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Assad Outlines Plan for Syria
January 6, 2013
By Nour Malas
BEIRUT-—Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in his first address to the nation in six months, issued a defiant call to war to defend the country and rejected international peace efforts, proposing his own political plan that reforms the government but keeps him in power. Mr. Assad, whose family's four-decade rule of Syria sparked an uprising in 2011, told a cheering audience the country faced a total war against foreign interests and al Qaeda. He delivered the speech to the audience of hundreds at the Damascus Opera House, in a central district of the capital that has been sealed off by security for months as rebel fighters have encircled Damascus. The less than hour-long address, his shortest speech yet, was broadcast by Syrian state television.
Mr. Assad appeared calm and confident as he delivered the speech—dressed in a black suit, grey tie, and looking slimmer—on Sunday. They were his first comments on the war ravaging Syria since a television interview last November, and his first public appearance in many months. Mr. Assad proposed a two-phase political process that would result in an elected parliament, a new government, and a national conference that would exclude much of the current opposition leading the battle against the government. He said regional and international countries should, first and foremost, cut off funds and weapons supplies to the rebels, before a cease-fire can come into effect and a political process started.
As in a handful of previous speeches since the uprising began 22 months ago, the president portrayed the conflict as a battle against external terrorists, and denied it was a fight between the government and opposition. But in this speech, he singled out al Qaeda for infiltrating the country, said Syria faced an extremely difficult war, and snubbed international mediation on the crisis. "What is sure is that most of those we are battling are jihadis holding the ideology of al-Qaeda," he said, accusing rebels of cutting off electricity, communications, fuel lines and bread supplies across Syria. "The battle, ladies and gentlemen, is between the nation and its enemies…between the citizen and his bread, between the security we all wish for, and fear."
The opposition immediately described the speech as arrogant and disconnected to the fighting raging across Syria. Many Syrians said any hope they had for a resolution of the conflict in coming months through a political deal faded after Mr. Assad's defiant comments. The United Nations last week said at least 60,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict. "The initiative proposed by President Bashar al-Assad takes us back to point zero," said Rima Fleihan, a member of the main National Opposition Coalition. "There can be no solution that leaves Bashar al-Assad in power," Ms. Fleihan told an Arabic television station after the speech.
January 6, 2013
By Nour Malas
BEIRUT-—Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, in his first address to the nation in six months, issued a defiant call to war to defend the country and rejected international peace efforts, proposing his own political plan that reforms the government but keeps him in power. Mr. Assad, whose family's four-decade rule of Syria sparked an uprising in 2011, told a cheering audience the country faced a total war against foreign interests and al Qaeda. He delivered the speech to the audience of hundreds at the Damascus Opera House, in a central district of the capital that has been sealed off by security for months as rebel fighters have encircled Damascus. The less than hour-long address, his shortest speech yet, was broadcast by Syrian state television.
Mr. Assad appeared calm and confident as he delivered the speech—dressed in a black suit, grey tie, and looking slimmer—on Sunday. They were his first comments on the war ravaging Syria since a television interview last November, and his first public appearance in many months. Mr. Assad proposed a two-phase political process that would result in an elected parliament, a new government, and a national conference that would exclude much of the current opposition leading the battle against the government. He said regional and international countries should, first and foremost, cut off funds and weapons supplies to the rebels, before a cease-fire can come into effect and a political process started.
As in a handful of previous speeches since the uprising began 22 months ago, the president portrayed the conflict as a battle against external terrorists, and denied it was a fight between the government and opposition. But in this speech, he singled out al Qaeda for infiltrating the country, said Syria faced an extremely difficult war, and snubbed international mediation on the crisis. "What is sure is that most of those we are battling are jihadis holding the ideology of al-Qaeda," he said, accusing rebels of cutting off electricity, communications, fuel lines and bread supplies across Syria. "The battle, ladies and gentlemen, is between the nation and its enemies…between the citizen and his bread, between the security we all wish for, and fear."
The opposition immediately described the speech as arrogant and disconnected to the fighting raging across Syria. Many Syrians said any hope they had for a resolution of the conflict in coming months through a political deal faded after Mr. Assad's defiant comments. The United Nations last week said at least 60,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict. "The initiative proposed by President Bashar al-Assad takes us back to point zero," said Rima Fleihan, a member of the main National Opposition Coalition. "There can be no solution that leaves Bashar al-Assad in power," Ms. Fleihan told an Arabic television station after the speech.
This shit won't fly.
<snip> he singled out al Qaeda for infiltrating the country </snip>
Would this be the same Bashar Assad who provided beans, bullets, and benzine to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al-Qaeda elements during the Iraq War?
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