Kerry told to sit with Assad first

From top clockwise: The Kerrys and Assads at Naranj restaurant in Damascus in 2009 and Kerry with Lavrov and Moaz 

A Syrian journalist today tells U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to first sit with his chum Bashar al-Assad to test the water before asking the Syrian opposition to come to the table to negotiate a transition.

Kerry told reporters Tuesday, “The world wants to stop the killing (in Syria). And we want to be able to see Assad and the Syrian opposition come to the table for the creation of a transitional government according to the framework that was created in Geneva, the Geneva Protocol, which requires mutual consent on both sides to the formation of that transitional government. That’s what we’re pushing for…” (See yesterday’s post, “Big Powers seeking table partners for Moaz”)

His remarks shocked much of the regional press.

Syria’s state-run media senses an American volte-face in Assad’s favor. Champress, for instance, declares ecstatically, “American body blow to the Turkish-Gulfite alliance: Kerry wants President Assad and the opposition to sit at the negotiation table.”

Likewise, Lebanese Hezbollah’s news portal, al-Manar, which reproduces the leader comment of pan-Arab daily al-Quds al-Arabi titled, “America retracts the call on Assad to step down.”

The Beirut daily al-Akhbar, which speaks for both Assad and Hezbollah, shouts from the rooftops, “Washington follows Moscow: A solution with Assad staying put.”

On the other side of the political divide, the Saudi newspaper of records Asharq Alawsat sounds downbeat, with its front-page banner announcing, “American position veers towards a ‘dialogue’ between the opposition and Assad.”

Editorially, eminent Syrian author and journalist Ghassan al-Mufleh writes in an op-ed for Elaph that Kerry – not the opposition -- should be the one to open the discourse with Assad.

Mufleh’s argument:

The U.S. secretary of state’s personal connection with the Assad family goes back more than two decades. It strengthened after the Syrian army’s exit from Lebanon in 2005.

Sen. Kerry was the main driving force in talks (1) to extricate the Assad clique from the clutches of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) mandated to identify and try those responsible for the assassination of Rafik Hariri, and (2) to then rehabilitate the clique.

I wrote about this at the time.

And when John Kerry was first nominated to the position of secretary of state, I wrote that the central reason for handing him the job is his familiarity with the Syria File and his personal relationship with the Assad clique. I also warned against the clique’s international exoneration as it still enjoyed a measure of international cover.

I also cited the Sudanese example, and how Omar al-Bashir is walking free after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of crimes against humanity. The price for his reprieve was the creation of the Republic of South Sudan and the South Sudan’s Chinese oil puzzle.

John Kerry did not take long to avow his wish to tackle the Syria File as the principal representative of the Israel-condoned Assad clique.

Incidentally, Kerry is also in favor of rehabilitating the Iranian regime and preserving its Mullahs at the helm. The Iranian opposition can thus expect to come under U.S. pressure as well.

The aforesaid is in keeping with the strategy of President Barack Obama’s inner circle. (Remember how the White House vetoed last year’s plan -- backed by Panetta-Dempsey-Clinton-Petraeus -- to arm carefully vetted Syrian rebels).

Bypassing the Obama-Kerry plan taking shape is the responsibility of the Syrian opposition and revolutionary forces.

But not to sound totally negative, the U.S. secretary of state can head to Damascus for a dialogue with the Assad clique before implicating the Syrian opposition in the game of the clique’s rehabilitation.

The follow-on would be a UN Security Council resolution, based on the Geneva framework, ordering the Assad clique to stop the killings. The opposition can follow suit. If the U.S. and Russia are in tune, what can prevent the UN Security Council passing a resolution calling for dialogue and a peaceful political transition following the cessation of violence as demanded in Geneva?”

Let Kerry kickoff a firsthand dialogue.

Should he fail, he would bear sole responsibility for the step without the Syrian Revolution bearing its consequences.

Syria and al-Qaeda: A love-hate relationship

Syria's Bashar al-Assad and al-Qaeda's Ayman al-Zawahiri

The love-hate relationship between Syria and al-Qaeda enthralls Arab political analysts.

Three of them specifically delve into the liaison today as:

• the state-run Syrian news network Champress releases the names and nationalities of what it claims to be 26 “terrorists” – 20 of them al-Qaeda operatives -- captured by government authorities, and

• a statement by the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) requested a UN-mandated commission of inquiry to determine who stands behind Thursday’s twin bombings in Damascus and why. The statement denied the FSA was behind the blasts, accusing the regime instead of carrying them out to discredit the opposition.

Of the 26 “terrorists” named in the Champress document, 20 are Tunisian, two are Lebanese, one is Lebanese-Palestinian, and the remaining three are one each from Libya, Egypt and Jordan.

Champress says the official document with the full names, personal details, particulars and date of arrest of each of the 20 al-Qaeda and six other “terrorists” was submitted by Syria’s permanent UN representative Bashar at-Jaafari to the UN Security Council.

The document shows most of the “terrorists” had infiltrated into Syria through Turkey and were captured in March.

The FSA statement, for its part, said, “The illegitimate Syrian regime continues to kill and target unarmed civilians through bombings in Damascus and other cities. (Thursday’s twin) bombings in Qazaz are another desperate attempt by the regime to support its claims regarding the existence of ‘terrorists’ and ‘armed gangs’.

“It has been conclusively proven these bombings are perpetrated by the illegitimate regime, and we request the following to be taken into consideration:

• “The bombings followed Kofi Annan’s recent statements, which suggested the Syrian regime may not be adhering to the six-point peace plan...

