Syrian pol: "I am optimistic that within ten years, Israel will come to its end"

Then Syria might want to watch what it wishes for. There may be strings attached.

Note how optimistic and empowered the Islamic world is over Bush's impending departure. Does that mean his replacement is candy to them? Scary thought.

"We are talking about an eternal conflict."
--excerpted from an interview with Syrian Minister of Culture Riyad Na'san al-Agha, which aired on Al-Hiwar on April 19, 2008.

And why is the conflict "eternal" in the minds of most Arab Muslims (and even some islamochristian Arabs), those whom Riyad Na'san al-Agha calls "the Arab nation"? Because an Infidel nation-state, Israel, cannot be permitted to exist in the middle of Dar al-Islam. It goes against what is islamically right, what is islamically just, it goes against the nature of the universe. Why, the very idea that non-Muslims, once their land had been conquered by the forces of Islam, could somehow manage to resurrect themselves, managed to take back -- and not even mainly by conquest, but rather by purchase, as happened with the privately-owned land in Mandatory Palestine (the 90% of the land that was identified as "state or waste lands" went naturally from the Ottomans to the Mandatory Authority and thence to the State of Israel, which through heroic efforts managed to make some of those "waste lands" arable) -- it doesn't matter.

And only slightly less intolerable, for the "Arab nation" (that is, for Muslim Arabs and islamochristian Arabs, and of course for Alawite Arabs intent on preserving themselves from Sunni Arab ire by being so eager to promote the "Arab nation's" cause (in this respect, the Alawites are merely mimicking Michel Aflaq, who helped start Ba'athism as a political vehicle to provide Christian Arabs, or in some cases Arabic-speaking Christians, a way out of their plight as non-Muslims in a Muslim sea, and the way out was emphasis on a common "Uruba" or "Arabness").

One more reason for the Olmert regime to come to its senses --- or for the Israeli electorate to come to its collective senses and throw out, as soon as possible, the Olmert regime, and any of those who think that the way to peace is through "peace processing" and "negotiations" and "treaties" with Arab states (Al-Hudaibiyya treaties, every one of them has and always will turn out to be), and all the rest of it.

There is "peace" now, and if successive Israeli governments can just hold on, and can refrain from surrendering more territory, and retain control of invasion routes, and infiltration routes, and aquifers, and make sure, in concert with others, that certain kinds of weaponry never fall into enemy hands, it is not Israel but the Camp of Islam that, despite the OPEC trillions, is going to be held in permanent check, and what's more, there are so many ways now available to divide and demoralize the Camp of Islam, and there are so many reasons why those who have distanced themselves from Israel will again have to start seeing things aright -- their own situation, especially in Western Europe -- will force them to start seeing Islam, and therefore the Lesser Jihad against Israel, aright -- that time, if sensible people are in control, may favor Israel.

When you have a headache (as with rockets from Gaza), the solution is not to cut your head off.

Syrian Minister of Culture Riyad Na'san Al-Agha is quite the snappy western "Crusader" style dresser! He could and should appear on the cover of GQ magazine, or at least its Arab variant.

I wonder if he's an Alawite -none dare call them heretics to their faces- like his boss, Bashar al Assad? See: Beliefs of the Alawites for an excursion into true theological weirdness, even by Islamic standards.

I should point out that during an uprising led by the Sunni Islamist Muslim Brotherhood in 1982 in the city of Hama, perhaps 20,000 were killed by the Syrian military, which is not to say that the majority Sunni population has anything to fear, that is, unless it starts to get uppity and agitates for the overthrow of the government, in which case Minister of Culture Riyad Na'san Al-Agha would be the loudest cheerleader for the violent restoration of authentic Syrian culture.

In a perfect world; people like this would be in cages.

Not air-conditioned cages, like at the zoo, but in open-air, uncovered steel boxes barely large enough to move around in.

They would be given neither pot nor window... they'd just have to live in their own filth.

Once a day they would be forced to stand in the center of their cell and shout as loudly as they can their own most egregious pronouncements, telling us all again about their so-called moral, religious, and ethnic superiority.

Men, women and children everywhere would mock them, spit on them and jeer, laughing derisively at their petty, shitty, foolish, evil hubris.

They deserve no consideration... no mercy.

It must be nice to live in a fantasy world of one's own creation.

The only way Israel will come to an end in 10 or even 100 years is if Syria or Iran use nuclear weapons - maybe they have recently aquired some.

And maybe just maybe we have a mini-me MAD situation developing here and the comments are, while ambitious from a time frame point of view, are just foreshadowing this situation.

Jacob's trouble will only last for so long. Skip to the end of the book, Minister Riyad Na'san Al-Agha, you lose.

But I vote for undaunted's method above in the mean time.

