Syria’s President Warns of Apocalyptic War
In
a rare interview with Russia Today TV, President Bashar Assad
vigorously clarified his stance on the current Syrian crisis created by
the West and some regional states including Saudi Arabia, Turkey and
Qatar and warned them of the apocalyptic consequences of any foreign
intervention in Syria.
“I
do not think the West is going [to intervene], but if they do so,
nobody can tell what is next. I think the price of this [foreign]
invasion if it happened is going to be more than the whole world can
afford,” Assad said in a Thursday interview with Russia Today TV
network.
Assad
warned that the domino effect of any military attack on the country
“will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific and you know the
implication on the rest of the world.”
Assad
is well aware of what the West and their Arab allies are up to and what
kind of scenario they are planning to follow in his country.
Syrian
crisis has been dragging on for months now and a large number of people
including civilians have been killed. The sabotaging efforts of the
West and the financial funding of the insurgents by the regional states
have not yet yielded any fruits whatsoever in helping these antagonistic
forces to achieve their goals in Syria.
There
was an initial assumption that President Assad would soon realize that a
propitious escape would be the wisest choice. However, the speculation
never transcended a merely idle notion. Thanks to Iran, China and
Russia, Syria stood firm and a West-prescribed recipe for the so-called
peaceful transition of power never materialized in the country. Quite
unexpectedly, the plans of Syrian opposition fell apart on the eve of
Doha conference. The initiative so vehemently backed by the West to form
a united Syrian opposition practically went to waste on Wednesday night
as the key opposition movements from inside the country pulled out.
Opposition groups were scheduled to meet in Doha, the capital of Qatar
on Thursday in order to appoint a new and strong leadership. However,
three dissident bodies suddenly decided not to attend the meeting.
“There are too many people against this initiative for it to work now,” said a western diplomatic source in Doha.
Needless
to say, the failure of the plan dealt a humiliating blow to US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who was the one to announce it so
unexpectedly as well as to Britain which had strongly supported the
initiative.
It seems that the West and its regional allies are incapable of building a united front against the government of Bashar Assad.
In
addition to the efforts of the West and its allies to take control of
Syria, there is yet another danger which gravely threatens the country
to an inconceivable degree: the influx of the Salafi-Jihadists into the
country. Last February, al-Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is
reportedly in Jordan, urged his followers in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and
Turkey to rise up and support what he called ‘their brothers in Syria’.
Also, Abu Muhammad al-Tahawi, a leading figure in Jordan’s
Salafi-Jihadist movement, told the BBC that “jihad in Syria is
obligatory for any able Muslim in order to help his brothers there.”
The
fact is that the al-Qaeda-affiliated Salafi-Jihadists have already
swarmed into the country and are already fighting against Bashar Assad’s
government; among the killed, some have been identified to belong to
the Salafi cult. The grand plan is to turn Syria into a safe haven for
the Salafis who are responsible for beheading Syrian troops and
civilians. Ghastly videos have recently circulated on the internet,
showing the Salafi-Jihadists beheading Syrian troops and civilians in
cold blood.
Parenthetically,
beheading is a ritual act rather than a way of killing in war. The act
of beheading contains a symbolic meaning: the victim is relegated to the
degree of a beast and he should be treated likewise. Further to that,
this act of brutality inspires an atmosphere of horror and commotion in
the viewer and quenches the bestial thirst within the decapitator.
From
an anthropological point of view, many societies used to revere the
head as the seat of wisdom and consciousness and believed it must be
connected to the body in order for the soul to travel into the
hereafter. Without it, the spirit would keep wandering restlessly. Based
on this perception, the act of beheading is to be taken to imply that
the victim would never regain peace as his/her spirit would wander for
all the time to come.
After
all, a display of atrocities has manifested itself in grisly different
forms on the part of the insurgents in Syria. On Saturday, humanitarian
organizations condemned video images of rebels executing captured Syrian
soldiers after insurgents overran army checkpoints near the town of
Saraqeb on the strategic highway linking Damascus and the port city of
Latakia to Aleppo.
“This
shocking footage depicts a potential war crime in progress, and
demonstrates an utter disregard for international humanitarian law by
the armed group in question,” Amnesty International said.
Rupert
Colville, spokesman for UN human rights chief Navi Pillay, said this
could amount to a “war crime” and that the video footage, showing
soldiers pushed to the ground and kicked before being shot, can be
presented as evidence.
In
any event, a Syria without Assad would mean a country in the hands of
the Salafi-Jihadists who will undoubtedly turn the country into a
graveyard for the Alawites and the moderate Sunnis and a breeding ground
for terrorism and extremism in the region. It goes without saying that
the Middle East region is being systematically and consciously devoured
by an act of extremism funded and promoted by Washington and some Arab
regimes.
Even
without envisaging any foreign intervention and the domino effect it
will have on the region and on the world as President Bashar Assad
predicts, Syria is being eroded from within and without by different
forces which have mobilized despite the rift in their ideologies but
each with a unique agenda.
The tug of war in Syria has long started and there is an immediate danger of engaging the entire region in this bloody broil.
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