Iranian president says Europe uses special equipment to hoard rain, keep it from reaching Iran
Mahmoud Ahmadinejadis now accusing the West of tempering with the weather: The Iranian president said in a speech that the West is scheming to “cause drought in certain areas of the world, including Iran,” The Daily Telegraph reported Friday.
“According to reports on climate, whose accuracy has been verified, European countries are using special equipment to force clouds to dump” their water on their continent, he was quoted as saying. Iran has been suffering from draughts over the past few years.
Ahmadinejad referred in his speech to an essay published by an unnamed Western politician, who claimed that droughts are expected to befall the area stretching between Turkey and Iran, and to east Asia, in the next 30 years.
“The regions (referred to in) the article … include countries whose culture and civilizations frighten the West,” Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.
According to the British paper, as soon as Ahmandinejad finished his claim at the inauguration of a dam in the city of Arak, it started to rain.
This was not the first time that the Iranian president blamed Western nations for various plots aiming to undermine the Islamic Republic’s Ayatollah regime, sabotage its economic and scientific growth, and disrupt its foreign relations and national unity.
Two cultures had history of tolerance until the Islamic Revolution
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses members of Congress on Tuesday, he will get a rousing reception and – no doubt – a standing ovation if he suggests a military strike on Iran to destroy that country’s nuclear weapons facilities. Mr. Netanyahu rightly will point out that Iran is the No. 1 state sponsor of terrorism, a supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah and a threat to the Jewish state.
Members of Congress would be well-advised to take stock of the history between Iran and the Jewish state before giving the Israeli prime minister a green light to attack Iran. This 2,500-year-old history suggests that the character of the regime in Tehran has had the most immediate influence on Israeli-Iranian relations: Secularists have welcomed ties to the Jewish state, whereas Islamists have opposed cultivation of closer ties to Israel.
One of the most difficult challenges facing Uri Lubrani, Israel’s envoy to Iran from 1973 to 1979, was to persuade the 120,000-plus Iranian Jews to leave their homeland and settle in Israel. The reason for their refusal was simple: Until the establishment of an Islamic republic in Iran, Jews had embraced Iranian culture and were major contributors to the country’s economic, cultural and political development.
To understand the unity between Jews and the Iranian culture, one must look back to the events of 2,500 years ago. The history of Jews and Persians begins with Cyrus the Great, then king of Persia. It was Cyrus, the liberator, who freed the Jews from their Babylonian captivity and allowed them to return home to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem. Those who remained settled in present-day Esfahan and Shiraz.
As long as there were shahs ruling Iran, Jews were welcome members of Iranian society, in keeping with the precedent set by Cyrus the Great. In 1958, David Ben Gurion sent a letter to the shah in which he mentioned Cyrus’ policy toward the Jews as the foundation of a strategic alliance between the two countries. The shah replied: “The memory of Cyrus’ policy regarding your people is precious to me and I strive to continue in the path set by this ancient tradition.”
That tradition of tolerance continued during Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution.” Seventy-eight years have passed since the “Tehran Children” arrived in Israel when Iran facilitated the rescue of 780 children who cruelly had been separated from their parents. These children were snatched from the crematories of the Holocaust – whose existence is denied by leaders of the Islamic republic – in a unique rescue operation and made their long and tortuous way to Israel via Iran. In 1941, Iranian diplomat Abdol-Hossein Sardari, known as the “Schindler of Iran,” gave 500 blank Iranian passports to an acquaintance of his to be used by non-Iranian Jews in France.
During Israel’s formative years, the establishment of formal diplomatic ties with Tehran was motivated primarily by the human and ideological considerations of immigration. In 1948, Jews were being persecuted in Iraq, and Israeli agents, with the tacit approval of Iranian officials, used Iran as a transit point to relocate Iraqi Jews to Israel.
Iran’s concern for the safety and welfare of the Jews continued until the shah left Iran. The fall of the shah in 1979 caused widespread despair among Iran’s Jewish community. A congratulatory kiss between Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat in 1979 turned out to be a kiss of death for a number of prominent members of Iran’s ancient Jewish community and the harbinger of difficult times for Iranian Jews.
The late Khomeini’s attitude toward Jews had evolved into complete antipathy by the time he toppled the shah. In May 1963, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt sent an agent named Col. Abdul Hamid Sarraj to Qom to deliver $150,000 to Khomeini for anti-government riots. Prior to this date, Khomeini had referred to the shah as a “Zoroastrian fire-worshipper.” But after Nasser’s cultivation of this hard-line cleric, Khomeini would refer to the shah as “an agent of Zionism.”
Khomeini made his position on Jews clear in all his writings: “From the very beginning, the historical movement of Islam has had to contend with the Jews, for it was they who first established anti-Islamic propaganda … they are wretched people who wish to establish Jewish domination throughout the world.”
It should therefore come as no surprise that the heirs to Khomeini’s legacy call for wiping Israel off the map. They invoke a nuclear-armed Iran as the “beginning of the end of the Zionist state.”
While Mr. Netanyahu is right about the existential threat to Israel of a nuclear-armed Iran, he is wrong about advocating a military option. History suggests that the option of a secular Iran should be the focus of U.S.-Israeli dialogue on Iran. Helping secularists in Iran gain control of their country is the best guarantor of Israel’s security dilemma.
S. Rob Sobhani is author of “The Pragmatic Entente: Israeli-Iranian Relations 1948-1978” (Greenwood Press, 1989).
Suspects said to have passed information to US officials at embassies and consulates in countries such as Malaysia, Turkey and UAE; Tehran identifies 42 CIA officers apparently working with spies.
TEHRAN – Iran has arrested 30 people it said were spying for the United States, official media reported on Saturday.
“The Intelligence Ministry’s active and pious forces, in their ardent confrontations with the agents of the CIA … arrested 30 people who were spies for America,” state television’s lunchtime news announced.
According to the semi-official Fars news agency, the suspects had passed information to US officials at embassies and consulates in third countries, including Malaysia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates.
It said Iran had identified 42 US intelligence officers in such countries, saying: “they engage in collection of information regarding Iran’s nuclear, aerospace defense and bio-technology fields,” among other areas of interest.
Spying in Iran can carry the death penalty.
Diplomatic cables published by the WikiLeaks website showed the United States operated information-gathering desks on Iran in neighboring countries where diplomats would seek to glean intelligence from travelling Iranians.
The announcement of the arrests comes two days after US President Barack Obama made a speech on the Middle East, reiterating Washington’s view that Tehran sponsors terrorism and is seeking nuclear weapons, charges Iran denies.
demonstrator sets fire to a picture of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad during a demonstration outside the Syrian consulate in Istanbul. (File photo)
By SARA GHASEMILEE Al Arabiya with Agencies
Security forces killed at least 44 people during pro-democracy protests, which swept Syria on Friday and early Saturday, with most of the casualties in the western province of Idlib and the central city of Homs. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria seems to be showing no signs of relenting in his campaign to crush protesters.
The continued killings raise the question of what President Barack Obama of the United States will do, if anything, to deal with the deepening humanitarian crisis in Syrian.
“Syrian authorities are continuing to use excessive force and live ammunition to face popular protests in various regions throughout the country,” said Ammar Qurabi, head of the National Organization for Human Rights, who was reached by telephone by Agence-France Presse.
Mr. Qurabi said 26 people were killed in the province of Idlib and 13 in Homs. Two people were also killed in the eastern town of Deir Ezzor, one in Daraya, a suburb of the capital Damascus, one in the coastal city of Latakia (from where the Assad clan hails) and one in central Hama.
Syria has banned foreign journalists and prevented local reporters from covering trouble spots, making it nearly impossible to independently verify witness accounts.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in Britain, said on Friday that at least 831 civilians had been killed since the uprising against autocratic rule erupted in the southern city of Deraa nine weeks ago. It said at least 10,000 people had been arrested, including hundreds across Syria on Friday.
Syrian authorities blame most of the violence on armed groups, backed by Islamists and outside powers, who they say have killed more than 120 soldiers and police. They have recently suggested they believe the protests have peaked.
