by MEMRI
In a March 15, 2015 interview with CBS, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that it is important to achieve a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria and that the negotiations would have to involve Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.[1]
This statement sparked much criticism in the Arab press. An especially harsh response came from 'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, the former director of Al-Arabiya TV, who wrote in an article titled "Has Kerry Gone Mad" that this is the worst thing Kerry has ever said. If Kerry thinks that he must ally himself with Assad in order to fight ISIS, Al-Rashed wrote, then he should know that his position will actually cause millions of Syrians to ally themselves with ISIS to fight Assad. Al-Rashed added that, if Kerry's position is meant to please Iran, the American government should think twice, because this position "subjects its interests to bigger threats and poses a threat to the region." He concluded that "Kerry has [opened] the gates of hell on himself and his country" in a region that is already furious at the U.S. for its silence over Assad's genocide and for its refusal to arm the Syrian opposition.
The following are excerpts from the article as published March 17, 2015 on Al-Arabiya's English-language website.[2]
'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed
"I don’t understand how
an official like the U.S. Secretary of State says that Bashar al-Assad
can be accepted because he needs him in the fight against the Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). John Kerry’s statement is enough to push
millions of people here to support ISIS. If Kerry’s excuse is that he
will cooperate with Assad because he [Assad] despises ISIS, then
millions of Syrians will cooperate with ISIS because they despise Assad.
"And these Syrian
people’s justifications are greater than Kerry's excuse. The Assad
regime, aided by his allies - the Iranians and Hezbollah [has] killed
more than a quarter of a million people. It’s impossible for them to
reconcile with [Assad] regardless of what the American justifications
are.
"Does the U.S. Secretary
of State think that millions of Syrians will be silent and forget about
the massacres and displacement which have befallen them just because
Kerry [has] decided to ally with the devil [in order] to fight another
devil? Despite his many slips, Kerry's latest statements were his worst.
This is regardless of whether they were simply made to please Iran into
signing a nuclear deal or whether they were the result of advice by his
advisers who care little about the plight of the Syrian people.
"The fundamental rule in
the fight against ISIS is [to] make sure it is confronted locally. This
can be done by getting regional people together to cooperate, since
ISIS poses a shared threat to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Without
regional cooperation, no one will be able to defeat terrorist groups,
which attract volunteers and donors with claims of standing against [a]
tyrant! How can the region’s governments convince their citizens
otherwise, when the U.S. Secretary of State publicly announces that he
[is willing to] negotiate with and accept the worst regime the region
has known - especially when this regime has done worse than Saddam
Hussein’s regime in Iraq and worse than Moammar Qaddafi’s regime in
Libya?
"If the aim of his
statement is to please the Iranians, the American government must think
twice, because this harms everything it has built over long decades. And
it also subjects its interests to bigger threats and poses a threat to
the region. In the end, the U.S. will get nothing but more regional
problems from the Iranians, the Syrian regime and Hezbollah.
"Kerry has [opened] the
gates of hell on himself and his country in an angry region, most of
[whose] people feel that Obama’s administration has been silent over
daily crimes of genocide in which forbidden chemical weapons have been
used, and has also prohibited arming the opposition with qualitative
weapons, and now [it] wants to reconcile with murderers in broad
daylight."
[1] Ipdigital.usembassy.gov, March 16, 2015.
[2] English.alarabiya.net, March 17, 2015; the text has been lightly edited for clarity. The Arabic article was published the same day in the London-based daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat.
MEMRI
Source: http://www.memri.org
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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