It is bizarre and astonishing that Western countries, especially the USA and France, stubbornly refuse to learn from their own manifold mistakes in order to grasp the deeply rooted criminal, inhuman, savage and terrorist nature of the Syrian Baathist dictatorial regime. They naively keep on repeating their same unproductive strategies and accordingly reap the same failures. Since the early eighties these countries have erratically been adopting a carrot and stick policy with Syria's brutal The US naively keeps on repeating the same unproductive strategies. rulers, but for reasons incomprehensible to political analysts, they never went far enough to topple this regime and support the Syrian people’s rights for freedom and peace as they did in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is worth mentioning that Syria has been on the US Department of State’s terrorist watch list since December 29, 1979, and is considered globally by policy makers and think tanks the number one state worldwide that sponsors and breeds terrorist groups. In spite of the USA’s and EU’s recent hasty and unjustified overtures toward Syria’s dictator, Bachar Al Assad, the Syrian regime brazenly continues to provide overt massive political and material support to Hizbullah and many Palestinian terrorist groups. Even when all tangible proof and documents have demonstrated that day after day Syria is recruiting, training, sponsoring and facilitating the infiltration of militant insurgents into Iraq since 2003, no decisive deterrent action was taken by the USA except for press releases and empty rhetorical threats. One wonders why this pariah regime has still not been toppled when its rulers have been oppressing, terrorizing, murdering and impoverishing their own people and destabilizing all its neighboring countries, especially Lebanon and Iraq. Meanwhile, Syria's dictator, Bachar Al Assad, keeps on defying the Western and Arabic countries' demands and hopes in regard to his relations with Iran and the terrorist groups and continues steadily to solidify Syria's relations and ties with the Iranian mullah's terrorist regime, Hizbullah and Hamas on all levels. Against all logic and odds the Obama administration has been appeasing Al Assad in a rapprochement bid to cut his ties with Iran and stop his country's sponsorship and weaponry supply to Hizbullah and Hamas. In this context the USA gave its close ally, Saudi Arabia, the approval to amend its bitter relations with Al Assad, decided to return its ambassador to Damascus who was withdrawn in February 2005 in the aftermath of the Lebanese PM, Rafic Al Hariri's assassination in a bombing widely blamed on Syria, and last Monday it lifted a travel warning to Syria that was in place since September 2006 when armed assailants attacked the US Embassy in Damascus. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during a Senate budget debate last Wednesday (17.02.10) said that the United States is urging Syria to distance itself from Iran as well as to stop arming Hizbullah and interfering in Lebanon. In disclosing US demands for engagement with Syria, Clinton was blunter than ever about Washington's bid to drive a wedge between Damascus and Tehran. Clinton presented a set of demands that Washington is making to Syria now that a US ambassador is returning to Damascus for the first time in five years under President The U.S. should pack up and leave the Middle East and stay out of regional affairs, Ahmadinejad added. Barack Obama's policy of engagement. She said that William Burns, the number three diplomat at the State Department, "had very intense, substantive talks in Damascus" when he visited there last week. "And we've laid out for the Syrians the need for greater cooperation with respect to Iraq, the end to interference in Lebanon and the provision of weapons to Hizbullah, a resumption of the Israeli-Syrian track...," she said. Clinton said Washington is also asking Syria "generally to begin to move away from the relationship with Iran, which is so deeply troubling to the region as well as to the United States." On Thursday (25.02.10), Al Assad, sitting happily next to his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a joint conference held in Damascus, slapped the Obama administration on the face, ignored all its overtures and conditions and sarcastically ridiculed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's statement urging his country to distance itself from Iran and stop sponsoring terrorist groups. Assad signed a new friendship pact with a grinning Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He mocked Clinton by saying: "We must have understood Clinton wrong because of bad translation or our limited understanding, so we signed the agreement." In an arrogant tone Al Assad said: "Our support for the resistance is a moral and legal duty", and expressed surprise at Clinton's call for Syria to distance itself from Iran. "We thank them (the Americans) for their advice," "I am surprised by their call to keep a distance between the countries when they raise the issue of stability and peace in the Middle East", “The region's people should be ready for any Israeli attack”, he told reporters. The Iranian president, in his turn, said Arab countries will usher in a new Middle East "without Zionists and without colonialists." Ahmadinejad said the region's peoples, including the Lebanese, would stand against Israel. The U.S. should pack up and leave the Middle East and stay out of regional affairs, he added. Ahmadinejad and Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah met Thursday (25.02.10) evening in Damascus along with their senior advisors, and discussed regional developments and “the Zionist threat,” it was revealed Friday. The two were the dinner guests of Syrian President Bashar Assad. According to Arab media reports, the meeting was not announced beforehand for security reasons. Ahmadinejad has met also with high ranking officials from Hamas and other Palestinian armed Jihadist groups. During the last week, Ahmadinejad said during three telephone conversations with Al Assad, Lebanon's president, Michel Suleiman, and Hizbullah's General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah that Israel should be resisted and finished off if it launched military action in the region. "We have reliable information that the Zionist regime is after finding a way to compensate for its ridiculous defeats from the people of Gaza and Lebanon's Hizbullah." "If the Zionist regime should repeat its mistakes and initiate a military operation, then it must be resisted with full force to put an end to it once and for all,". Facing Syria's ongoing arrogance, and defiance, the USA policy makers need to re-evaluate the Obama administration’s hasty opening on Al Asaad and seriously start taking serious practical steps in all domains, including sanctions and military means to either force the Syrian regime to comply with the peace requirements and worldwide anti-terrorism efforts or to face the same choice of being toppled as had Iraq's Sadam Hussein. What the Western countries and particularly the USA, should recognize in regard to the current Syrian dictatorship, is that Al Assad’s Baathist regime cannot change, because if it does it will fall from the inside as was Those who have ears need to hear and stop sinking in delusions and dreams. the situation with the USSR and Romania. This dictatorship cannot survive in a milieu of peace, openness, freedom or democracy, and therefore all those policy makers and world leaders who keep deluding themselves that they can change the criminal and terrorist nature of the Syrian regime should read Middle East history more thoroughly and study the criminal record of Syria's rulers during the past 30 years. There will be no peace in the Middle East before toppling the Syrian regime, containing by force the Iranian nuclear threat and disarming and dismantling Hizbullah. All other venues will give more time to Iran to build its atomic bomb and for Syria to breed more terrorist groups and for Hizbullah to totally devour the democratic and multicultural Lebanese system. Those who have ears need to hear and stop sinking in delusions and dreams. The question is: How many times does the Obama administration have to get slapped in the face and ridiculed by Bachar Al Assad before it stops offering his regime an ”open hand”?
