It is better for the Arab countries themselves to interfere out of their national, humanitarian, political and military duties and to do what is necessary to stop the bloodshed in Syria.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
If Syria wants to be part of the international community, there are some conditions that they have to meet. And the first one is to stop embracing the terrorism.
As the United States Congress considers military intervention in Syria, per President Obama's request, I think it's important to be very honest about what we are considering.
We've got a very difficult situation created by this embrace of the so-called Arab Spring. And that's not getting better. It's getting worse. The carnage for the people of Syria is horrific, and it's quite frankly too little, too late to reverse a lot of that.
Syria is important because it lies at the heart of a region critical to U.S. security, a region that is home to friends and partners and one of our closest allies. It is important because the Syrian regime possesses stores of chemical weapons that they have recently used on a large scale and that we cannot allow to fall into terrorists' hands.
The situation in Syria is quite different from Libya.
We have more difficult circumstances than most of the Arab countries but in spite of that Syria is stable. Why? Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue.
I think Syria is in a particularly sensitive geopolitical position in terms of the politics of the Middle East.
Maybe the future of Syria will not be a presidential system where one person will have all the power, so, the discussion about who should and should not rule Syria will become irrelevant. Let the Syrian people decide.
The Syrians are better suited to sort out their internal divisions than anyone else.
I explained that we would like to adjust our position on the Syrian question to theirs, as, in our view, they are the decisive factor in our relations with our neighbors, and Syria is unimportant.