BEIRUT: Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri said Syria’s signing of an Arab League plan to allow Arab observers into the country, will not prevent the fall of President Bashar Assad.

“He signed but he will fall,” Hariri tweeted in reference to the Syrian president. Earlier, Hariri’s Future parliamentary bloc welcomed Syria’s signing of the protocol and called on Damascus to fully comply with the Arab initiative aimed at ending a nine-month brutal crackdown on protesters demanding the ouster of President Bashar Assad.

“The bloc welcomed the signing by authorities in Syria of the Arab League initiative. It is cautiously watching full compliance by the [Syrian] authorities with all provisions of the Arab initiative,” the bloc said in a statement issued after its weekly meeting chaired by former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

The statement also called on the Paris-based Syrian National Council, the main opposition bloc against the Assad regime, to bring the other opposition parties into its ranks.

The signing of the protocol with the Arab League to send Arab observers to Syria to monitor a league plan aimed at ending the unrest there evoked mixed reactions Tuesday.

President Michel Sleiman said local and regional attitudes praising the signing of the protocol conformed with Lebanon’s call on the Arab League to restore Arab solidarity.

“The local and regional attitudes welcoming Syria’s signing of the protocol with the Arab League reflected the correctness of Lebanon’s official position which was taken at the league itself and at the U.N. Security Council,” Sleiman said.

The Lebanese position called on “the Arab League to play its role in boosting Arab solidarity firstly, protecting Arab security and peace secondly, and implementing democracy in a correct way,” he said.

Sleiman renewed his call for a dialogue between the rulers and people. “The regimes themselves must adopt dialogue with segments of the society in order to forge a democratic system based on a rotation of power and respect of freedoms for all so that efforts can be geared toward tackling the primary Arab cause: the Palestine cause to prevent Israel from persisting in Judaization of Jerusalem and other cities,” Sleiman said.

Bowing to Arab and international pressure to end a violent crackdown on protesters, Syria agreed Monday to let Arabs monitor its compliance with an Arab League peace agreement intended to promote political dialogue between the government and the opposition.

However, the main opposition to Assad dismissed the signing of the protocol as a “stalling” tactic. The plan also calls for a complete halt to the violence, releasing detainees and the military’s complete withdrawal from towns and residential zones. Syria must also hold talks with the opposition under league auspices.

Hezbollah’s deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem said he expected the signing of the protocol to reflect positively on Syria and its surroundings.

“The signing [of the protocol] amounts to a declaration of the failure of some bets on the destruction of Syria as a prelude to the destruction of Lebanon to serve the American-Israeli plan which wants a chaotic surrounding [to allow] Israel to continue its expansionist plan in Jerusalem and the West Bank,” Qassem said in a statement.

The Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon Ghazanfar Roknabadi, whose country is a strategic ally of Syria, praised the signing of the protocol as “a very positive step.”

Speaking to reporters Roknabadi said: “We consider this [protocol] as a very positive step after Syria introduced amendments to this protocol.”

Future Beirut MP Ammar Houri said the regime in Syria is in a “predicament” despite the signing of the protocol. “The signing [of the protocol] is tantamount to opening the scope for monitoring the freedom of demonstrations, pursuing the release of prisoners and following up the work of international media outlets freely inside Syrian territories,” Houri told Future News television.