Thursday April 9, 2009

I've Been Thinking:

Once again, veiled in secrecy, members of Congress visited Bashar Assad, the president of Syria.

If I did not read the Syrian and Lebanese press, I would never have known that Stephen Lynch, Democrat from MA and Robert Inglis, Republican from SC had a face-to-face with the tyrant of Damascus.

Assad was pleased.
He said that he was hopeful because of the new status Syria has been accorded by the West.
He said that he was hopeful because Syria was now engaged in indirect talks with Israel.
He said that he wanted the United States to play a more active role in the Middle East.

That's what Assad said, now I will translate and tell you what Assad means.
Of course Assad is happy with Syria's new role.
The West has brought Syria out of the cold and all Syria had to do was, well, nothing. Syria did not change a thing, not attitudinally, not militarily, not politically. It is a classic Ghadaffi move.
As for Assad's desire to have the United States play a more active role in the Middle East, that is Arab speak for saying that the wants the US to exert more influence on Israel to make concessions.

The young Assad has truly become his father's son.
Bashar is now playing a shrewd even crafty and dexterous game of foreign policy.
Bashar Assad has become adept at playing one side off the other and at not committing to anything all the while receiving promises of more and more incentives.

His father would be proud.

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