Free Republic

I suppose certain puffed-up congressmen are feeling their oats since the election, but that's no excuse for their unauthorized trips overseas to meet with leaders of foreign nations. This destructive practice must be stopped. Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson traveled to Syria and met with its president, Bashar Assad, without the authority and contrary to the wishes of the Bush administration, including the State Department. The well-known policy of the Bush administration is that the United States has limited diplomatic ties with the Syrian government because of its support for terrorist organizations Hezbollah and Hamas, its support of terrorism and ethnic...

. Syrian President Bashar Assad, left, meets U.S. Senators John Kerry, right, and Christopher Dodd, second left, in Damascus, Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006

If Canadians require further evidence why our allies in the war against terrorism no longer trust us, they need look no further than the Maher Arar case. This is the man U.S. authorities apprehended at Kennedy airport in New York last September, alleging he was an al-Qaeda operative. Mr. Arar is a Canadian citizen, but he also is a citizen of Syria and as such under U.S. immigration law -- Canadian law has a similar provision -- was subject to deportation to either Canada or Syria. U.S. authorities chose to send him to Syria. We can only guess why. At...

The Middle East, says Syrian President Bashar Assad, 40, seems to be teetering on the brink of chaos. He spoke with SPIEGEL about his country's difficult relationship with the United States, the pressure to go to war, and the consequences of the wars in Lebanon and Iraq.

The interview with Syrian president Bashar al Assad on Dubai TV on Wednesday confirmed his regime’s isolation on the international, regional and Arab levels. It also revealed the outlines of confusion inside the country. The Syrian president is well aware that what took place in Lebanon was a catastrophe, irrespective of how often he speaks of a “strategic victory”. As such, Syria does not have the right to expect peace negotiations. The latest confrontation with Hezbollah will prompt Israel to re-examine how to heap more destruction for the least amount of losses, not to re-examine whether to fight Lebanon or...

My article on the meaning of the Middle East ceasefire and the failure of the Israelis to complete their mission speculated that it could lead eventually to a nuclear weapon being used by the Israelis on Iran. It seems to me that one might conclude from the following opposing article (its author says that the real losers were Syria and Iran (not Israel) that the events of this summer have actually laid the groundwork for the USA to bomb Iran with nuclear weapons.

DEBKAfile reports a war council in Damascus chaired by Syrian president Bashar Assad, attended by Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah and senior Iranian official Ali Larijani July 28, 2006, 4:42 PM (GMT+02:00) Iran‘s state news agency confirmed Nasrallah’s presence in the Syrian capital “for consultations.” DEBKAfile’s military sources note that Nasrallah crossed over despite the heavy Israeli air bombardment of Lebanese-Syrian border regions. The war conference is attended also by Hamas leaders Khaled Meshaal and Mussa Abu Marzouk as well as the Palestinian Jihad Islami chief Abdallah Ramadan Shelah. The Palestinian terrorist leaders were invited in their capacity as commanders of the...

<p>The former number two official in Saddam Hussein's Iraqi air force claims the former Iraqi dictator moved weapons of mass destruction from Iraq to Syria in the months preceding the current Iraq war.</p>

[Paul Bremer] writes that in the fall of 2003 he was told about a secret attempt by Syrian President Bashar Assad to incite the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the pre-eminent Shiite cleric in Iraq, against Americans. Mr. Bremer was told by a messenger that the Ayatollah had received a secret communique from Mr. Assad urging him to "issue a fatwa calling for a jihad against the Coalition," similar to the one the Shia had called against British occupying forces in 1920. "This was an act of extraordinary irresponsibility from Syria's president," Mr. Bremer writes. "We had good intelligence showing that...

In the gangster movies, you know all hell is about to break loose when one of the disgruntled old dons decides to switch sides and rat out the young Godfather. Something like that is now happening with Syria -- and it provides a new year's bombshell for an already turbulent Middle East. The turncoat don in this case is Syria's former vice president, Abdul Halim Khaddam. From exile in France, he gave an astonishing interview Friday that linked the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad to the murder last year of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri. He told al-Arabiya television...

