All posts by Nir Boms

11May/08

Assad’s Glasnost?

Middle East, Syria, , , , ,

By Elliot Chodoff and Nir Boms
FrontPageMagazine.com | January 21, 2005

It was a busy week of hospitality for Bashar Al-Assad.  As visitors from America and China graced the halls of the presidential palace in Damascus, longer-staying guests continued to depend on Assad’s welcome and shelter to make trouble across Syria’s borders.

Senator John Kerry, still in presidential campaign mode, visited Syria last weekend and came away bearing apparent good news: Syria would like to open a new page in its relations with the U.S.  Kerry arrived in Damascus immediately following the departure of U.S. Under Secretary of State Richard Armitage.  Armitage had been there to discuss Syria’s failure to prevent armed supporters of the former Iraqi regime from entering Iraq and launching attacks against American troops and Iraqis.  Assad told Armitage that Syria is doing its best to control the terrorists and that Syrians are largely uninvolved in Iraq. Imad Mustafa, Syria’s ambassador to the United States, who also attended the meeting, asked Americans to stop their criticism of Syria in the media since “they have nothing to support” it. Continue reading →

11May/08

Assad on the Rocks

Middle East, Syria, , ,

Oct. 9 2005, Nir Boms

Facing additional pressures at home and abroad, the schedule of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, is particularly busy these days. There is much to do and time is of the essence. His timing, however, does not seem to work.

For example, President Assad had planned to head his country’s delegation to the United Nations summit last month. While restlessness was growing in Damascus, Assad could have benefited from a visit designed to ease Syria’s international isolation and show the 40-year-old president as a young reformist Arab ruler.

Continue reading →

11May/08

Assad Is Speaking

Middle East, Syria, , , ,

 

December 10, 2003
By Nir Boms and Erick Stakelbeck

In his three and a half years as Syrian President, 38-year-old Bashar Al-Assad has been called many things by U.S. officials. Misunderstood is not one of them.

Yet, if Assad’s recent comments to the New York Times are any indication, the U.S. has it all wrong when it comes to the Syrian dictator. In a wide-ranging interview published in the November 30th edition of the Times, Assad-in what undoubtedly came as a great surprise to the hundreds of political dissidents languishing in Syrian prisons-spoke of taking “better steps towards democracy.” Citing his commitment to progress, he declared, “We [Syria] have to change…I don’t agree to stand still…We are moving forward slowly but steadily.” Assad’s paean to democracy followed similar remarks by Syrian Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam at the Ba’ath Party conference in November. Acknowledging that “regional and international developments require the (Syrian) government to adapt,” Khaddam promised that “the (Baa’th) party is studying the issue of developing its political thinking.”

Continue reading →

11May/08

Another Syrian Round of Applause

Middle East, Syria, ,

by Nir Boms

“We are neither a great power nor a weak country, we are not a country without cards or foundations” said Syrian president Basher Assad in a recent interview as he planned to pull another card from his sleeve. “We are not a country that can be passed over with respect to the issues.” He continued with words, which may have been corroborated by Secretary of State Colin Powell that made Damascus one of his first stops after the fall of Baghdad, in spite of Pentagon opposition. Six months later, our “ally in the war against terrorism” remains a primary source and a transit point for the foreign terrorists working to destabilize Iraq. The failed Yemeni truck bomber detained last week in Baghdad holding a Syrian passport is not the first of his kind by a long shot. 

Continue reading →