Posted on 08/01/2005 5:27:53 AM PDT by OESY
For almost a quarter of a century Syria's foreign policy has been based on three certainties. The first was that the United States, hoodwinked into believing that there could be no peace in the Middle East with Syria, would continue not only to tolerate the Baathist regime but to prop it up against its Islamist opponents....
The second certainty of the Assad regime's strategy was that Saudi Arabia would continue to bankroll Syria through free oil quotas, cash hand-outs and emergency loans that would never be repaid. At the same time Saudi patronage would prevent other Arab states, notably Egypt and Jordan, from exerting pressure on Syria to join the peace process.
The third certainty was that the Islamic Republic in Tehran would cherish Syria as a valuable ally not only in Lebanon but in the region as a whole. In 1980 the Islamic Republic started by writing off a $190 million loan that the shah had given to President Assad in 1976. That was followed by cash gifts worth over $2.2 billion and cut-price oil supplies that has translated into $15 billion worth of aid over the past 25 years. The Islamic Republic has also supplied unknown quantities of weapons to the Baathist regime while creating and then arming the Lebanese branch of the Hezbollah as a means of easing Israeli military pressure on Syria.
All these certainties, however, have now disappeared, leaving Syria under President Bashar al-Assad, Hafez al-Assad's inexperienced but vainglorious son, afloat in a sea of doubts.
The American certainty evaporated when President Bush realized the folly of policies pursued by his predecessors and understood a simple fact: A tyranny can never be the true friend of a democracy....
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The American certainty evaporated when President Bush realized the folly of policies pursued by his predecessors and understood a simple fact: A tyranny can never be the true friend of a democracy....
Does that apply to China, too?
Quick ping...
of course not :) it only applies to the weak.
our foriegn policy bites.
it only applies to the weak
I must concur. And that does, indeed, bite.
- "A tyranny can never be the true friend of a democracy."
This might make a good foreign policy first principle.
Even though we will have to cooperate with the dictators every now and again, we should always keep in mind the first principle first.
I believe that the dictators and totalitarian systems have no place in the modern human society of the 21st century. It is time to kick the dictators and the kings out.
"Iran's President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refused to hold substantive talks with Assad during a rushed visit to Tehran. Ahamdinejad believes that Syria has lost much of its value as a glacis for Iran. With Syria out of Lebanon, Iran itself could become the major foreign influence in the country.
Shiites, accounting for 40 percent of the population, represent the largest community in Lebanon and provide the Islamic Republic with the strongest domestic base any foreign power would need in that country. At the same time the demise of Saddam Hussein means that Iran no longer needs Syria to counterbalance Iraq within Arab regional politics. Once the U.S. is out of Iraq, Iran could easily emerge as the main foreign influence in that newly liberated country."
"It is hard to see where Assad's Baathist regime could go from here, except out. "
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