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 Bashar al-Assad |
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with whom the United States is seeking to re-establish better relations, has made it clear that the road to success with Damascus includes support for the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas and endorsement of his country’s ties with Iran, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
Al-Assad made the declaration in an interview with the London-based Saudi daily Al-Hayat newspaper, but it flies in the face of U.S. policy which regards Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist groups and wants Iran’s influence out of Lebanon and the Arab countries.
While pointing to a disunity among Arab countries in the face of a growing influence of non-Arab forces – namely Iran and Turkey – in the region, al-Assad said that “inter-Arab relations are apparently more difficult (to maintain) than relations between Arabs and non-Arabs,” referring to Damascus’ increasingly close ties to Tehran and Ankara.
He conceded that Iran and Turkey used relations with Syria to promote their involvement in Arab affairs, such as in Lebanon and Iraq, while marginalizing Syria.
This assessment emerged in his description of the October visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Lebanon.
“It made me feel, as an Arab, that a new Middle East is emerging that is diametrically opposed to the one proposed by (former U.S. Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice,” al-Assad said. “This is a Middle East in which Iran plays a major role and Turkey tries to match it, while the Arab role is weak, and is more or less confined to Syria’s role which exists thanks to its relations with Iran. Will this Arab weakness be one of the characteristics of the new Middle East?”
Yet, he acknowledged Syria’s close ties with Tehran. Al-Assad said the Arab public is leaning more toward the Iranian-backed resistance and other groups which support the Palestinians.
“The resistance is not up for discussion, on the local, regional or international level,” al-Assad said. “The road to good relations with Syria passes through support for the resistance.
“If some element or other opposes the resistance,” al-Assad added, “how can I possibly meet with it? The basis for my relations with any element is its stance on the resistance.”
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