Assad: Syria willing to talk with U.S. without preconditions

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Xinhua

Assad: Syria willing to talk with U.S. without preconditions
www.chinaview.cn 2009-01-27 20:06:46

DAMASCUS, Jan. 27 (Xinhua) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said his country is willing to conduct dialogue with the United States without any preconditions, the official SANA news agency reported Tuesday.

Assad made the remarks in an interview with Lebanon's al-Manar TV, the mouthpiece of the Shiite Hezbollah movement.

"If there are preconditions, there won't be dialogue, they know this thing," Assad was quoted as saying, adding that "but I think dialogue has started many weeks ago seriously through figures close to the U.S. administration."

~snip~
Syria was under continuous isolation during the Bush administration, which demanded Damascus to stop support for Palestinian militant groups and the Lebanese Hezbollah, sever its ties with Iran, control its borders with Iraq and stem anti-U.S. infiltrations from crossing into Iraq.



Read more: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-01/27/content_10726504.htm

[Renew Deal]

1. We've been talking to Syria.

At least congresspeople have been for some time.

[keopeli]

2. Stated as though Syria's position has changed. It's the US that has changed.

It's been the US since 1979 when our puppet dictator in Iran was deposed through a popular revolt (similar to an election, but more violent). So despised were we (the U.S.) that a group of religious zealots held our embassy personnel hostage as a way to grab power.

Jimmy Carter, that humble paragon of peace, was unable to negotiate effectively with the Iranians because of the total lack of centralized authority at the time. His military rescue attempt, Operation Sundown, went terribly wrong.

After several months, a government finally took hold in Iran and they were eager to dispose of the nasty hostage situation. The year was 1980 and an election was approaching in the U.S. During the primaries, the Republicans fought hard for what seamed like a possible upset. The two top contenders, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush battled fiercely for the nomination. Bush strongly opposed Reagan's "trickle down economics" theory. In a bitter moment, he refuted the notion as "voodoo economics," a phrase later adopted by Reagan's rivals.

Just as Obama has had people working the Middle East for several months, so too did the Republican ticket in 1980. The shadow government had a great deal of clout and influence in the region. With connections through CIA work and corporate oil companies to the Middle East, George H. W. Bush negotiated with the new leaders of a fractured Iran. His only precondition was that the hostages NOT be released until the new government was in place in the U.S. The Iranian leaders, eager to find a way out, took the deal. Now all they had to do was win the election.

The issue of Iran was as dominant as the economic woes of the time. Ironically, the Republicans ran on a platform that "we don't negotiate with terrorists." They used the idea to get elected while secretly negotiating behind the scenes. The mood was so dour in the country that the people simply wanted change (as in 2008).

Syria, Iran, Palestine - they've all said they are willing to meet without the preconditions that the US has imposed for the last 38 years.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, n'est pas?

[denverbill]

3. GHWBush should be sued for the extra time those people spent in captivity.

To GHWB, those people were just pawns in a game.

I do hope Obama talks to Syria, a lot. Until a couple years ago, Assad was just an opthamologist in training when his father died. And he was training in London, so it's hard to believe he is exactly a hard-core militant.

IMO, Shrub and Israel made big mistakes by not pushing harder to come to terms with Syria when he came to power.

I hope that mistake is rectified now.