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Bashar Al-Assad: I am happy to meet you in this "New Middle East" - "new" in the way we understand it, and in the form we want it, even if this has not yet been completed.
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This New Middle East, which Syria has announced time and again, is the Arabs' only hope to have their place upon this earth, both in political and material terms.
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We meet today, at a time when the Middle East they desired, which is based on submission, humiliation, and depriving the the peoples of their rights and identity, has become an illusion.
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In order to avoid sinking into theoretical discussions, we must ask ourselves what we have gained from unwisely, illogically and recklessly following some our hypothetically wise people, who only seem to be reasonable, during the past decades. Many things have been achieved, but against our interests. Let us take the peace process as an example. We must ask whether or not it has failed. Lately, we have been constantly talking about the "death" of the peace process. Before that, we used to talk about the "failure" of the peace process. All this is undoubtedly true. But rather than saying that the peace process has failed - and it has indeed failed and died - it is more accurate to say it is the Arabs who failed in the peace process, by not understanding the meaning of peace as a strategic option. In other words, they did not distinguish between peace as a strategic option and peace as a sole option. When there is a certain strategic option, this does not mean that there cannot be other strategic options, or that there cannot be tactical options - they do not necessarily have to be strategic ones.
We, the Arabs, throughout the peace process, have adopted peace as the sole option, removing out all other options. Then we exchanged the meaning of peace as a sole option with the option of cheap peace, or peace for no price, in which we are supposed to give Israel everything, getting very little in return. In reality, we have given a lot, and some may have given everything, but we have not received even a little. We got nothing. Therefore, we see the Palestinians today paying the price of this reality, which existed in the past. This is the reason that Syria refused back then to relinquish any of its rights.
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When we say that we have chosen peace as a strategic option, this does not mean that we have removed the other options. On the contrary, as the realization of peace grows more distant, it becomes all the more important and necessary to search for other ways and solutions in order to restore our rights. At the same time, we, in Syria, have stressed the option of peace, since the beginning of the peace process, while adhering to the option of resistance, as long as peace is not realized, especially, since the hypothetical partner for peace is a party that does not believe in peace to begin with, and has given us one proof of this after another.
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Of course, we take Israel and the US out of the equation of peace, because Israel is an enemy, and, like I said, does not want peace.
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As for the US, we always say that it is essential for the peace process, because of its position as a superpower and its relations with the different parties - but not any United States. The current administration adopts the principle of a preemptive war - a war which completely contradicts the principle of peace. Now, after six years with this administration in power, it has been proven that there is no peace, and therefore, we do not expect peace soon, in the foreseeable future.
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The truth is that they only take action when Israel is suffering, and Israel suffers only when we have power. The bottom line is that the world will not care about us, our interests, our feelings, and our rights, unless we are strong. Otherwise, they do nothing. All they do is to push us towards peace with their words, while pushing us towards war with their deeds. Therefore, they bear the responsibility for what will happen. I'm referring to the countries that are interested in the peace process, most of which are European countries.
Here, we ask what drives some of the officials in these countries to send messages and to issue communiques about a man who went to jail for breaking the law. Then we are surprised to get messages from them, saying that this man in jail suffers from a medical problem, and they are very concerned about his medical condition. What is this nobility? What is this humanity? What is this greatness? Where are they with regard to the massacres in Lebanon?
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We also ask that senior French official [i.e. Chirac], who always has harsh criticism, especially of Syria: Will he demand an international investigation commission to investigate even the Qana massacre alone - I'm not talking about the rest of the massacres - just like they demanded the investigation of Prime Minister Al-Hariri's assassination? Or were they driven by the fact that it was Syria that was the prime suspect, and therefore, this was justified, whereas now Israel is being accused, which prevent [an investigation]? Or maybe it is because the children of Qana and other places are poor, and are not worthy of a second glance from that official?
We believe that the natural path to achieve peace is through negotiations, but when this path is either closed or does not even exist to begin with, resistance in all its forms is the alternative option in order to restore the rights. Resistance does not necessarily have to be an armed resistance, but can also be cultural or political resistance, and opposition of various types.
The goal of supporting resistance is peace, not war, through deterrence, to prevent aggression, and if this does not help, through a war to liberate the land. Therefore, resistance is neither the opposite nor an alternative to peace. At least under our current circumstances, it is necessary in order to achieve peace. Otherwise, we will lose both the battle for war and the battle for peace, especially since Israel, and behind it, the U.S., have completely adopted the military option, which is based on the principle of a preemptive war, while we Arabs have remained stuck, negotiating with ourselves, convinced of a peace promised with a party that is an illusion, which prepares itself on a daily basis for its next act of aggression against the Arabs.
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There are Lebanese groups which have failed in their pro-Israeli plot, and so they incited Israel to enter with its army, in order to save them from this mess, to strike the resistance, thus bringing Lebanon over to the Israeli side.
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Some talk about the Security Council resolution, or say: "This is what the Security Council wants"... It is as if the Security Council has divine authority, and as if its resolutions come down from the heavens. This is dangerous. National resolutions always supersede international resolutions, even if it leads to fighting. Even if it leads to fighting and war, we have no other option.
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You [the Syrian people] have been the beating heart of Arabism, with all the warmth this word contains - a warmth that will increase and grow stronger when we liberate the Golan with our hands and determination.
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