Syrian President Bashar Assad said Monday that the United States has lost its influence in the Middle East due to its failure to contribute to regional peace, in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
U.S. President Barack Obama “raised hopes” in the region, said Assad, but has failed to accomplish any significant peace maneuvers.
Assad’s comments came just before Obama was to meet with Lebanon Prime Minister Sa’ad al-Hariri to raise Washington’s concerns about Syria arming Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
The Syrian leader met on Sunday with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in Damascus earlier Sunday and urged the West to “break its silence” in the face of Israeli “aggression” in the Middle East.
During their talks, Assad denounced “the ongoing Israeli threats to ignite wars and undermine the stability in the region.”
“The region has changed and the West’s policy in the area is no longer acceptable, keeping silent over Israeli violations is no longer acceptable,” Assad told Kouchner, according to Syria’s official news agency SANA.
“If the West wants security and stability to be established in the Middle East, [it] must start to play an effective role to contain Israel and put an end to its extremist policies,” Assad said.
The Syrian president also told Kouchner that the Western countries pushing for harsh United Nations sanctions against Iran should understand that Tehran’s contentious nuclear program was aimed at civilian and not military pursuits, according to SANA.
“The countries involved need to change their attitude to Iran’s civil nuclear program, because this agreement is an important opportunity to reach a diplomatic solution and prevent a tragic dispute in the region and the world at large,” said Assad.
Also Sunday, Syria defied Western pressure over its support for the militant group Hezbollah and said it would not act as a policeman for Israel to prevent weapons from reaching the Lebanese Shi’ite movement.
“Did Israel ever stop arming itself, did it stop instigating violence or making military maneuvers,” Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said after meeting his German counterpart Guido Westerwelle. “Why are arms forbidden to Arabs and allowed to Israel?”
Citing Israeli occupation of Arab land and the technical state of war between Syria and Israel, Moualem said the Damascus government “will not be a policeman for Israel”.
“Israel is beating the drum of war. In the absence of real peace every thing is possible,” he added.
Syria, a country Washington says is critical for Middle East peace, has shown no signs of withdrawing backing for Hezbollah, which is also supported by Iran, although the issue has clouded rapprochement between Damascus and Washington.
The row intensified when President Shimon Peres last month accused Syria, which borders Lebanon, of sending long-range Scud missiles to Hezbollah.
Syria said it only gives Hezbollah political backing and that Israel may be using the accusation as a pretext for a military strike.
“A Scud missile is as big as this room. How could it be hidden and smuggled with Israeli planes and satellites all over the region?” Moallem asked, adding that cumbersome Scuds were not suited to Hezbollah’s guerrilla tactics.
or condemning himself to death?
This putrid proposal will be tremendously popular among American liberal Jews.
Israeli militarism is an endless source of embarrassment for leftist Jews, who incur much grief from their anti-Semitic liberal brethren whenever the Israelis refuse to be obediently masochistic.
While a neutered and helpless Israel may not be as desirable as an extinct Israel, the Woody Allen crowd would consider it to be an enormous improvement.
As chief congressional kapo Gary Ackerman would doubtlessly proclaim, “Now we will suffer no more Israeli pogroms against the Palestinians!”
Obama views Israel as being an intolerable military aggressor.
Just as he views America.
His intermediate goal is to make it impossible for the Jews to defend themselves militarily.
This will be achieved by stationing Europeans between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Euros will not prevent the Arabs from killing Jews, but will stop the Jews from retaliating.
The template is Lebanon, where the presence of NATO troops has prevented Israel from stopping Hezbollah’s war preparations.
Olmert is so crazy that he entrusted the security of Israel’s northern border to the Germans and French.
Yet if memory serves, Israel was founded in large part because Germans and French cannot be trusted with the safety of Jews.
If Netanyahu accepts NATO troops in Judea and Samaria, he will be condemning Israel to death.
Peace in our time. Assad needs to relax, ‘O’ has it all under control, or thinks to:
Obama plan: Global troops to protect Israel
Ayn, this would never make it beyond Uncle Nahum (Yamit).
These words of wisdom confirm my longstanding contention that what Israel really needs is a Catholic prime minister.
Ayn, I hope not. The PM should send someone else in his place, why should he visit the bastard after the treatment he received the last time.
This would be a meeting to help this administration and he should not play into it.
Fuck obama, emanuel and axelrod.
Come on PM, send someone else and tell them you had a previous dinner engagement.
Netanyahu returning to the White House
Did Netanyahu exact any concessions in exchange for being cynically used as an election year prop?
Or has he accepted his role as a battered wife to be alternately abused and patronized?
The Jewish predicament is entirely emotional.
Jews have been pariahs for millennia.
The resulting conditioned response is one of self-loathing.
The solution is to loathe anti-Semites instead.
That is what makes Israel so special.
In 1948 and 1956 and 1967 and 1973, the Jews did not accept their designated role as victims.
They defeated and intimidated the anti-Semites.
L’Chaim!
Insofar as Einstein is concerned, there is zero correlation between academic excellence and common sense.
Obama is putting on the election year full court press, courting American Jews with flattery…
…but the anti-Israel policies remain completely intact.
So which factor matters more to liberal Americans Jews: the survival of Israel, or being stroked by a cynical anti-Semite?
A rhetorical if ever there were one:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gQ0SH_J7ZqYxtGejS5RK2mpPZb1gD9FU4N080
Obama should also invite Noam Chomsky, Roger Cohen, Richard Falk, Norman Finkelstein, Tony Judt, Tony Karon, Naomi Klein, MJ Rosenberg, Sara Roy, Philip Weiss, Jeremy Ben-Ami, and Debra DeLee.
And Hyman Peskin should be there, too.
Canadian though he may be, Hymie is an essential guest at this gathering.
The Jewish Intellectual Predicament
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/05/25/the-jewish-intellectual-predicament-2/
This is exactly the same argument that liberals make.
Assad’s comments are meant to provoke Obama to be more aggressive against Israel; that is how progress is measured in the Arab world. Obama wishes to do their bidding, but he knows he has to be careful about how he takes Israel on–hence, Obama is frozen momentarily.