Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, right, speaks with a journalist from Dutch television station NPO2 in the Syrian capital of Damascus on December 17, 2015. (Photo by Syria’s official SANA news agency)
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad (C-L) and his wife Asma al-Assad (C-R) posing for a picture with a Syrian man as they attend a Christmas choral presentation at the Lady of Damascus Catholic Church in the Syrian capital on December 18, 2015. © HO / AFP
By Stephen Gowans
In the view of Syrians, the country’s president, Bashar Al-Assad, and his ally, Iran, have more support than do the forces arrayed against him, according to a public opinion poll taken last summer by a research firm that is working with the US and British governments. [1]
He increases his personal power, but undermines the interests of the Turkish nation and its people. Erdoğan believes he is the rising regional hegemon, indispensable to the West. He blackmails the EU for billions of Euros to control the flood of refugees fleeing violence in Syria and Iraq with his promises to warehouse desperate refugees in Turkish concentration camps. But Europeans must know that their money can never buy trust and loyalty from the Pasha.
James Petras
Since the terrorists have swept the secularists aside, Christian Syrians–long protected by Assad—are now being “disappeared” by the millions. By the millions! Of the 1.8 million Christians that lived peacefully under Assad before the Arab Spring, only 400,000 Christians still live in intact communities in Syria today. The rest are either dead or fled–we know not where.
It’s time the West joins Russia in protecting Christians in the Middle East
by William Weding
What’s certain is that, geo-economically, Syria goes way beyond a civil war; it’s a vicious Pipelineistan power play in a dizzying complex chessboard where the Big Prize will represent a major win in the 21st century energy wars
by Pepe Escobar
The only way to end TERROR is to stop playing with the lives of tens of millions in the Middle East, as America has done for so long, and stop supporting the behaviors of a repressive state which has killed far greater numbers than the madmen of ISIS could dream of doing
Kremlin.ru
Vladimir Putin: Mr President,
Let me wish you a warm welcome to Moscow. Despite the dramatic situation in your country, you have responded to our request and come here to Russia, and we thank you for this.
President al-Assad: “Syrian people have been confronting terrorists ‘practically single-handedly’ for years… involvement of the Russian Air Force in the operations against terrorism in Syria has helped in halting the spread of the terrorist organizations”
