his death in 2000.

Al-Assad has said that the new constitution will bring Syria into a “new era,” said the Sanaa state news agency.

Assad was quoted in Al Jazeera saying, “’When the new constitution is approved, Syria will have passed the most important stage’ of reforms, bringing a ‘brilliant future for next generations.’”
Assad’s critics have shrugged off Assad’s proposal as “a cynical and empty gesture,” said Rick Gladstone, writer for The New York Times.

Jay Carney, a White House spokesman, said that, “it’s actually quite laughable…it makes a mockery of the Syrian revolution.
Promises of reforms have usually been followed by an increase in brutality and have never been delivered upon by this regime since the beginning of peaceful demonstrations in Syria.”

He went on to say that the, “Assad regime’s days are numbered.”
Russia applauds the new draft. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said, “We certainly believe a new constitution to end one-party rule in Syria is a step forward. It is a welcome idea and we hope the constitution will be adopted.”

The proposed constitution undermines most of the opposition by banning religious parties and dual nationals, excluding the Syrian National Council from running for office.

Despite Assad’s efforts to quicken the reforms for Syria, the United Nations General Assembly approved a resolution on Feb. 16 that rebukes Assad’s militarized attacks on the uprising and supports an Arab League proposal asking Assad to resign and relinquish power to the vice president.

The resolution was favored by a 137-12 vote, but holds no power of enforcement. It is merely a symbolic majority disapproval of Assad among the UN. Syria’s government tried to bar the vote and heavily criticized Arab League members who support the resolution.

Bashar Jaafari, Syria’s ambassador to the United Nations, referred to the resolution as “biased,” and having, “nothing to do with the events in Syria.”

Among the twelve countries who voted against the resolution are Russia, China, Venezuela, and North Korea. The resolution was criticized by its opposition as, “an unwarranted interference in Syria’s internal politics,” according The New York Times’ Rick Gladstone.

Gladstone went on to report that Assad has been condemned for interpreting the double veto of a similar resolution by Russia and China two weeks ago as a “green light” to squelch the domestic uprising by relentless military force.

Assad has dismissed the Syrian forces standing against him as terrorist gangs backed with foreign aid and sees no reason he should not stay in power for the time being.

While the U.S. supports the resolution the UN General Assembly proposed, all that can be done in the meantime is “more rhetoric, more sanctions, [and] more diplomatic support for the Arab League and the Syrian National Council,” according to NPR’s Blake Hounshell.

Some Syrians Hounshell interviewed don’t see any power in words. “Diplomacy won’t work,” one Syrian said. “Everybody wants to fight the regime and the regime thinks it now has its chance. Male refugees I met in Jordan are waiting for weapons to be secured before they sneak back into Syria to join the FSA and many have already done so. I am talking about the overwhelming majority of male refugees. It is mind-boggling.”

Another Syrian interviewed said, “if the FSA is armed properly, we’ll probably see more civilians join as well as an incredible increase in the amount of proper military defections.”

These reactions clearly display the lack of hope Syrians have in the UN or in any foreign aid. The only hope they are holding onto is to be supplied with more effective weapons, which will then essentially make Assad’s assumption of them true.