One has to realize how astounding this actually was considering the USA was in Iraq at the time and Saudi Arabia wasn't really interested in war so much as uniting the region in peace.
Much of what plagues the Middle East are ethnic differences. Bashar al Assad is Shi'ite. The then Prince Abdullah is Sunni. I love the guy, I think he was and still is one of the most progressive thinkers in the region.
When one looks to Saudi Arabia for it's treatment of women there is sincere respect and love for the ability, desires and careers of the women in Saudi Arabia. They even got their driver's licenses in recent years. And the interesting thing about Saudi Arabia, the home of the Great Mosques and Mecca, is that they honor their women and children within the traditions of Islam, not the oppression of Islam.
Saudi Arabia's social culture is not Westernized as was Egypt's social culture.
It is unfortunate Bashar Assad never followed the potential for improving relations with all the Arab Nations while ending his push into Lebanon and standing with Hezbollah. He never stepped away from the nonsense of religious mischief long enough to actually become a great Shi'ite political leader. It wasn't as though many nations didn't try.
Saturday, 10 June, 2000, 19:45 GMT 20:45
UK
Analysis: Assad's Arab legacy (click here)
By BBC News Online's Martin Asser
Even though it had been expected for years, Hafez al-Assad's death still comes as a tremendous shock and it adds a major new element to the uncertainties which already dominate the Middle East...
...His death therefore leaves a huge gap, one which his son and probable successor - a relative political novice - can only fill with difficulty.
Hafez al-Assad's admirers say it was his cautious, uncompromising approach which saved Syria from the kind of ignominy imposed on some other Arab peoples in recent decades...
Evidently, Bashar is not his father.
...Under the late president, Syria has consistently punched above its weight in the international arena.
After the first swathe of pro-US Arab regimes made peace with Israel -
Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinians - few other Arab capitals were prepared
to consider full normalisation with Israel until Syria got back the
territory it lost in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war...And now the region has a tyrant unable to stop killing his own people.
This is King Abdullah of Jordan in 2009. They all tried and it never worked. Assad was always too angry, to willing to push his anger on neighboring nations and always seeking what was not his to seek. He was never interested in peace. He was interested in ethnic retribution. It is that which Iran falls short. Iraq's Shi'ites are smarter, better aware of themselves and more willing to end hate. The remainder of the Shi'ites in the region should seek the insight of al Sistani, not Nasrullah.
