Feltman's & Nuland at odds: 'Don't take up arms & don't surrender them if you did!'

"..."Some Arab leaders already have begun to offer Assad safe-haven in an effort to encourage him to leave peaceably and quickly," said Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman. "Almost all the Arab leaders say the same thing: Assad's rule is coming to an end. Change in Syria is now inevitable," Feltman told members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a hearing on Assad's bloody crackdown on dissent. While some talk of a "palace coup" in Damascus, Feltman said, "I think that's very unlikely."...  Feltman pleaded with the opposition "to continue to reject violence. To do otherwise would, frankly, make the regime's job of brutal repression easier" while crippling domestic and international support for the protests. "It will play into the regime's hands, divide the opposition, and undermine international consensus against the regime," said the diplomat, who worried about some protestors "taking up arms in self-defense" against the crackdown. This is "potentially disastrous" to foes of the regime ... US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland's (the Neocon Robert Kagan's wife) advice to Syrians on Friday against surrendering in response to the Damascus government's offer of an amnesty for those who give up their weapons...."