Bashar al-Assad Warns Against Foreign Intervention in Syria DOHA, Qatar - The quarrelsome Syrian opposition was locked in extended bartering on Thursday over the creation of a more diverse yet unified umbrella organization that its foreign backers hope will become a credible alternative to the Damascus government. The basic goal is to create an executive body - with members within Syria and abroad - that can channel aid to nascent local governments in opposition controlled areas, bolstering their hold over territory wrested from the Syrian government. If it works, supporters say, the plan would help to both push back against the chaos in which jihadi organizations thrive, and to convince foreign governments - particularly a second Obama administration - to get invested more directly in the opposition's success. "We have to find a way out of the cul-de-sac that we are in," said Ayman Abdel Nour, a former confident of President Bashar al-Assad turned opposition activist. We need to find a solution so that the Syrian opposition can deal with the international community through one executive body, rather than everyone with his own opinion, his own agenda and his own allies. The meeting in Doha was the latest effort to build an effective and united opposition leadership after many failed attempts since the uprising began nearly 20 months ago. It was supported by the United States and Qatar, which have called for President Assad to step down - and have even offered some material support to the rebels. Without a unified opposition various foreign supporters - Qataris, Saudis, Turks, French, Americans - have each aided different groups allowing the opposition to survive but without the critical mass it might need to succeed in taking out the government. If the opposition needed a reminder of the stakes, President Assad provided one with a rare interview, telling the Russia Today satellite channel that he was not leaving the country. I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country," he said in excerpts published Thursday on the channel's Web site. I am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria. Asked about possible armed intervention, Mr. Assad said he did not expect the West to invade, "but if they do so, nobody can tell what is next," Mr. Assad said. The price of an invasion "if it happened is going to be more than the whole world can afford," he added in the brief excerpt. The station said the full interview will be broadcast Friday. Foreign governments who back the Syrian opposition had hoped that the Syrian National Council would become a government-in-exile when it was created more than a year ago. But the American secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, pronounced it a failure late last month. She said the United States and its partners would help the opposition unite "behind a shared, effective strategy that can resist the regime's violence and begin to provide for a political transition that can demonstrate, more clearly than has beenpossible up until now, what the future holds for the Syrian people once theAssad regime is gone." Members of the Syrian National Council fought back like a fish on a hook - maneuvering to avoid what members fear will be marginalization. Members gathered in Doha all week to introduce reforms - doubling the overall membership to more than 400, including some 33 percent from inside Syria, up from 15 percent. But some attempts to prove its diversity backfired - not a single woman won in the elections for a 40-member secretariat, for example, and few members from inside made it either because they lacked support from a political bloc. But the main criticism of the S.N.C. is that it has failed to attract the kind of support needed to shift the balance of power away from Mr. Assad, instead spending months jockeying over internal positions. The S.N.C. lacks significant support from the minority Alawite sect of President Assad, other minorities, tribal elders, important religious figures and from the business community. Hala Droubi contributed reporting from Doha, Qatar; Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad contributed reported from Beirut, Lebanon; Alan Cowell contributed from London and Rick Gladstone from New York.