The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Arab countries are offering a deal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that would restore ties between Damascus and most countries in the region.
The report, which cited unnamed Arab and European officials, said in talks initially led by Jordan, the Arab nations have proposed billions worth in aid to help the country rebuild after 12 years of war and to lobby the US and European governments to lift sanctions.
In exchange, the Arab nations want Assad to engage with Syria’s political opposition, allow troops from other Arab states inside Syria to protect returning refugees, crack down on drug trafficking, and prevent Iran from expanding its presence in Syria.
The report said the talks are still in their early stages, and it’s not clear if Assad is willing to accept the initial offer. The US has also shown no interest in lifting sanctions on Syria as the House recently voted to maintain them following the devastating earthquake that hit Syria and Turkey on February 6.
The US sanctions on Syria are specifically designed to prevent Syria’s reconstruction, and the Biden administration has said it opposes regional countries upgrading or normalizing ties with Damascus, even if it’s related to helping the country with earthquake relief.
The Journal report said what’s significant about the effort is that Saudi Arabia is on board, as Riyadh was previously strongly against steps to normalize with Assad. Saudi Arabia hasn’t had formal diplomatic relations with Syria since 2012, but Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud recently called for dialogue with Damascus.
“In the Arab world there is a consensus growing that the status quo is not workable. We all have policies but we don’t have any strategy to implement that policy,” he said last month.
Syria’s reintegration and supporting its reconstruction are expected to be on the agenda at the Arab League summit later this year. Damascus was expelled from the Arab League in 2011 when war broke out, and many of its members supported the failed regime change effort against Assad.
The report of a potential deal between Syria and its neighbors comes after Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to normalize ties in a deal brokered by China.
Sad fact is that the US in “winning” in, say Iraq or Afghanistan, does not install a sustainable, better government or better lives for the people.
I enjoy the wisdom of wise women.
Keep us out of the deal, then things will be much improved.
I was following until: “In exchange, the Arab nations want Assad to engage with Syria’s political opposition, allow troops from other Arab states inside Syria to protect returning refugees, crack down on drug trafficking, and prevent Iran from expanding its presence in Syria.” Is this Groundhog Day? Are we starting the entire regime change operation all over again? Does it seem like another dead end for the Syrian people?
They are asking Assad to be kind to his own people and walk the peace path. What is wrong with that?
His “own people”? You mean the ones the US funds to overthrow him? And “walk the peace path”? You mean like the US and Israel?
CIA talking pointers are not here to dialogue or learn. They enforce CIA talking points. But they’re smart to insist on sovereignty in Ukraine while insisting Syria gives it up by allowing “troops from other Arab states inside Syria…” Not as smart as convincing Ukraine to fight Russia ’till the last Ukrainian though. That is brilliantly more evil. (Sarcasm alert)
In some people hate triumphs over reason and decency. The people in Syria who despise Assad have very good reasons of their own-they don’t want to live in a murderous police state-in any event-any leader of Syria must deal with all Syrians.
Bibi or Biden or Putin or Xi or any other “leader” of any state would do the same god damn thing as Assad if their power were in jeopardy.
Check out what amnesty has said about the Assads over half a century. If others are also bad, that does not give license-so Hitler,Stalin and Pol Pot were baaaad-you you support them as well?
I support NONE of them, Assad included, you fool. My point was Assad is/was doing nothing different than what the others would have done under similar circumstances.
If Assad was our guy that would be all that he would need for good press and those he was fighting would be deemed the war criminals.
Remember; we are heroes, those we fight are the criminals…because we say so, says the world throughout history …;-)
Assad will win a lot of hearts of his detractors if he spreads around his upcoming Chinese windfall for reconstruction wisely.
Give it a few years and our corporations will be there too and his rehabilitation into world commerce will be on its way.
If you wish to go back in time – are you aware that George Bush’s grandfather Prescott Bush helped Hitlers rise to power, he even bailed out a bankrupt Nazi party way back in 32.
yes and G Herbert Walker Bush was a CIA boss until he became VP and tried to assassinate pres. Reagan
He was seen in Dallas on a certain day.
i have friends here in the US that are from Syria. they say that it was a nice place and that the only ones who do not back Assad are the ISIS fighters who are being paid by uncle sam to revolt
THe opposition to Assad is made up of blood thirsty jihadist.
https://ibb.co/r0GDHC6
Love the cartoon! I wish there was a way to paste the image in here.
