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Al-Assad used foreign intervention first | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Arab ministers are supposed to meet next Thursday in order to discuss the situation in Syria, and the al-Assad regime’s refusal to adopt the Arab League’s resolutions. This meeting comes amidst the false propaganda spread by the al-Assad regime itself, about foreign intervention in Syria and the threat of a civil war.

Therefore the Arab officials, all of them without exception, must be aware of the facts, rather than the al-Assad regime’s propaganda. The facts say that while the Syrian rebels have been peacefully maintaining their revolution for nearly eight months, the al-Assad regime is the one that has used weapons against them, with all its brutality. Of course the al-Assad killing machine has not stopped to this day, so how can the rebels be blamed after this for now starting to defend themselves, when faced with a regime that wants to rule with an iron fist?

The other thing that the Arab ministers must remember, as facts and not propaganda, is that while the Syrian revolutionaries have said, throughout the duration of the revolution, that they object to foreign intervention on their territory, the al-Assad regime has in fact used foreign assistance to succeed against its citizens. The al-Assad regime has used Iran in several areas, including receiving special equipment for espionage and the knowledge of its experts, apart from weapons and more of course. Likewise, the al-Assad regime is also using the capacities of Hezbollah, whether inside Syria or even in Lebanon, in the pursuit of Syrian opposition members, and hindering the activities of young Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The al-Assad regime is also using the support of the Iraqi government, and the Sadrist fighters who are flocking to Syria. There is evidence to confirm this, including what I have heard from several Arab apparatuses, which have supplied their foreign ministers with such information.

This is not all of course, there are also Russian ships anchored off Syria, and they are certainly not there to transport Russian tourists. In fact the Russian story here is greater goes beyond all this; for Moscow itself has begun to resemble the al-Assad regime’s foreign ministry, where it has begun to lecture the Syrians on what they should and should not do. Aside from all of the above foreign support for the al-Assad regime, there is the blatant support of the Lebanese government, and there is also media support coming from each of Iran, Iraq, Hezbollah and others in Lebanon. After all of the above, how can the al-Assad regime promote its propaganda and deceive anyone, when the al-Assad regime itself has inaugurated foreign intervention inside Syria in order to succeed against the unarmed Syrians, which in itself is an act of treason?

Therefore, the Arab League is now required to bring the Syrian file to the UN Security Council, and demand it to immediately intervene to protect the civilians who are being killed every day at the hands of the al-Assad regime. Anything less means that the Arabs have failed the unarmed Syrians. It means that they have not earnestly and decisively tried to stop the al-Assad killing machine, even though the regime did not cease its daily killings of Syrians throughout the period of its negotiations with the Arab League. The League must stand up to protect the innocent. If Tehran is only interested in al-Assad, then is it not appropriate that the Arabs should be interested in all Syrians?