by Stephen Lendman

Previous articles explained. America wants unchallenged dominance. It's ravaging Middle East/North Africa/Eurasian countries. It's doing so to achieve it.

It's destroying them one at a time. It's committing mass murder and destruction. It calls it a small price to pay. It wants the region colonized. It wants it balkanized.

It wants control of its oil, gas and other strategic resources. It wants state industries privatized. It wants new US bases. It wants them for greater control. It wants its people exploited. It wants puppet leaders replacing independent ones.

Syria is Washington's war. It was lawlessly invaded. Assad's battling Western-enlisted death squads. They're terrorists. They're not liberators.

Resolving nearly two and a half years of conflict requires defeating them. It's about doing it with overwhelming force. Saving Syria depends on it. The alternative's intolerable Western domination.

Syrians want none of it. They want to live free. They value their sovereign independence.

They won't surrender. They won't do it to advance America's imperium. They haven't struggled this long to quit. It's an option they don't accept.

On August 5, the
Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) headlined "President al-Assad: Syrians alone can end the crisis, only solution to terrorism is striking with an iron fist."

He's right. The only language terrorists know is force. At a Sunday Iftar dinner, Assad addressed attendees. He "vow(ed) to defend the homeland and face the challenges no matter how big with more resolve and determination."

"We meet today to remember that there are men who sacrificed their lives to keep the homeland proud and the word of right high," he explained.

"We meet in solidarity with their families who lost those who are most precious to them and with the needy people who are facing the accumulative burdens of life with patience and faith."

Syria's "homeland doesn't abandon its sons during misfortunes, but rather stands by them with all moral and material support."

Assad highlighted Ramadan's importance. He called it "a month of forgiveness, mercy, communication, sacrifice, redemption and jihad in its correct meaning; that is jihad of work, accomplishing, creating and amity."

It's a "month of reforming the man as soul and body."

To reform society, "we must have dialogue among its individuals and spectra, and in order for this dialogue to be useful and fruitful with a meaning and an essence, it must be an honest and transparent dialogue."

He stressed the importance of transparency, dialogue and responsible conflict resolution.

"As far as the society is concerned, compliments in these circumstances would be like an ostrich burying its head in the sand in order not to see what is going on around it."

"Burying the head in the sand for the society now means burying the homeland in the sand."

Things today are easier than two years ago, he said. Syrians better understand who's friend and foe. They know their government's working to strengthen national sovereignty.

They know foreign invaders want it destroyed. They're unsure when crisis conditions will end.

"We can't determine when it ends if we are unable to first determine who ends it," he said.

"This means that we have to know who is the one responsible for ending it and how, and then comes the question why."

Syrians are responsible for their own future. They alone can end conflict.

"Although the external factors are strong and influential - and we all know this truth - but the external role, no matter how strong, has a helping or hindering effect."

"It could either accelerate the solution or prolong the crisis. As we repeatedly said, this external role is contingent on the external gaps we have in Syria."

"When we put all external factors aside and we say that there are terrorists, thieves and mercenaries who are killing for money and there are Syrian extremists is this then an external produce?"

"(W)hen it comes to the homeland, there is only white when you are with the homeland and black when you are against" it.

There's no "in-between nationalism." Elements are either with or against Syria.

"I'm sure without any hesitation and without exaggeration that we will be easily able despite this high price and all the blood that has been shed, to come out of this crisis."

He's pursuing conflict resolution "based on this idea that as a state we can't say that we will not walk the path of a solution if there are people in Syria who believe that this would lead to improving the situation."

He denounced elements falsely claiming they represent Syria. At the same time, they support foreign intervention.

They consider Western-sponsored death squads freedom fighters. They ignore their worst crimes.

"When I have the support of the people," he said, "I don't need (it from) anyone else, because the people are the strongest" internal allies.

They want what's best for all Syrians. They're in a common struggle for national sovereignty. They alone can save it.

Elements saying Syria "adopted the security solution were the ones who have adopted the terrorist approach only for the sake of destroying Syria."

"I don't believe that any reasonable man believes that terrorism can be handled by means of politics."

"Politics may play a role in dealing with terrorism before it emerges."

"(W)hen terrorism emerges and sabotage, killing and destruction start and spread, there can be no solution when dealing with terrorism except that of striking with an iron fist."

"Terrorism should be hit in order for politics to move well. This doesn't mean that there cannot be a parallel track."

"If we are striking terrorism and there is a political track running parallel, then there is no problem as long as this is not used as an excuse to stop combating terrorism."

"All means were experimented and only one choice was left which is to defend ourselves and our country with our own hands."

Syria's military achieved great successes. Courage defines heroes in its ranks. They're waging a "guerrilla war." It's "difficult and dangerous."

"Popular war" outdoes it. Army forces are united with ordinary people. They're struggling together.

They're achieving great successes. They're doing so under adverse conditions.

"(I)f we succeed in this popular war," he said, "and if there will be greater contribution in the rest of the areas, then I can say that the solution will be easier and Syria will be in months able to get out of the crisis and eliminate terrorism."

National unity is the only way to "end the battle, turn the table on the others and restore security and stability to Syria which was an example of security and stability not only on the Arab level or the Middle East level, but on the level of the world."

"We are in the month of good things and if we want good things we should seek it and when we seek it we should know where and how to do this and not seek in the wrong place."

Syria's enemies will be remembered for killing, destruction and backwardness. "(T)his is what these countries have had throughout their history and this is the only thing they can offer humanity."

"We will not get goodness from the people with obscurantist thinking which was established by the wahhabis with blood and killing and politicized by the Muslim Brotherhood by means of hypocrisy, lying and deception."

"We will get good things from you the Syrians who are committed to your homeland and religion."

"We will get good things from those heroes who are defending their homeland and people and form our martyrs."

Patience is a virtue. Good things come to people who wait. Benjamin Franklin said, "He that have patience can have what he will."

According to Aristotle, "Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet."

Tolstoy said, "The strongest of all warriors are time and patience."

Syrians waited months for conflict resolution. Struggles take time. Ones seeming impossible take a little longer.

Assad hopes by Ramadan next year, Syria will recover. Security and stability will be restored. If not next year, perhaps the one after.

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Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity"

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com

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