There is.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a62781e39388fd03959617dc8e29617332361f011dfea44b0841726930482fa1.png
Thanks, Thomas! This picture is worth a 1000 words.
classic uncle sam taking his ISIS with him everywhere he goes
Allow them to send their troops into Syria, and become anti Iran – what could go wrong? Quite simply, they want to alienate his allies, weaken his domestic position, and give foreigners the power to destabilise his government.
Amnesty International has lambasted Syria way before the current civil war. You concern for a regime that barrel bombs hospitals and gasses Civilians is rather odd. Iranian troops in Syria on Israel’s Northern border is similar to Russia not wanting NATO missiles in Ukraine near Russian cities-a causus belli.
Amnesty International thinks discouraging prostitution is a grave violation of human rights. The gas attacks were false flags from Western or Israeli covert warfare operatives.
The Syrian government defended its people from Western sponsored jihadist fanatics with less violence and less collateral damage than the USA used in its imperial butchery of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Having an alliance may be provocation, but you’re wrong, it’s not a causus belli. preemptive war is never justified. Syria’s alliance with Russia and Iran is not new, and both are fully justified by Israel and America’s history of aggression.
“Iranian troops in Syria on Israel’s Northern border is similar to Russia not wanting NATO missiles in Ukraine near Russian cities-a causus belli.”
Yes similar. If Iran was part of a hostile military alliance towards Israel along with 29 other countries with several of those countries possessing nukes. The only similarity is that Iran has had belligerence aimed at them for decades led by the US and Israel just like Russia since the cold war ended. A casus belli indeed. For Iran.
In other words,seizure of the US embassy and murder of dissidents is OK by you.
As if that has ANYTHING to do with what we are talking about.
In 2000 Pipes coauthored a jingoistic report with Abdelnour that advocated the use of U.S. military action to force Syria out of Lebanon and to disarm Syria of its alleged weapons of mass destruction. Virtually all 31 signatories of this MEF report (which was used to persuade Congress to introduce and pass the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act in 2003) are USCFL members, and several became high officials or advisers in the Bush foreign policy team, including Abrams, Perle, Feith, Dobrianksy, and Wurmser.The 2000 report by Pipes and Abdelnour concluded that that “Syrian rule in Lebanon stands in direct opposition to American ideals.” It strongly criticized Washington’s policy of engaging Syria rather than confronting it. Immediately before the Iraq invasion, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security traveled to Israel and promised Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that “it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran, and North Korea afterwards.” In April 2003 Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz warned: “There’s got to be a change in Syria.” The USCFL describes itself as the “cyber-center for Pro-Lebanon Activism.” USCFL was one of the leading proponents of the “Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003,”
https://archive.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/2004/0308damascus.htm
https://original.antiwar.com/justin/2005/09/14/next-stop-syria/
ASSAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): We will deal with every situation through the U.N. If it happens, I cannot really go into a hypothesis at this point. However, there is no such safe haven or camp of the kind to be bombed. AMANPOUR: Mr. President, you know the rhetoric of regime change is headed towards you from the United States. They are actively looking for a new Syrian leader. They’re granting visas and visits to Syrian opposition politicians. They’re talking about isolating your diplomatically and, perhaps, a coup d’etat or your regime crumbling. What are you thinking about that? http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/10/12/alassad.transcript
Jake from State Farm needs to focus on selling insurance than worrying over geopolitics of the Syrian people.
Jake – Are you really that naive and you really haven’t got a scintilla of clue how all this eventuated?
either that or he is just another CIA
what a crock. Assad was always a good guy. uncle sam has financed a revolution to overthrow him and is now openly stealing syria’s oil.
Nothing wrong to show up until you allow the drug abusing arm buyers ( Arab royals ) come to your house and befriend your warring children at the behest of the drug cartel and arms dealers ( US and its senior partner Israel ) to discuss peace and sobriety .
What garbage. Why all the excuses for Jihdist killers.
This smacks of the normal US driven bullshit.
Absolutely!
What oppostion? The British funded HTS that is lirding over Idlib? SDF Kurds that serve US military and who do not represent Kurds?
Seriously. whoever wrote such nonsense is engaged in wishful thinking. Goes like this. When we US and EU sovereigns of the Universe grant the dispensation to Arab countries to profit from Syrian reconstruction — we expect Arab armies to enter Syria in our behalf to force Damascus to recignize our vassals — HTS in Idlib an
SDF in Kurdish areas.
Sure, this is what subservient Arabs wilm do!