The United States, which has condemned the crackdown as barbaric, imposed targeted sanctions against Mr. Assad this week. President Obama said on Thursday that he should “lead that transition or get out of the way.”
Despite strong words from the White House, the West has so far taken only small steps to isolate Mr. Assad when compared with its bombing campaign against Libya’s leader Muammar Gaddafi, also accused of killing protesters.
The two-month uprising has posed the gravest challenge to Mr. Assad’s 11-year rule. He has lifted a 48-year state of emergency and granted citizenship to stateless Kurds, but also sent tanks to several cities to suppress the protests.
Western powers, fearing instability across the Middle East if Syria undergoes an upheaval, made only muted criticisms of Mr. Assad’s actions at first, but then stepped up their condemnation and imposed sanctions on leading Syrian figures.
Damascus condemned the sanctions, saying they targeted the Syrian people and served Israel’s interests.
“The sanctions have not and will not affect Syria’s independent will,” an official source was quoted as saying on state television on Thursday.
On Friday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez expressed support for his ally Mr. Assad, saying on Twitter: “I have spoken with the Syrian president, our brother Bashar, a few minutes ago. Syria is the victim of a fascist attack. God help Syria!!”
Mr. Chavez has said he suspects the US government is covertly trying to destabilize Mr. Assad’s government.
(Sara Ghasemilee, an editor at Al Arabiya English, can be reached at: sara.ghasemilee@mbc.net)
In ‘Wall Street Journal’ interview Gul welcomes Obama’s reference to 67 borders, recalls telling Mashaal “you have to be rational.”
Turkish President Abdullah Gul on Friday said that he had pressed Hamas to recognize Israel‘s right to exist.
During an interview with The Wall Street Journal a day after US President Barack Obama delivered his major speech on the Middle East, the Turkish president welcomed Obama’s reference to creating a Palestinian state based on pre-1967 borders as “a very important step.”
“The fact that there was a reference to the borders of 1967 was a very important step in itself,” Gul said.
Gul said during the interview from his office at the presidential palace in Ankara that he had already advised Hamas to recognize Israel. He recalled in particular a 2006 meeting with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Ankara, when he said he told Mashaal, “you have to be rational” about recognizing Israel’s right to exist.
The Turkish president said he Hamas to recognize Israel at the same time that Israel recognizes a Palestinian state. Hamas’s charter calls for replacing Israel with a Palestinian state in its entirety, and while Hamas leaders have spoken of a two-state solution in the past, it has been as a temporary measure, Gul said during the interview.
Gul highlighted that Israel was right to put its security first—but that this must be done effectively. Israel needs to understand the meaning of the democratic uprisings in the Arab world, namely that new elected governments would no longer be allowed by their voters to tolerate “humiliating” Israeli policies, Gul stressed during the interview.
“Israel shouldn’t focus on tactical issues. They have to look at the strategic side,” Gul told The Wall Street Journal.
The Turkish president said Obama “has a point” when he said in his speech that Israel couldn’t be expected to negotiate with a body that doesn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist.
Senior Fatah member Shaath says he hopes “Obama will not stand in the way of freedom, which he requested for all Arab nations in speech”; Abbas calls on US to put more pressure on Netanyahu.
The Palestinians will move ahead with their quest to win UN recognition of a state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, Senior Fatah member Nabil Shaath said late Friday.
Shaath made the comments after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu met with US President Barack Obama and flatly rejected any return to the 1967 lines, the basis – along with agreed land swaps – for a deal with the Palestinians as laid out in Obama’s speech Thursday.
However, Shaath said that “we will escalate our diplomatic efforts to get the recognition of the Palestinian state.”
Shaath noted that Obama didn’t threaten a veto. “We still hope that he will not do so, and that he will not stand in our way to freedom and independence, which he called for for all the Arab nations,” he said.
Earlier on Friday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on the United States to put pressure on Netanyahu with regards to the peace process.
Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said, “the US administration has to put a stop to Netanyahu’s blatant refusal to enter into a real peace process and a permanent one based on the two-state solution,” official Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA reported.
Addressing Netanyahu’s rejection of ’67 borders, Abu Redeineh said, “These statements are an official declaration that he is not ready for true peace based on justice and international resolutions.”