What a reasonable guy.

CNN should snap him up, or the NYTimes.

This guy has a future in America with the Democrat party.

"an eternal conflict"

The Syrian said that. George W. Bush didn't. Neither did a single Israeli. So who's the warmonger?

This has nothing to do with what happened in 1967 or even in 1947. Anyone who thinks people of the Syrian's mindset will be satisfied when Israel reaches its end is kidding himself. Al-Andalus can't be far behind. Vienna will be on the to-do list as well. Islam's goal is total dominion. That's not paranoia. They're the ones who keep telling us and showing us exactly what they want a world ruled by Islam to look like. When will we get the wax out of our ears?

Undaunted's scenario has a fringe benefit: those in the cages can't procreate.

I am optimistic that within five years, Islam will come to its end.

Syria does not have the weaponry for such a war. Indeed, Israel, if faced with annihilation would have just cause to use nuclear weapons. May that never happen, however it will be the choice of its neighbors if they want such a war.

Western powers need to expand its cheaper air superiority, through the building of low cost bombers. We should never have gone to the ground in Iraq, but rather use a punitive bombing campaign to "correct" these Islamic thugs from threating Israel or any other civilized country. The method is simple and cheap. Use the high tech air superiority to establish clear skies, then use the cheap bombers to remove any ground threats.

I don't like war since it is evil, however given that the Islamic supremacists are unwilling to get over the fact that Israel exists, a defensive war would be just.

An air war is better ideologically also, since it limits the number of Muslim deaths since in a ground war, their leaders use their people as fodder. I am thinking of Iran using children to set off land mines and the poor sods on the highway of death. The ideological aspects of avoiding a ground war, is that it deprives Muslims of living out their martyr narrative, since there is no way for them to really engage the enemy in any "glorious" way.

A low cost containment cold war which undermines the Islamic jihadist narrative, while moving to destroy their economic base, is the best method for containing this evil. In addition, the USA with the help of Canada should move to expand the production of Coal-based fuels, along with a number of nuclear plants in Canada, along the border of Saskatchewan and North Dakota. Remember, Saskatchewan has so much Uranium at Cigar Lake, that robots are needed to extract the rich ore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigar_Lake_Mine

The nuclear plants would provide the energy needed for fuel extraction from the coal beds in Montana but also the Shale field in the northern stated. For a few hundred billion (1/5 of the cost of the Iraq war). North America could be energy independent of the Middle East, while destroying the economic foundation of the Islamic Empire.

Once this switch is made, expansion into Wind/Solar and wood based ethanol would allow for greener methods of energy production. All this could be accomplished at a much lower cost than a direct war, and would create thousands of new jobs and spur the North American economy.

Anyone who wants to discuss Syria, or thinks he has a right to make policies dealing with Syria, must find out about, must hold in the forefront of his brain, the history and role of the Alawites, their strengths (including their self-interested protection of Christians) and also their great vulnerabilities (including the fact that their syncretistic worship of Mary means that Sunni Arabs do not regard them as real Muslims, and that is the touchiest of subjects, the one that had the Alawites desperate for an Iranian fatwa a few years ago that appeared to give them full-fledged Muslim status, and helps explain the eagerness of the Alawite regime to curry favor with Muslims by 1) allowing Sunni Arabs to go off to Iraq to fight the Infidels 2) allowing Iran to trans-ship through Syria aid to Hezbollah 3) maintaining an unyielding stance toward Israel, which allows the Alawites to use their supposed "Arab" ethnic identity (decades ago more people in the country identified themselves "Syrians" just as in Egypt, 40-50-60 years ago, "Egyptian" rather than "Arab" was the favored identity -- those days can be made to come again) to make up for their unorthodox, not-quite-sufficient brand of Islam, or near-Islam, or quasi-Islam. This weakness can be ruthlessly exploited by the West -- not least by making the theme of the Alawites "non-Islamic" nature a constant source of discussion, thereby bringing the topic embarrassingly up. We have the power to make it hot for them, and if the Sunni Arabs ever come to power, they will, as Armenian friends of mine from Haleb have noted, promptly attack the Alawite villages, and those Alawite military officers will be helpless to protect their own famlilies.

Here's an article posted at JW two years ago:

What to do about the Alawites

The Alawites who rule Syria constitute 12% of the population. Though they make up the officer corps, still -- there are those pesky non-Alawites among the men to worry about. When "real" Muslims massacred 82 Alawite miltary cadets at a graduation ceremony, as part of an anti-regime, anti-Alawite campaign, Hafez al-Assad surrounded Hama, an Ikhwan center, and told his troops to kill anyone who moved. Twenty thousand were killed.

