April 4, 2007
By AP
DAMASCUS, Syria (click here) — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi met Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday for talks criticized by the White House as undermining American efforts to isolate the hard-line Arab country....
It would appear the efforts of the Bush White House to isolate and victimize Syria has worked. It has not only worked, there is obviously no exit strategy when it did work. Bush was anticipating a greater war when a delegation of the majority Democratic House arrived at his door step.
If the Democrats had not won a majority in 2006 in the US House, the USA might be looking at very different involvement in the Middle East. There is a very good chance the talks with Iran would never have occurred and the war would be raging with a very different dynamic in the Middle East.
...The Californian Democrat spoke to reporters shortly after talks with Assad at the end of a two-day visit to Syria.
She said the delegation gave the Syrian leader a message from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert whose essence was that Israel was ready to hold peace talks with Syria.
She did not say more about the message, but Israel has previously made such talks conditional on Syria’s cutting off its support for hard-line Palestinian groups and Hezbollah.
Then Speaker Pelosi was delivering a message to President Assad stating Israel's government at the highest levels was looking for a way to begin peace talks. The Democratic delegation was delivering a note from Israel, not a declaration of war.
“We were very pleased with the assurances we received from the president that he was ready to resume the peace process. He’s ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi and accompanying members of Congress began their day by holding separate talks with Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa and then met Assad, who hosted them for lunch after their talks....
Syria was not mired in dense diplomatic relationships with international partners to avert nuclear weapons governed by the Non-proliferation Treaty as President Obama is today!!
It is obvious the difference.
By the way, seeking to end any Shi'ite Authority is a very interesting focus. Bush was attempting to kill a cleric in Iraq, he was seeking to destroy a Shia Mosque while he was simultaneously attempting "...to isolate the hard-line Arab country..." of Syria.
The United Nations is going to need to better state the rights of the Shia in the world realizing Bush was more than willing to commit genocide.
The Shia have been forced into a peripheral/marginal existence during the oil years of the USA. The Shia being forced into a peripheral/marginal existence took on the characteristic of extremists. They, without a doubt were vicious in their approach to their own survival with some of the worst reality in Lebanon where Beirut became ground zero for violence. President Assad himself can attest to the fears of the Shi'ite people in the region over the decades. He alone did not witness that reality, but, he did as his father before him.
The Iranian Revolution removed them from the margins of survival in the world and gave them a homeland. The Shah played a large part in the suffering of the Shi'ites on the streets of Iran. The Iranian Revolution provided a homeland and it is that which the Shia look at today as their gift from god.
The United Nations knows all to well how revolutionaries hold their position when the lives of a people, ethnicity and/or religion is at stake. There are many Shi'ite organizations in the world today classified as terrorists. That is true. The basis of that reality is sincere. But, that definition has not changed over decades and it does not in any way address the reason of which these populations have achieved their violent culture.
If the same paradigm is maintained and there is no identity of long standing ethnic groups as aggrieved and Israel does not return a leadership authority seeking peace; the world will be facing a very unstable Middle East going forward.
President Assad and the Shi'ite homeland of Iran has to be recognized for what they are and brought to the global stage for change in settling wars and being a part of a benevolent peace for the region. The danger to the world is too great to ignore this reality.