DAMASCUS - Syria’s ruling Baath Party has dismissed former Vice President Abdul-Halim Khaddam and demanded that he be tried for high treason, the official news agency SANA reported on Sunday. The decision was announced in a statement issued by the Baath Party’s national leadership, the country’s highest decision-making authority headed by President Bashar Assad. It came a day after parliament recommended that Khaddam be tried for high treason after he claimed Assad had threatened former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri months before his Feb. 14, 2005, assassination.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, AP -The chief U.N. investigator into the assassination of a former Lebanese premier, armed with new powers from the Security Council, has summoned six senior Syrian intelligence officers for questioning, a Lebanese official said Saturday. The officers include Syrian President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law. The official, close to the U.N. team investigating former Premier Rafik Hariri's killing, said chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis sent the summons to the Syrian government via the United Nations on Wednesday. Mehlis has sent a letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan demanding to question at least six Syrian officials, the official told The Associated Press....

BEIRUT -- The Lebanese army fully deployed into the streets of Beirut while awaiting the release of U.N. special prosecutor Detlev Mehlis's report on his investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Armored vehicles and heavy artillery were placed in front of possible targets. Neighborhoods formed watch groups. The government suspended gun licenses. The streets were eerily quiet. Many stayed home in case Syrian terrorists lashed out in anger at their former subjects. And now, 250 days after Hariri was killed, the truth -- or at least something that looks like the shape of the truth --...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The lead investigator in the assassination of a top Lebanese politician acknowledged that he deleted references from his report implicating two relatives of Syria's president, raising questions about whether the U.N. tried to soften the inquiry's findings. The report, which accused key Syrian and Lebanese security officials of orchestrating the Feb. 14 bombing that killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 20 others, was nonetheless a stinging rebuke of Damascus' regime. The findings caused an uproar in the region and brought swift denials of involvement from the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. In an...

Via GOPINION. One week after Hizbollah’s leadership visit to Tehran and his meeting with the new President of Iran, the Syrian regime’s leader paid the same visit to the regional power seeking nuclear weapons, and reaffirmed the strategic alliance in the region.

DAMASCUS, Syria - President Bashar Assad met with a top U.N. envoy Sunday amid accusations that Syria has not fully withdrawn its intelligence operatives from Lebanon and was perhaps even organizing political assassinations. U.N. envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, who met with Assad for two hours, left the country without commenting on the outcome of the talks. The government also had no comment. In a statement issued in Beirut, Lebanon, U.N. spokesman Nejib Friji said Roed-Larsen discussed with Assad "all relevant issues and they will continue their dialogue." Roed-Larsen planned to brief U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the talks when they meet...

WASHINGTON — His father ran a brutal regime but earned grudging respect for knowing when and how to make deals, as in 1991 when he joined the U.S.-led coalition that expelled Iraq from Kuwait. * * * Martin Indyk, a former assistant secretary of State who met many times with Hafez Assad and spent three hours with Bashar Assad a year ago, calls him an "enigma" and an "ingénue" who appears to be not entirely in control of his own government. Surrounded by holdovers from his father's 30-year rule and Alawites from Syria's ruling religious sect, Assad is "an empty...

Last Saturday, Syria's president, Bashar Assad, spent an hour in front of his country's parliament discussing Syrian foreign policy. Some commentators focused on Assad's comments on Israel and Iraq, but they were just filler for what he was leading up to: an announcement of his intention to withdraw Syrian troops from Lebanon, where they have been stationed since 1976. Several Lebanese opposition figures welcomed that announcement, but kept mum about a more disturbing aspect of Assad's speech: his barely-concealed contempt for Lebanon. Syria's disastrous Lebanese policy is, in many ways, the sour fruit of that contempt. One cannot properly rule...

The events of the past few weeks suggest that Vladimir Putin, Bashar Assad and Howard Dean may be good candidates for forced retirement. Hopefully it will happen sooner rather than later, but let me explain why I decided to put these 3 together on my retirement wish-list.

The events of the past few weeks suggest that Vladimir Putin, Bashar Assad and Howard Dean may be good candidates for forced retirement. Hopefully it will happen sooner rather than later, but let me explain why I decided to put these 3 together on my retirement wish-list.