Syrian president Bashar al-Assad says there can be no solution to the conflicts in the Middle East, including the one in Iraq, unless the United States and Europe involve Syria and Iran in finding a negotiated settlement. "You guyz need me! I'm important! I'm big heat! Even though I don't have a chin!"
"The fact is that we (Syrians) live in this region, we know it well", he said in an interview published in the Rome-based daily La Repubblica on Friday. Washington, he said "needs our help" to bring an end to the violence in Iraq. Assad indicated Damascus would be willing to co-operate
One meeting with a Dem senator in Damascus, and Bashar starts dictating terms of capitulation to the entire Middle East. Heaven knows how big his head will swell after he returns from Moscow.
If it swells enough does he grow a chin?
Syria had "excellent relations" with many factions in Iraq and could support a national conference on the future of the country, he said. Assad also said the United States and Europe "must talk to Tehran".
Just who in the hell do you think you are, Bashar? David Gregory?
Assad's remarks coincide with a report in the Washington Post on Friday that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has rejected a bipartisan panel's recommendations that the Bush administration involve Damascus and Teheran in efforts to solve the conflict in Iraq.
And thank God for that.
Condi has enough sense to recognize that Syria is an enemy.
"If they (Syria and Iran) have an interest in a stable Iraq, they will do it anyway," Rice said.
And if they don't have such an interest, and the West allows Iran to build 35+ nuclear warheads a year, and allows the ayatollahs to deploy advanced missile systems to deliver them. then there will be hell on earth for a very long time.