Talis pater, talis filius? Not quite. Bashir the son is a most myopic ophthalmologist. He may think that he is safe as long as he lets Sunnis use Syria as a point of entry into Iraq to fight the good fight (and any fight that directs Muslim interest and energies away from the Alawites of Syria, disguised as "Ba'athists," is a good fight), and simultaneously lets Syria be used the other way, as a place through which Iranian weaponry, money, and agents are delivered to Hizballah in Lebanon. In such a way do the Alawites hope, by giving at the office, to stay in power (and to keep those reliable Armenian drivers and other Christians whom they can trust).

But is this true? What if the Israelis inflict a severe defeat -- not merely severe, but one seen as humiliating, to the regime? Then the agitation would begin. Not agitation from the would-be Chalabis -- Ghadry et al, or the false "reformers" like Hafez al-Assad's former aide and Vice-President, the Sunni Muslim Kaddam, now working from the safety of his French pleasure-dome (bought with the loot his years in office permitted him to accumulate, which now allows him to pretend to be a "reformer" when what he really wants is to return to power, this time as Mr. Big). Every Alawite house has a picture of Mary. Every Alawite village is known. Do the Alawites want a bloodbath, or do they want to decide now to retreat into their own Syrian redoubt and no longer do Iran's bidding, or for that matter the bidding of Sunnis, deciding instead to preserve themselves and save their weaponry, for a war within Syria to preserve themselves from the real Muslims?

So far Bashir al-Assad's eagerness to assuage Muslims, both Sunni and Shi'a, outside Syria, appears to have worked. He is still in power. Alawite generals still strut about. But for how long, if their forces are damaged and humiliated by the Israelis? How long did Gamal Abdel Nasser last, after the Six-Day War?

In that vast Pentagon, is there anywhere an office devoted to tracking those potential sources of weakness and internecine warfare, in the camp of Jihad and Islam? For example, is there a special office designed to do nothing but figure out ways to use the peculiar vulnerability of the Alawites for American advantage? For those Alawites must prove to both Sunnis and to Shi'a that they are true Muslims despite their Mary-worship, despite the Syrian government closing on Christmas, despite the Good Friday processions that, incredibly for a supposedly "Muslim" country, actually take place publicly without incident (because the Alawite officers have the army in place to protect those Christian processions from the real Muslims, some of whom have resigned themselves to accepting these things). That office should be dedicated to obtaining not the "friendship" of the Alawites (for god's sake, put that idiotic goal out of your mind) but rather their cooperation, by threatening to encourage others -- Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia -- to use their propaganda machines to harp on this little matter of the Alawite despots who have murdered Sunnis, genuine Muslims, and continue to hold them in thrall. The Alawite rulers may think we would never do this, but that is only because they fail to realize that at this point, if the Alawites behave so as to promote the worst and most violent and most potent of Muslim armed groups, they should not expect their worship of Mary to get them off the hook.

Last year they lost Lebanon as a place to exploit financially. Now they have, in their insensate willingness to fulfill Iranian bidding and thereby to risk everything, have figuratively lost their heads. If they do not come to their senses, Americans, not with help from their "Sunni Arab allies" but rather from Sunni Arabs who have their own reason for cutting Syria's ties with Iran, should make sure that they will be in danger of turning that figurative loss into a literal one -- and not far in the future. Surely they know that. Surely they know what happened to those Alawite military cadets in Homs. Surely they know their local Muslims, and what is just beneath the surface, and what could so easily be made to come out, to the great chagrin of those Alawite officers who would suddenly lose control of their maddened men.

Why risk it? Why risk everything? Hizballah is in trouble. Iran is going to be in bigger trouble. Why should the Alawites of Syria risk all?

[Posted by Hugh at August 8, 2006]

Syria may not have the weapons for war but they have friends who are doing their best to get them.
The Syrian minister can afford to be optimistic. All he has to do is look at how Iran has the EU countries and the US wrapped around its finger. Everyone is jumping through hoops to appear peaceful and not antagonistic toward Iran.

The Sunni Arabs don't see the Arab or non-Arab Shia as true Muslims and they don't see the Alawites as true Muslims. So what? It hasn't stopped them from making common cause with these supposed heretics. The people of Iraq who rebelled against the terrorists did so only because THEIR noses were being bloodied. As long as only the infidel nose is bloodied, they're all happy. When it comes to Israel, they're all good buddies.

I suggest this character read Isaiah 17 before saying anything about Israel's destruction

I'M happy that Riyad Na'san Al-Agha, is confident. Someone has to be. He looks kind of western. Where's his zebibah?

Some years ago I was living in Israel and a female roommate from Denmark was dating an Israeli paratrooper. We were all having dinner and I never forgot what he said regarding Israel's enemies.

"You fuck with Israel and you end up wrestling with the angel of death."

Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at August 22, 2007 12:51 PM

I believe in Angels.

Riyad Na'san al-Agha: Those who will want to do this, God forbid, will have to get rid of me and many others like me beforehand.

From your mouth to God´s ear...

Imagine the Arab nation without those resistance fighters. By Allah, it is not worth being stepped on.

Your resistance fighters have intentionally targeted and killed many tens of thousands of civilians in Iraq. The world should not have to scrape your "resistance fighters" off its shoes.

Riyad Na'san al-Agha: Here in Syria, the people are united.

Yes, after the Syrian dictatorship murders and imprisons whomever it disagrees with. See the reports on Syria put out by any number of human rights groups.

I am optimistic that within ten years, Israel will come to its end.

I am sorry that because of murderous idiots like you, Damascus may well be melted into radioactive glass within ten years.

Newsflash, Mr. Minister - there is no "Allah." You're totally brainwashed by your false prophet.
Wow, what a sociopath you are. Just like your false prophet.

>>Syrian Minister of Culture Riyad Na'san al-Agha"

So Orwellian. Actually, you're Syrian Minister of Barbarism.

Some years ago I was living in Israel and a female roommate from Denmark was dating an Israeli paratrooper. We were all having dinner and I never forgot what he said regarding Israel's enemies.

"You fuck with Israel and you end up wrestling with the angel of death."

Posted by: Ynkedoodl2 at August 22, 2007 12:51 PM

That was some years ago. Israel isn't the same country it was even ten years ago. It has been beaten down. It may yet rise up again, but it's not clear that it will happen under Olmert. Will Israel survive Olmert?

"Syrian Minister Riyad Na'san Al-Agha Justifies the Persecution of Syrian Intellectuals and Declares: I Am Optimistic that Israel Will Come to an End
within 10 Years,"

The old saying is that the pessimist sees the glass as half empty, while the optimist sees the glass as half full. Now in our multiculti milieue the Mahometan pessimist sees the cemetary as half empty, while the Musselman who is an optimist sees the graves as half full.

Hughs post from 06 should be updated, since then the Syrians have been involved more in assasinations within Lebanon, they have had a purportedly North Korean Nuclear installation destroyed, and they have become more a puppet of the Iranians then I think they or any Syrian would want.

Democracy for the Alewites, without protection for minority views would probably lead to the Alewites being persecuted. One can see that by allowing the shia heretic a lot of leeway they may be angling for some future leeway for themselves. Perhaps they would be an alewite Janisary corps?

If I were to advise Assad on how to proceed, my advice would be to do some extraordinary things, first let Israel know that they would be amenable to a treaty to regain some of the Golan and to cede claims to the most sensitive areas, or to agree to safeguards that would assure Isreali concerns.

Second, the Syrians should renounce the use of terror, and should remove the sanctuary of all terror groups within Syria.

Third the Syrians should get with the intelligence agencies of the west and let them know how the Iranians are operating.

Doing these things would open up Syria to the world economy, it would enhance its effect in the Sunni world and would have tangible results to show for its reconciliation with Israel.

Note - 'ten years', yet again the magic and mysterious phrase, 'ten years'.

My guess: this evil person is convinced that Syria can bamboozle Israel, under Olmert, into making yet another worthless treaty by which Israel will give up territory, the military high ground, the Golan Heights (which, of course, Israel has also increased in civilian value enormously by the construction of all sorts of infrastructure, roads, buildings, farms, etc - need I say BOOTY?), in exchange for an entirely specious set of Syrian Arab Muslim promises, which of course Syria will not feel itself bound even to pretend to keep for any longer than ten years , that being the prescribed maximum expiry date of any agreement between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Indeed, well before the ten years are up, the treaty will be broken at a moment advantageous to the Muslims and an avalanche of fire will be poured down upon Israel from the Golan Heights...

That's my ten cents as to what he's thinking when he says 'ten years'.

Israel will NEVER go. Nor will Judaism or Hinduism.
Let the islamic world wait in vain, or cause anything desperate to happen. They will have their deserts (pun intended).

Israel should stop even thinking of discussing with Syria about anything except reparations for the several wars with Israel Syria started and lost.

If Syria starts to gig up and also refuses to cut ties with Iran and Hezbollah. then Israel should rig up and nuke Natanz

Olmert lost the war in Lebanon. He is implicated in the shameful eviction of Jews from Gaza. His antiterrorist policies amount to hysteria. Olmert could enter history on a level with Menachem Begin by bombing the Iranian nuclear facilities

Olmert has nothing to lose and much to gain by attacking Iran.

Note - 'ten years', yet again the magic and mysterious phrase, 'ten years'.

dumbledoresarmy,
Interesting observation.