Monday, September 3, 2012

Syrian crisis: clash between strategic interests of foreign powers

A Syrian parliamentarian said the 17-month-old crisis in Syria is not an internal conflict between the spectra of Syrian people, but a clash over the strategic interests between regional and international powers. In a recent interview with Xinhua, Khaled Aboud said the war is between Syria, Russia, Iran and other allies on one side, and the United States, Europe, Israel and Arabs on another side. Iran and Russia "don't play a role" in the Syrian crisis, but were dragged into the fighting over interests, "which happened to be in Syria's favor," according to Aboud. Aboud charged that the United States has used several "tools" in its engagement with the Syrian side, including economic, political and diplomatic sanctions. He noted that the United States has now moved toward another tactic, which is "creating a group of tools on ground to confront the state by violence." In order to achieve the latest tactic, Aboud said, the United States needed to create another part in order to make the conflict seems realistic between the Syrian state and the opposition. Aboud said the United States supports only the opposition that totally rejects the regime, while at the same time questions and regards as "not national" those opposition that went toward reconciliation with the regime and engaged with the regime in forming a new government. On the UN Supervision Mission in Syria, Aboud contended that the mission has been formed to create a political backdoor for the United States in case it failed to topple the regime using the tools that it has been using such as sanctions, and fanning the flames of fighting on ground. On the future of the Syrian crisis, Aboud expressed optimism that "we are heading towards arranging the Syrian table and a settlement." He made a connection between a possible settlement and the regional visit of Saeed Jalili, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, expecting that it would prepare the settlement table for the confronting parties in the Syrian issue.

No comments: