Breaking News, World News and Taiwan News.

Updated Friday, November 28, 2008 10:30 am TWN, By Ed Cropley, Reuters

Sponsors
▪	Save 75% for all hotels in Shanghai, Beijing and whole China. Lowest rates for Flights in China.
▪	Get the best deals for Guangzhou Hotels or choose from more than 10,000 hotels in 499 Chinese cities.
▪	Find great real time deals on China Flights. Book flights to China or China domestic flights 24/7.
▪	Buy china wholesale products from reliable chinese wholesalers on DHgate.com!

Army, king don't hold the right keys to solving Thailand's impasse

"The military, caught in its own dilemma, can't decide what role it should play at this crucial time when it is expected to be an honest broker," the staunchly anti-government Nation newspaper said in an editorial.

Unlike in 2006, when Thaksin was out of the country and troops seized control without firing a shot, the army faces a pro-government group that has vowed to take up arms in defense of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, Thaksin's brother-in-law.

"There will be war for sure," a senior member of the United front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD), also known as the Democratic Alliance Against Dictatorship (DAAD), told Reuters.

With Anupong trapped, there have inevitably been rumors of splits within the ranks and a putsch happening against his will, a far from outlandish proposition in a country that has witnessed 18 coups or attempted coups in 76 years of on-off democracy.

So far, though, the top brass appear to be holding together.

All of which leaves the king.

In 1992, the monarch intervened after the army killed dozens of pro-democracy demonstrators in Bangkok, summoning the prime minister, an army general and the leader of the protesters to Bangkok's Grand Palace.

Although his words at the televised audience were balanced, the underlying message was clear and the prime minister stepped down three days later.

While the 80-year-old has lost none of his moral authority -- many of Thailand's 65 million people regard him as semi-divine -- he has undergone several operations since 1992 and spent three weeks in hospital last year with a blood clot on the brain.

At the cremation of his elder sister this month he walked with a pronounced shuffle and looked frail, raising questions about his ability to stage another dramatic political intervention.

"My thinking is that the king is not part of the equation any more," one Bangkok-based diplomat said.

However, the king's annual address to the nation on the eve of his Dec. 5 birthday may provide an opportunity for him to comment on the crisis.

There are also fears that the palace's official political neutrality was badly compromised by Queen Sirikit's alignment with the PAD, made explicit when she attended the funeral of a 28-year-old woman killed in clashes with riot police last month.

1|2