I have put the above paragraph in italics because it is key to understanding the basic thrust of Syrian foreign policy, which is turn partly explains why it is being targeted by the West: This story is not only about pipelines, it is above all about Syria's long-held policy of support for the cause of Palestinian liberation and the struggle for a Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel. In fact, it is known by pro-Palestinians around the world as 'the frontline state'.
Syria is not isolated from what is happening in the Arab world. We are part of this region. We influence and are influenced by it, but at the same time we are not a copy of other countries. No country is exactly like any other country. We in Syria have certain characteristics which might be different internally and externally from others.On the internal level, our policies had been based on development, opening up, and communicating directly between myself and the Syrian people. I am speaking about principles regardless of certain negative and positive aspects and what has and has not been achieved. In principle, these are the pillars of our internal policy.
Our foreign policy has been based on holding to our national rights, holding to pan-Arab rights, to independence, to supporting Arab resistance when there is occupation. The link between domestic and foreign policies has always been the Syrian citizen. When the Syrian citizen is not the heart of domestic and foreign policies, this is a deviation; and it is the job of the country's institutions to correct this deviation. The net outcome of these policies has been an unprecedented case of national unity which has been the real force which has protected Syria during the past years when pressures intensified against Syria. Thanks to this outcome that we have been able to dismantle huge minefields which have faced Syrian policy. We have been able to maintain Syria's central role and position. But this has not deterred the enemies. Of course I have just started to talk about this conspiracy, and then I will move to the internal situation, so that satellite T.V. stations will not say that the Syrian president considered all that has happened a foreign conspiracy. We have to start with the main elements, and then make the connections.
Maintaining this role or strengthening it, based on principles rejected by others, will make enemies try their best to weaken it through other means. I have always warned against rejoicing when we succeed, because success leads to a feeling of safety and complacency. I say that when you are in a battle, you know your enemy, you know the plan. But after the battle, you do not know what the enemy is preparing for you. So, after every success we should work harder in order to maintain our success and protect ourselves against any conspiracy which might be hatched against us in the outside world. And I am sure you all know that Syria is facing a great conspiracy whose tentacles extend to some nearby countries and far-away countries, with some inside the country. This conspiracy depends, in its timing not in its form, on what is happening in other Arab countries.
Today, there is a new fashion which they call "revolutions". We do not call them so because we think this is mostly a popular condition. As far as they are concerned, if something happens in Syria, then it has a cover: there is a revolution there so there is a revolution here: there is reform there, so there is reform here. The tools are the same: the slogans and talking about freedom. Consequently, if there are calls for reform - and I believe we all call for reform - we get along with them without knowing what is really happening. That is why they mixed up, in a very smart manner, three elements. I know that most of the people who are listening to us, and you represent them, know a great deal about these details. Nevertheless, I will discuss them once again in order to harmonize our concepts based on the available information so far. There might be things which will be revealed later. So, they mixed up three elements: sedition, reform, and daily needs. Most of the Syrian people call for reform, and you are all reformers. Most of the Syrian people have unmet needs; and we all discuss, criticize, and have our disagreements because we have not met many of the needs of the Syrian people. But sedition has become part of the issue and started to lead the other two factors and take cover under them. That is why it was easy to mislead many people who demonstrated in the beginning with good intensions. We cannot say that all those who demonstrated are conspirators. This is not true, and we want to be clear and realistic.
The conspirators are few in number, this is natural. Even we, in the government, did not know, like everybody else, and did not understand what was happening until acts of sabotage started to emerge. Things became clearer; for what is the link between reform and sabotage? What is the link between reform and murder? Some satellite T.V. stations actually spoke about attacking certain buildings an hour before they were actually attacked. How did they know that? Do they read the future? This happened more than once. Then, things started to become clearer. They will say that we believe in the conspiracy theory. In fact there is no conspiracy theory. There is a conspiracy.
It was difficult for us to fight against this situation, because people will mix between our fighting sedition and fighting reform. In principle, we support reform and meeting people's needs. This is the duty of the state. But we cannot be with sedition. When the Syrian people, with their natural and patriotic awareness, realized what was happening, things became easier. And the response actually came from the people more than it came from the state. As you have seen, the state refrained from taking action and left the response to the people. This has provided the sound, safe, and patriotic treatment and restored national unity very quickly to Syria.
What we are seeing today is a stage; and we do not know whether it is a first stage or an advanced stage. But we are concerned with the outcome because the last stage for them is for Syria to get weaker and disintegrate, because this will remove the last obstacle facing the Israel's plans. This is what concerns us. We are not concerned with the process, because we know that they will continue and will repeat what they had been doing in one form or another. Every experience will be based on the previous one. So if they fail, they will develop this experience. And if we succeed, we need to build on this experience. I have been advised by many people not to talk about details and to stick to generalities, but I will address these details as usual in order to be fully transparent.
In the beginning they started with incitement, many weeks before trouble started in Syria. They used the satellite T.V. stations and the internet but did not achieve anything. And then, using sedition, started to produce fake information, voices, images, etc. they forged everything. Then they started to use the sectarian element. They sent SMSs to members of a certain sect alerting them that another sect will attack them. And in order to be credible, they sent masked people to neighborhoods with different sects living in them, knocking on people's doors and telling each that that the other sect has already attacked and are on the streets, in order to get a reaction. And it worked for a while. But we were able to nip the sedition in the bud by getting community leaders to meet and diffuse the situation. Then they used weapons. They started killing people at random; because they knew when there is blood it becomes more difficult to solve the problem.
We have not yet discovered the whole structure of this conspiracy. We have discovered part of it but it is highly organized. There are support groups in more than one governorate linked to some countries abroad. There are media groups, forgery groups and groups of "eye-witnesses".
You can read the entire speech at: file:///Users/deen/Documents/SYRIA/Bashar al-Assad Speech at Syrian People's Assembly, by Bashar al-Assad.webarchive
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