{"id":2008,"date":"2009-01-21T15:09:27","date_gmt":"2009-01-21T15:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=2008"},"modified":"2009-01-21T15:09:27","modified_gmt":"2009-01-21T15:09:27","slug":"syrias-advice-to-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/syrias-advice-to-obama\/","title":{"rendered":"Syria&#8217;s Advice to Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gulfnews.com\/images\/09\/01\/20\/21_op_us_syria02_4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"280\" height=\"329\" \/>Sami Moubayed parses Assad&#8217;s Der Spiegel interview:&#8217;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/international\/world\/0,1518,602110,00.html\">Peace without Syria Is Unthinkable,<\/a>&#8216; on 01\/19\/2009 in his Gulf News article: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gulfnews.com\/opinion\/columns\/region\/10276934.html\">US and Syria should meet halfway<\/a>. His main points are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: x-small; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000;\">The Bush team wrongly believed that the Syrians were more interested in returning to Lebanon, than in restoring the Golan. That was untrue and unfair to Syria. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: x-small; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000;\">The only chances for resuming Syrian-Israeli talks would be for an international conference to be held to discuss the Middle East peace process, similar to the one that took place in Annapolis, only with a more serious US Administration. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: x-small; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000;\">Since Syria and Qatar announced that the Abdullah Initiative, agreed upon at the Beirut Summit of 2002, was now dead, a new formula would have to be reached, by consensus in the Arab League that is acceptable to the Syrians.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: x-small; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000;\">When confronted with the old saying, &#8220;no war without Egypt, no peace without Syria&#8221; the Syrian leader said that more than ever, that argument still stands. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: x-small; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000;\">What is required today is a series of confidence building measures &#8211; and symbolic gestures between Damascus and Washington DC. <\/span><span style=\"font-size: x-small; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000;\">One gesture would be sending a US ambassador to Damascus. Syria would reciprocate by opening the American school and the American culture centre. <\/span><span style=\"font-size: x-small; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000;\">Progress would logically end there, however, &#8230; until the Golan Heights are returned to their rightful owners. In this respect, Syria has a major role to play in bringing about regional peace. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: x-small; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000;\">Need for a de facto recognition of Hamas, similar to how Israel and the United States recognized Hezbollah through the April Understanding of 2006. <\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: x-small; font-family: Verdana; color: #000000;\">Egypt, however, is currently trying to take credit for the ceasefire in Gaza, while noticeably; Hamas announced its acceptance of the ceasefire, neither from Gaza, nor from Cairo, but from Damascus.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sami Moubayed parses Assad&#8217;s Der Spiegel interview:&#8217;Peace without Syria Is Unthinkable,&#8216; on 01\/19\/2009 in his Gulf News article: US and Syria should meet halfway. His main points are: The Bush team wrongly believed that the Syrians were more interested in returning to Lebanon, than in restoring the Golan. That was untrue and unfair to Syria. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asad","category-peace"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.8.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Syria&#039;s Advice to Obama - Syria Comment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/syrias-advice-to-obama\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Syria&#039;s Advice to Obama - Syria Comment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sami Moubayed parses Assad&#8217;s Der Spiegel interview:&#8217;Peace without Syria Is Unthinkable,&#8216; on 01\/19\/2009 in his Gulf News article: US and Syria should meet halfway. 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