Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

After “Khaddam’s Report”… What Is Required? | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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This time around, the speaker was not “the spiteful” Walid Jumblatt nor the “agents” of the Lebanese opposition. It wasn’t a Zionist speaker or a member of the U.N international investigation team. Rather, it was Abdel Halim Khaddam, the former Syrian Vice-President, an old friend of the late Hafez Assad and, for decades, one of the main policymakers in Syrian.

Khaddam spoke to al Arabiya in an explosive interview that beat all articles and analyses. What he said on television was more damaging then the Mehlis’ report. He spoke about financial corruption worth billions of dollars and a state within a state, gangsters, questions and doubts. It was evident to all those who watched “Khaddam’s report” that the insinuations were more dangerous then the statements and that the threats to reveal more information made the issue more significant than observers had imagined.

Everything analysts said and the Mehlis report included has been confirmed by Khaddam. His explosive revelations in his interview with Al Arabiya need to carefully reviewed. Whatever Damascus does in the face of this earthquake will be ineffective. The statements by those who defend the Syrian position, to the extent that people know what they will say ahead of time, will be of no use. The Syrian media will not be able to respond to all this dangerous information.

I have said repeatedly, that the road to salvation and the safety of Syria is through something resembling a coup led by President Bashar Assad himself against the old guard. Syria is unable to bear more following Khaddam’s statements. In Syria, no one but the President is able to wage such a colossal campaign against the regime, its agents, its mentality and beneficiaries. I say this with good intentions. Repressive agencies and mafias in Damascus have already implicated the Syrian state is a series of mistakes. I rely on the critical statements by the President himself, on more than one occasion. It is time for him to apply them and save Syria from its predicament. But will he do so?