Regarding the prime minister’s statement following the Obama meeting about refugees, Abu Redeineh said the issue should be settled in negotiations, not in press statements.
The Abbas spokesman also rejected foreign criticism of the recent Fatah-Hamas unity deal, which has been criticized by Israel and the West, who classify Hamas as a terrorist organization. The Palestinian government, he said, is “an independent government that has nothing to do with Fatah or Hamas and its program is that of President Mahmoud Abbas.”
“What Netanyahu is saying are excuses to avoid sitting at the negotiating table,” he added.
President Obama and Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu meet in the Oval Office on Friday.
WASHINGTON—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a rare public rebuke of President Barack Obama at the White House, declaring that Israel would never accept the terms of his proposal to resume peace talks with the Palestinians.
Mr. Netanyahu appeared to lecture Mr. Obama following their nearly two-hour meeting Friday—exposing tensions between leaders over Mideast policy that are usually kept out of the public eye.
That followed some unsuccessful behind-the-scenes wrangling by Israeli officials to convince Mr. Obama to abandon plans to urge, in a major speech Thursday, that peace negotiations resume based on Israel’s borders before it gained new territory in the 1967 Six Day War.
Before cameras and reporters in the Oval Office Friday afternoon, Mr. Netanyahu turned to face the president while telling him Israel “cannot go back to the 1967 lines” that are “indefensible.”
The discord was likely to play out further at the annual gathering of Washington’s most powerful pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, where Mr. Obama was scheduled to speak on Sunday and Mr. Netanyahu the following day.
The encounter could place Jewish-Americans in the awkward position of having to choose sides between the visions laid out by the two leaders. Pro-Israel lawmakers and lobbyists already began lashing out at Mr. Obama’s stance soon after he proposed it.
Mr. Netanyahu will also speak before a joint session of Congress Tuesday, providing him a second opportunity to rally support against Mr. Obama’s approach.
Neither leader, meanwhile, articulated a clear path for resuming peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Indeed, both men agreed that the recent inclusion of the militant organization Hamas in a Palestinian government greatly undermined efforts to revive the peace process. The U.S. designates Hamas as a terrorist organization.
“Obviously there are some differences between us in the precise formulations and language, and that’s going to happen between friends,” Mr. Obama told reporters as he sat next to Mr. Netanyahu, before the Israeli premier spoke.
But, he said, “I think that it is possible for us to shape a deal that allows Israel to secure itself, not to be vulnerable, but also allows it to resolve what has obviously been a wrenching issue for both peoples for decades now.”
Messrs. Obama and Netanyahu met Friday morning at the White House following 24 hours of hectic diplomacy between the U.S. and Israel.
Earlier in the week, senior Israeli officials said they had been led to believe that Mr. Obama’s address—his first wide-ranging speech on recent political turmoil in the Mideast—wouldn’t focus in a significant way on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Then, before the speech Thursday, Mr. Netanyahu got word that Mr. Obama was about to make the clearest statement ever by a U.S. president that talks to create an independent Palestinian state should begin with Israel’s pre-’67 borders as the baseline—though the president would recognize the need for land swaps.
Israel has resisted such a declaration, arguing that it essentially forces the Jewish state to give up bargaining chips at the beginning of any negotiation. Mr. Netanyahu has said Mr. Obama’s comments marked a reversal from an assurance by President George W. Bush in 2004 that Washington accepted that Israel wouldn’t have to give up large Jewish settlements in the disputed West Bank as part of any final agreement.
Mr. Netanyahu tried to prevent the statement, in a tense phone call with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, according to officials briefed on the exchange. Mr. Obama started his Thursday speech more than half an hour late due to last-minute changes, according to U.S. officials.
Messrs. Netanyahu and Obama had wide-ranging discussions in the Oval Office Friday, which drifted well beyond the scheduled time and cut into the two leaders’ lunch.
Aides who were supposed to be included in portions of the meeting were left outside Mr. Obama’s office.
U.S. and Israeli officials said the two men discussed the reasons behind Mr. Obama’s decision to make a definitive public statement on the borders issue.
They also discussed the recent political turmoil in the Arab world, particularly the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as well as the continuing threat posed to Israel by Iran.
Israeli officials said Mr. Netanyahu left the meeting feeling better about the state of Israeli relations with its closest ally. “He came in worried and left encouraged,” said a senior Israeli official briefed on the meeting.
Still, Mr. Netanyahu directly challenged Mr. Obama’s vision for a two-state solution in the press availability after the meeting, a rare break from the usual diplomatic niceties at such staged events.
After Mr. Obama’s introductory comments, the Israeli leader leaned toward the president and directly said his call for negotiations based on pre-1967 lines was a non-starter.
“Remember that, before 1967, Israel was all of nine miles wide. It was half the width of the Washington Beltway, and these were not the boundaries of peace; they were the boundaries of repeated wars, because the attack on Israel was so attractive,” Mr. Netanyahu said, staring at Mr. Obama.
“So we can’t go back to those indefensible lines, and we’re going to have to have a long-term military presence along the Jordan [Valley],” he added.
The latter point directly contradicted Mr. Obama’s statements in his Thursday speech, which stated Israel would have to conduct a phased withdrawal of its troops from the West Bank.
The White House, following the press event, tried to play down any divisions and said Mr. Obama’s speech didn’t mark a significant shift in U.S. policy. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush mapped out peace plans that implicitly involved using the 1967 borders as a starting point for talks; Mr. Obama made that assumption explicit.
“This is a position that’s been recognized by all parties to these negotiations for a long time: that any territorial resolution would be based on the ’67 lines,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said after the meeting.
U.S. and Israeli officials said the coming weeks could prove crucial for the stability of Israel and the broader Middle East.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, viewing the peace process as stalled, has launched a campaign to win recognition for Palestine as a sovereign state from the United Nations. A vote on the issue could pass during the U.N. General Assembly in September.
U.S. officials said one reason Mr. Obama made his declaration Thursday was to try to win international support for a new round of peace talks and to block the U.N. vote. U.S. officials said the White House needed to show the Palestinians and Europeans that Washington was serious about pressing Mr. Netanyahu for concessions.
Mr. Netanyahu’s on-camera critique of the American president also drew out some divisions among Jewish-Americans, who were already split over Mr. Obama’s suggestion that peace negotiations should begin with the pre-1967 lines.
Mr. Obama won the majority of Jewish voters in 2008, but some have expressed dissatisfaction over his approach to Israel.
“The President’s remarks have revived and exacerbated fears in Israel,” said Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I., Conn.). “The fact is, while the exciting and hopeful new reality in the Arab world is the Arab Spring, the newest reality in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is not hopeful,” he said.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, a Jewish human-rights group, said he was “delighted” by Mr. Netanyahu’s statements.
“The prime minister decided while the press was there that he was going to make it very clear in front of President Obama this was not going to happen, not on his watch,” he said.
Others played down the tension between the two leaders Friday. Abraham Foxman, national director of the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League, criticized Mr. Obama’s 1967 statement but said the two countries mostly agree on how to begin the peace process.
Syrian citizens who fled from violence from the western Syrian villages along the Lebasese-Syrian border, protest as they shout slogans against Bashar Al Assad and his regime. (AP photo)
By MUSTAPHA AJBAILI AND ABEER TAYEL Al Arabiya with Agencies
Syrian security forces on Friday shot dead at least 34 people, including children, during pro-democracy protests across the country, activists and witnesses told Al Arabiya.
Pro-democracy protests erupted in several Syrian towns and villages on Friday, with demonstrators calling for more freedom in defiance of a brutal crackdown, as President Barack Obama of the United States put fresh pressure on Damascus to curb a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests.
His exhortations obviously did not carry much weight with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. The regime’s well-armed forces shot into crowds as they rallied in Damascus, Banias, Qamishli, Homs and Hama, defying heavy security deployed to quell an uprising against the autocratic rule of Mr. Assad, witnesses and activists said.
The opposition had called for massive demonstrations across the country after the Friday prayers, promising a “surprise” for President Assad’s regime in the two major power centers, Damascus and Aleppo.
