Abdel Rahman Shalgham

Can Syrian Defections Sway Diplomacy?

Al Jazeera has put together a stunning interactive infographic of high level defections from the Syrian regime. Here’s a screen grab, but do click over for a better view. The red dots you see are top officials who’ve defected; the gray dots are those still in government. According to the data, there’ve been a total of 41 high profile defections. Most of the top defectors have come from the military and security apparatus. With some exceptions, relatively few have come from the upper-tranches of the diplomatic core. This is a stark contrast to Libya. Among the first and ...