Aren’t we by now aware of the changes in Arab world? Been asleep as for years Saudi-Iranian deal was in tge making? As nearly every one of Arab countries wait in a queue to gert accepted into Russia-China run SCO? Many already accepted including Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
None of tgese countries need permissions, It wilm take a while to see the ball rolling, obvious enough for everyone to see. But handwritting is in the wall,
So in other words,let the bloodbath of Syrians killing each other go on to suit the the ideology of someone else.
“But the Obama administration should resist the temptation to intervene more forcefully in Syria’s civil war. A victory by either side would be equally undesirable for the United States.
Indeed, it would be disastrous if President Bashar al-Assad’s regime were to emerge victorious after fully suppressing the rebellion and restoring its control over the entire country. — posing a direct threat both to the Sunni Arab states and to Israel.
a decisive outcome for either side would be unacceptable for the United States.
Maintaining a stalemate should be America’s objective. And the only possible method for achieving this is to arm the rebels when it seems that Mr. Assad’s forces are ascendant and to stop supplying the rebels if they actually seem to be winning.
At this point, a prolonged stalemate is the only outcome that would not be damaging to American interests.”Lutwak
NYTimes 24th August 2013
Edward N. Luttwak is a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
Lutwak wrote Coup d’État: A Practical Handbook and with OSP JINSA crowd ,and PNAC caused one in US.
In 1990 he told the Italian journalist that we should attack Iraq because it was building the country and was not wasting the money in the brothels of Rome and Amsterdam and on wines and arms from Europe like the royals and the Sheikhs .” (Neo-Conned!: Just War Principles: A Condemnation of War in Iraq).
So IOW, you support the murderous jihadist opposition in Syria.
You really are a monster, IOW a Zionist.
“In exchange, the Arab nations want Assad to engage with Syria’s political opposition, allow troops from other Arab states inside Syria”
Not a chance. Those Arab countries are responsible for wrecking Syria in the first place.
Sounds like something Biden, Nuland, Blinken, Winken, and Nod would hatch, after much cackling.
What a load of ……..fill in the blank space.
Syria still recovering from 12 years of proxy* wars [That’s right there’s no civil war] – plus the recent earthquake also having had the runways of a major airport bombed to smithereens by the ever so sadistic devil worshiping Israeli’s to make it simply impossible for cargo planes carrying airlifting humanitarian aid to land may only receive desperately needed supplies provided that Syria submits itself to what is essentially very poorly disguised attempt at blackmail.
Who are those Arab nations in question?
Egypt is a full on puppet police state The Saudis [The house of Saud are close cousins of the Zionist] plus I remember Syria saying no to the United Arab Emirates pipeline before all hell broke out [Syria Iraq Iran had been planning to build a major gas pipeline to Europe.
What’s all the hooha about humanitarian rights and why wasn’t there a outrage when the Saudis were placed in charge of a key Human rights panel at the UN………………………..Crickets.
No one ever dared to expose the Saudis hypocrisy when they chop people heads of for nothing more that what I would consider a misdemeanor offence – More then Isis and don’t be surprised to learn that the Saudis released a very large number of people on death row under condition that they go join Isis.
If anyone ought to pay for the reconstruction of Syria I think of the US which had led the charge and has waged this proxy war while supplying the very terrorist it’s pretending to be fighting while it sucking Syria’s natural resources out of the ground and while it never ever received a mandate to even be in Syria.
It’s an upside down world where war mongers are hailed as heroes while those who dare to publish the truth about empire’s war crimes are regarded as public enemy numba one.
Free Julian Assange !!!!
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/creative-chaos-how-u-s-planners-sparked-the-anti-government-protests-of-the-so-called-arab-spring-in-syria/
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2022/04/20/al_qaeda_is_on_our_side_how_obamabiden_officials_helped_create_a_safe_haven_for_terrorists_in_syria_827477.html
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/11/25/declassify-americas-dirty-secrets-in-syria-to-stop-a-biden-war/
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2015/december/31/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/12/09/trump-administration-helped-gop-donors-get-syria-oil-deal/
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/10/09/bellingcat-intelligence-contractors-extremists-syria/
https://www.politico.eu/article/why-the-arabs-dont-want-us-in-syria-mideast-conflict-oil-intervention/
https://thegrayzone.com/2021/03/22/cia-yemen-al-qaeda-anwar-al-awlaki/
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/sep/27/uk.syria1
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/11/the-arab-spring-a-virus-that-will-attack-moscow-and-beijing/248762