“People are ready for this Friday,” said the Syrian Revolution 2011, a Facebook group spurring anti-regime protests, according to Agence-France Presse.
“Damascus and Aleppo are preparing a surprise for the regime and the shabbiha,” it added in reference to pro-government “thugs,” without elaborating.
“We will not be tolerant with the security forces or shabbiha,” it said. “We won’t let them arrest us and we will be like a thorn in their throat.”
Crucially, both Damascus and Aleppo have so far been largely spared the unrest roiling the 23-million-people country and it is widely believed that should massive demonstrations begin there that would mark a serious setback for the authoritarian regime.
Friday’s protests were called amid mounting pressure by the international community for the Syrian government to stop its crackdown on demonstrators who have taken to the streets, emboldened by revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.
Some 1,400 Syrians, many of them women and children without belongings, meanwhile, crossed the border with Lebanon last week to join many more who have fled the unrest at home, the UN refugee agency said Friday.
“Most of the people who have crossed the border in recent weeks are women and children. In addition to their immediate need for food, shelter and medical help, they also need psycho-social support,” UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic told reporters in Geneva.
According to local Lebanese leaders some 1,400 people have crossed into the Wadi Khaled and Tall Biri regions over the past week from the Syrian border town of Tall Kalakh, he said.
“Local authorities estimate that around 4,000 Syrians have crossed to Lebanon recently. The exact numbers are difficult to confirm,” the spokesman added.
In a major speech Thursday on the Middle East, President Obama urged his Syrian counterpart Mr. Assad, who is facing the greatest challenge to his 11-year rule, to lead a political transition to democracy or “get out of the way.”
“President Assad now has a choice,” Obama said in his speech. “He can lead that transition or get out of the way.”
“The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests,” Mr. Obama said.
Damascus, however, defiantly rejected the warning, countering that Mr. Obama’s appeal was not aimed at easing tensions in Syria but rather at sowing discord.
“Obama is inciting violence when he says that Assad and his regime will face challenges from the inside and will be isolated on the outside if he fails to adopt democratic reforms,” the official news agency SANA said.
The government newspaper al-Thawra also criticized the US president saying: “He (Obama) didn’t forget his arrogance in telling a sovereign country what to do … and threatening to isolate this country if it fails to do as told.”
More than 850 people have been killed and thousands arrested since the protests began in mid-March, according to human rights groups and the United Nations.
Mr. Assad’s government has blamed the violence on “armed terrorist gangs” backed by Islamists and foreign agitators.
The confident 46-year-old president earlier this week said he believes the unrest was coming to an end and, in an unusual step, acknowledged “mistakes” by the country’s security services.
Syria deployed tanks in a border village on Thursday, witnesses told Reuters, ignoring growing international pressure calling on President Assad to stop trying to crush popular unrest or step aside.
Rights groups troops backed by tanks deployed in a Syrian border village, clearly visible from adjacent Lebanon.
On Thursday Syrian soldiers could be seen deploying along a stream in Arida, a Syrian village next to Lebanon’s northern border, and entering homes. Lebanese soldiers fanned out on their side of the frontier.
Earlier, sporadic gunfire and shelling were heard from the village. Arida is near the mostly Sunni Muslim town of Tel Kalakh, where one rights activist says Syrian troops have killed at least 27 civilians since entering on Saturday, Reuters reported.
A resident said that armored personnel carriers and dozens of buses filled with soldiers had begun pulling out of Tel Kalakh around noon on Thursday and were heading north.
The protests have posed the greatest challenge to nearly five decades of rule by his Baath party, which is controlled by members of the minority Alawite community, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
Western powers initially were hesitant to criticize Mr. Assad’s regime due to Syria’s geopolitical and strategic importance in the region and fears of possible civil war if the regime were to collapse.
Washington and its European allies imposed sanctions on President Assad and his top aides this week in a bid to pressure his authoritarian regime to stop a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protests roiling the country for the last two months.
(Mustapha Ajbaili, an editor at Al Arabiya, can be reached at: Mustapha.ajbaili@mbc.net. Abeer Tayel, an editor at Al Arabiya, can be reached at: abeer.tayel@mbc.net)
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