“The project of political Islam has failed, and there should be no mixing between political and religious work.” That sounds reasonable. But of course Assad is a dictatorial oppressor; his U.S.-backed foes, on the other hand, are freedom-loving Jeffersonian democrats who destroy churches and want to institute an Islamic state. In any case, Assad’s confident statement about political Islam is certain to be contradicted by not a few Islamic supremacists, both in Syria and elsewhere.
“Syria’s Assad says political Islam project has failed,” from Agence France Presse, April 7:
DAMASCUS: The “project of political Islam has failed,” Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad said on Monday, calling for the separation of religion from politics, state television said.
Assad’s regime has been battling an uprising that has come to be dominated by Islamists, ranging from moderates to radicals, who want to see Syria run as an Islamic state.
“The project of political Islam has failed, and there should be no mixing between political and religious work,” he said in comments on the 67th anniversary of the founding of his Baath party.
Assad refers to all those fighting against him as “terrorists” and has said that he is battling extremists with retrograde ideas.
The president has repeatedly stressed the need for all parts of Syrian society to challenge “extremism”….