They were right to go talk to Bashar. Stop the hypocrisy
(BRUSSELS2) The outcry over the trip of four French deputies to Damascus - including the UMP Jacques Myard, the socialist Gérard Bapt - to meet Bashar, could not be more artificial and a real festival of hypocrisy...
The vindictive speech fizzled out
On the one hand, you have to come to terms with it. The curses of style"Bashar must go and the sooner the better." uttered by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Laurent Fabius, have remained vain and a dead letter (1). To the point that today, this vindictive message has dropped a tone. Reality principle obliges. Four years after the beginning of the Syrian war, and despite implacable personal and economic sanctions, put in place at European level; despite a war that is wreaking havoc, Bashar is still in power, admittedly in a small area, but he remains present and alive Better, it is today an "objective" ally in the fight against the organization of the Islamic State and other jihadist movements which hold part of Syria and Iraq. The example of Libya, with the destruction of the Gaddafi regime, is also present before the eyes of the international community as an example of what not to do.
The reigning hypocrisy
On the other hand, we are not discussing officially with Bashar but... we are letting the UN special envoy, Stefan di Mistura, negotiate and talk with the regime in Damascus. He said it again a short time ago before Parliament: yes, "we have to talk to everyone, Bashar's regime like Iran" (Read on the Club: Do everything to obtain a "freezing of the bombardments in Aleppo" (De Mistura) or total chaos... Better ! We thank Moscow, in the midst of the Ukrainian crisis, for trying to bring government and opposition together around a table. And we hope that this mediation will succeed. So, let's be real, you always have to argue with the "devil". Discussing... doesn't mean an agreement or wanting to bend to Bashar's wishes.
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
(1) Certain European diplomats, knowing the Middle East well, considered from the start that this violently anti-Bashar speech was a flagrant political error.
