US Envoy: Syria Can’t Reform
Insists This 'Isn't About Western Military Intervention'
In a letter posted, oddly enough, on Facebook, US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford angrily condemned the Assad government and insisted no reforms were possible, saying that there was no way the international community would believe that the reforms were credible even if attempted.
Ford’s message was largely in the context of broad-based condemnations and insisting that the Syrian government was lying about the excuse of “armed terrorists” being behind the protests a claim their state media repeatedly makes.
At the same time, Ford insisted, the comment “isn’t about Western military intervention” and “isn’t about oil.” He didn’t offer any solutions, however, and just insisted that the US “supports” the protesters.
Supports them in theory, but in practice the letter’s theme is that the Assad government can gain nothing by ending their violence against the pro-democracy rallies, and that even legitimate reforms will be dismissed by the US as meaningless.
As with other past comments the Ford statement appears to bolster the very status quo it claims is unacceptable. To that end the violence continues in Syria with attacks on refugees attempting to flee to neighboring Turkey.
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MoT
September 6th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
Syria can't reform? Hell..!!! Neither can the USA.
backblow
September 7th, 2011 at 2:14 am
What he really means is that neither the US government nor the aged despots of the GCC will allow any reform in Syria. They just want their despot to replace the existing despot. Arab Spring? Pah, call it the Arab Winter because the USA and the GCC despots are freezing out reform.
John Ellis
September 7th, 2011 at 6:48 am
The end game being a new Shah in Iran, for over a month Iran has been proclaiming that the last thing oil-greedy Western powers want in Syria is democratic government. And correctly so, for no true democracy could stomach Israel with its ethnic cleansing of Palestine and a dominant paradigm that reads, “There can be security only in expansion.”
John Ellis
September 7th, 2011 at 7:02 am
backblow says, “USA and the GCC despots are freezing out reform…”
Above is but one of many symptoms of the problem, which has absolutely nothing to do with the root cause.
For half of Syria is self-absorbed and indifferent, a forth is the property owning ruling class that wants no change, and nothing can move toward the good until comes a wholesale attitude adjustment.