A Casual Exchange with a Young and Inquisitive Mind!

Over the last few days, with a young man from the good old country.

Can you elaborate on the recent decision by the Bush Administration to allocate 5 million USD to fund the activities of the Syrian opposition?

In general, the sum involved is too miniscule really to finance any serious effort at destabilizing the Syrian regime, but it could help finance some small-scale meetings, travels, and the production of some necessary literature to explain the opposition’s point of view. Continue reading “A Casual Exchange with a Young and Inquisitive Mind!” →

The Rhetorical Axis!

And so it happened just like we knew it would. Iranian President Ahmadinejad has just announced the formation of new alliance including Syria, Iran, rejectionist Palestinian groups, and Shia factions in Lebanon (in other words: Hezbollah).

The die seems to have finally been cast. The Shia Crescent has just been formalized and reconfigured into a living and breathing entity, with its own network of supports from among the secular nationalist movements and extremist Sunni groups, which simply have no other means of support at this stage. Continue reading “The Rhetorical Axis!” →

Word to the Mother!

Well, things are moving at a pretty rapid pace at this stage. The UN investigative committee did not waste any time and has just upped the ante way up than anyone would have expected a mere few days ago. Gone is all the foolish talk about a deal between the US and the regime, or… are the French (and the Saudis) forcing the hands of the Bush Administration on this? Let’s not forget here folks, the Syria regime’s real antagonists have always been the French. Continue reading →

The Myriad Faces of Heresy!

“…it is highly unlikely that the Syrian regime will voluntarily effect any major changes in its general structure or its modus operandi. Half-hearted pressures on it to do so will probably not be enough. Still, a full-scale invasion with the goal of effecting a regime change, even with a good casus belli in hand, will most likely prove too problematic at this stage. Syria has a relatively new president who has been received with all due honors by many world leaders, including Spanish Prime Minister José Maria Aznar, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Prime Minister Gerhardt Schroeder, and French President Jacques Chirac. Syria’s relations with the world community are much more intricate and ambivalent than those of the Taliban or the Saddam regime, as we have noted earlier. The case against Syria will never be as clear-cut as that against Afghanistan or Iraq. A full-scale invasion of Syria would seem to require a U.S. administration that is even more oblivious to the rest of the world than the current Bush administration seems to be. Continue reading “The Myriad Faces of Heresy!” →