What America Wants, Our People Do Not Want

It seems that the officials in the White House and the U.S. Department of State do not comprehend what they are truly advocating when they say that America wants what Syria wants. Regardless of the actual content of what America wants, every Syrian Arab citizen — indeed, all free and honorable Arabs — automatically respond by saying, “How is it America’s place to want or not want anything in regard to Syria’s internal affairs?” What matters to us are the wishes of the Syrian Arab people and the Arab people in general. The Americans should quit trying to impose their will upon the Arab people and upon other peoples of the world. Their language shows that in reality they wish to confiscate the freedom of these peoples and assert superiority over them.

The U.S. does not behave this way from a merely arrogant desire to dominate and throw its weight around. Its behavior has concrete and exploitative motives, and its tactical interests are what shape its policy toward us. It wishes to force us to capitulate to these interests, and it is too much for them that we should own our own free will, that we should be the masters of our own economic situation or that we should be free to say the words “yes” and “no” in matters concerning our own lives, fate, and welfare.

Perhaps the words of these American officials — even when they occasionally assume the form of sincere advice rather than orders or demands — provoke an unusually high sensitivity in comparison to when other countries try to give advice or appear sincere. There are reasons for this heightened sensitivity, such as:

(1) The relationship between the United States and Israel, which American administrations have insisted upon upholding and which renders American policy a carbon-copy of Israeli policy under the banner of commitment to Israel’s security. If America behaves as if it were Israel, and if Israel is the enemy committing various trespasses against us including the occupation of our land and the displacement of our people, then how can we accept rhetorical advice from America? And furthermore, how are we to accept America going beyond merely offering advice and actually trying to impose its will upon us? Only if it were reasonable for us to yield to Israeli interests could it be reasonable for us to yield to American interests. In no way, of course, shall we capitulate to the dictates of either party — or, for that matter, to any foreign power seeking to control us.

(2) Historically speaking, we know that America’s efforts to insert its nose into our internal affairs began in the 1950s if not earlier. We know that America has not ceased these efforts, nor has it stopped recruiting agents to help implement its policies. How are our people supposed to accept the idea of relinquishing their free will or mortgaging it to American agents or to the agents of any other foreign power?

(3) The United States has always been allied with Israel in the conflict between Arabs and Zionists, and has thereby always chosen to take a hostile position toward us and toward the freedom of our land and people. How are we supposed to believe that America is interested in our freedom at the same time it remains allied with the Israelis, who have occupied parts of our land and displaced a number of our people and seek to occupy and displace even more? How does America’s behavior in this context not jeopardize the credibility of any American position which claims sincere interest in our affairs? That is to say, how can Washington claim interest in our affairs while clinging to its strategic alliance with Israel against us?

(4) We have seen how the American administration behaved toward Iraq, and we have seen the frighteningly exorbitant price paid by the Iraqi people as a result of the American invasion. We have witnessed the Iraqis suffer dire consequences beneath America’s bogus sloganeering about freedom and democracy and human rights. Certainly there is no free Arab person, not one with the smallest iota of concern for his people, who would accept that America’s travesties in Iraq be repeated in another Arab country.

We know that the United States has sought provocation and agitation, by methods ranging from the purchasing of debt to the poisoning of minds, solely for the sake of imposing its will upon us. We know that it is trying, by way of threats, pressure, extortion and bloody crimes committed by terrorist gangs which they themselves have funded, armed and trained, to achieve its aims at the expense of our nation’s volition. It is also attempting to exploit its powerful influence on the international stage to shape affairs in ways its agents and clients have not yet been able to. But our Arab people are determined to resist such efforts. We resist in defense of our freedom, our dignity and our fate, fully aware that any capitulation to the will of the United States can only mean a forfeiture of freedom and independence.

The United States will not be able to confiscate our freedom through its false pretenses of supporting freedom, when in reality it is supporting the Israelis, who themselves struggle and scheme to confiscate our freedom. Even if the American politicians have sold off their own freedom to Zionism, bowing before the whims and vagaries of Israel, they still have no right to impose this sort of humiliating situation upon us, to make us accept what they themselves accepted, to forsake our freedom like they forsook theirs.