Terrorism and the US Presence

It would be helpful for Secretary of State John Kerry to devote his first trip abroad to listening, before forming his approaches, and perhaps it would be of greater use to him to find common ground and to put off drawing most of his conclusions. This would help him not get carried away with the vague or, more correctly, unilateral vision that many U.S. agents both in and outside of the region are working to form and propagate in an attempt to anticipate what U.S. diplomacy might turn out to be.

I am not saying this as advice, nor am I saying this out of hope, for hope is useless in politics and of no avail in diplomacy. But it may serve to rectify the many dubious indications that have come out about the direction of U.S. diplomacy, with its new face, and perhaps can limit the blundering and hasty conclusions that are the hallmark of this new diplomacy.

The U.S. secretary may only meet with Lavrov [the Russian foreign minister] on his trip, which could moderate that unilateralism, especially since both of them will probably focus on the anxieties that those discrepancies in U.S. behavior and diplomacy have caused. For this diplomacy is attuned to its interests before its friendships and seeks what serves it, not what concerns the agents whose usefulness has run out.

Mr. Kerry will become aware of much evidence irrefutably showing that the parties entangled in supporting terrorists, conspiring with them, or remaining silent about them; they have no interest in letting U.S. diplomacy gain a different concept than what it previously had. The evidence will also show that they have no desire for an approach that may affect that support, and that their mercenaries’ stances of rebellion are no more than petulance that will be increased by the United States’ repeated use of the very same word, the uselessness of which has been established.

The meeting between the U.S. secretary of state and the Russian foreign minister will cast a shadow over the international scene, not because the results are definite, as some imagine, but because it will clarify the view upon which movement in international will is based. This view has reached the point where a choice must be made to determine what direction the scales will tilt, after they have remained stagnant and immobile throughout the past months.

The predominant conviction is that the U.S.-Russian meeting today will determine the direction of the compass, whether to reinforce the tacit or open confrontation or to bring about a rapprochement that would mitigate its severity. At the very least, the meeting will outline new common ground that Mr. Kerry will need if he considers carrying out a regional trial, which U.S. interests may demand – even if he were not serious about gradually adopting its conclusions or if he were unable to do so!

No one disputes the fact that the direct U.S. presence eliminates the need for secretaries of war and warlords, for mercenaries, agents and subordinate countries pledged to the cause in their decision-making and politics. For all are racing to throw down their cards and are abandoning their issues in anticipation of the new mandate or an extension of the former one, or perhaps the final pensioning off into retirement.

No one wants to bicker about U.S. use of terrorism, its disregard for the insistence of its supporters, sponsors and protectors to declare their support, and the evasive manner in which Kerry talks about it.

Despite its tangled complications, the situation’s main indicators make clear its inner details, which are enough to confirm what has already been confirmed – not for the sake of repetition, but rather for the purpose of doing away with ambiguity. For starters, the first step of the political solution must be to stop whoever is supporting terrorism and terrorists with funds, arms, recruitment, training, patronage and acceptance. Then it needs true U.S. will to stop that country’s dual use of terrorism according to need or place and according to its ends and goals. It seems that the U.S. secretary struck this “will” from his vocabulary in a new bit of trickery to continue employing terrorism and its agents to obstruct dialogue!

Syria is serious about dialogue and has launched programs for a political solution. Our Russian friends have heard a broad and ample explanation of the measures Syria has endorsed and the steps it has begun to take, which conform to what the Russian position has called for from the beginning. This is what Syrians have determined to be the criteria, and anything besides that is not fit even for comparison.