• “The FSA does not possess the necessary capability to conduct such bombings

• “A car containing bodies of detainees was found on the site… and it was later discovered it was brought to the affected area

• “The speed with which state-run news agencies showed up at the scene to provide live coverage

• "The FSA is incapable of reaching the site of the explosions, as it is a heavily guarded security complex

• “The summoning of UNSMIS mission chief, Gen. Robert Mood, to the site of the explosions for him to give statements that may serve the Syrian regime’s claims

• “FSA members defected from regime forces to protect civilians, not to harm them.

“Therefore, we condemn this cowardly terrorist act and hold the regime fully responsible for it. We ask the UN to set up a team of international experts to investigate these bombings, and urge Mr. Annan to declare the failure of his peace plan, and to hold the regime accountable for the failure. We also call for the arming of the Free Syrian Army and request an emergency UN Security Council meeting, so it can pass a resolution under Chapter 7 facilitating the protection of Syrian civilians.”

Ali Hamade, political analyst for the independent Beirut daily an-Nahar, focuses today on what he calls Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s “love story” with al-Qaeda.

Few people, he writes believed the Syrian regime’s narrative about the twin-bombings in Damascus, opposite the infamous “Palestine Military Branch” where regime opponents are interrogated and tortured.

“Few expressed their condolences to Assad. Few believed the regime’s innocence of a crime that harmed ordinary civilians more than it hurt the regime’s shabiha militia or its Palestine Military Branch criminals.

“Few believe the regime was not al-Qaeda’s partner for several years in Iraq’s dance of death as well as al-Qaeda’s death dancing partner for four decades in Lebanon.”

More recently, Hamade notes, didn’t Syria also manufacture “Fatah al-Islam” in Lebanon? It is an open secret, he says, that today’s al-Qaeda is “a gun for hire” – much as the Carlos terrorist group of the Seventies.

Hamade says the February 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s Rafik Hariri marked the pinnacle of four-way cooperation linking Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda.

According to Tariq Alhomayed, editor-in-chief of Saudi Arabia’s leading daily Asharq Alawsat, “Thursday’s Damascus bombings show the Assad regime’s ruse paying off this time… The regime succeeded in hard-pressing all sides – the Syrian opposition as well the international community… When the Assad regime decries the death of 55 Syrians in the Damascus bombings, why does no one ask him about the 12,000 Syrians his regime killed over the past year?”

The head of Saudi-owned Alarabiya television news channel Abdul Rahman al-Rashed, also writing of Asharq Alawsat, says Damascus was heartened and couldn’t believe its ears on hearing US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta tell reporters late on Thursday that intelligence indicates there is an "al-Qaeda presence in Syria… Frankly we need to continue to do everything we can to determine what kind of influence they're trying to exert there."

Rashed says, “The Syrian government wants to convince the world that it is fighting terrorists, al-Qaeda and the forces of darkness, not a popular uprising standing up to a brutal regime. That’s what Damascus is desperate to make Western public opinion believe.”

The regime is a maestro at concocting terror scenarios to serve its own ends. It proved it in Lebanon by simultaneously assassinating Rafik Hariri and concocting the storyline of “Abu-Adass.” It confirmed in Lebanon again in 2007, when it planted Fatah al-Islam in Nahr al-Bared. It also proved it by gathering al-Qaeda volunteers from across the region before ensuring their safe passage to Iraq. It is now frantically trying to persuade the world to choose between Bashar al-Assad and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

"Lebanese and Syrians: Good riddance, Sarkozy"

Sarkozy and Assad in Paris (top) and in Damascus (below)

Should French voters boot out French President Nicolas Sarkozy from the Elysée in two weeks’ time “most Lebanese and Syrians would feel somehow vindicated,” according to Eyad Abu Shakra, a veteran political analyst writing today for the Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat.

Sarkozy faces an uphill struggle in the May 6 second round of the presidential election, after coming second in Sunday's first ballot.

He won 27.1% of the vote, while his Socialist rival François Hollande took 28.6%, the first time a sitting president lost in the first round.

Hollande's narrow victory on Sunday gives him the upper hand in the May 6 runoff.

Surely, Abu Shakra writes, the choice of French president belongs to the French voter, adding:

“No one in genuine democracies chooses a government or president based on external wishes or directives. But in a world of interlocked interests and grandiloquence about human rights and democratic choices… victims are entitled to rejoice when free voters pass a fair verdict against someone who undermined their interests.

“‘Sarkozy’s France’ talked and acted adequately as concerns the now-stumbling Arab Spring. But its words and deeds won’t erase from the memory of the Lebanese firstly and the Syrians secondly that Nicolas Sarkozy, more than any other leader, undercut the Lebanese people’s March 2005 uprising and rehabilitated the Syrian regime” of President Bashar al-Assad.

Sarkozy, who assumed office in May 2007, quickly chose to stage a grand entry into the slippery politics of the Middle East by reversing Jacques Chirac's policy of isolating Syria.

In 2008, he invited Assad to the July 14 Bastille Day military parade, the high point of the French national calendar.

Two months later, in September 2008, Sarkozy became the first western head of state to visit Damascus, thereby cutting Assad slack in his effort to ward off being seriously investigated for the 2005 murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and other Lebanese leaders, which Chirac blamed on Syria.

Claude Guéant with Assad (top) and Sarkozy (below)

Assad paid two working visits to Paris in November 2009 and December 2010 to consolidate bilateral ties.

In Abu Shakra’s opinion,  “Sarkozy is the man who, after Hariri’s assassination on 14 February 2005, wasted the biggest opportunity to alleviate the suffering of the Lebanese and Syrians…

“A strange combination of personal reasons (such as Sarkozy’s hatred of Jacques Chirac and all he stands for) and political motives (such as his special links to the Israeli lobby in France) drove Sarkozy and his key aides, mainly Claude Guéant, to turn French policy on its head and rehabilitate Assad…

“Yesterday, the French decided they’ve seen enough of Sarkozy and have had their fill of his chicanery…”