U.S. To Make New Diplomatic Push On Syria, Talk To Iran

[Purveyor]

Source: Reuters

By Lesley Wroughton and Phil Stewart
09/25/2015 07:37 PM EDT

WASHINGTON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will try to launch a new initiative for a political solution in Syria during meetings in New York in the next week, starting with talks with his Iranian counterpart on Saturday, U.S. and other Western officials said.

After backing a United Nations peace process that has failed to end the Syrian conflict, Kerry will test several ideas for a new approach during the United Nations General Assembly in New York in the coming days, the officials said.

The new approach - which officials stressed was in its infancy - could bring together Russia, a major ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Saudi Arabia and countries such as Turkey and Qatar, which support Syrian opposition groups.

Russia's sudden military build-up this month in support of Assad and a refugee crisis that has spilled over from the region into Europe have lent new urgency to attempts to resolve the Syria conflict.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/syria-iran-new-diplomatic-push_5605d6cce4b0dd850307b8cc

[4139]

1. ? Dumbest press release I've read in a looooong time

[Fred Sanders]

2. The only viable solution to the refugee and political crisis that created it is a diplomatic one.

Secretary Kerry, hot on the heels of a world side salutation - fuck the ridiculous American corporate and idiot media - for your Iran peace deal work, you have more heroic work to do.

Ignore the fascist GOP, they are in their final death rattle.

The Syrian citizens want to go home.....but would you want to love with your family and children in a nation with Assad on one side and a bunch of cut throat in-fighting cutthroats on the other?

Peace is the only solution and peace is what Kerry and Obama will pursue.

[Comrade Grumpy]

3. The Russians are pushing them into it. Ain't that a hoot?

While our policy has been "Assad must go," backed by "secret" CIA assistance to armed insurgents followed by farcical publicly-acknowledged assistance to armed insurgents, all the while as Syria bleeds.

I certainly hope Kerry and Obama are ready to turn the page.

The Russians and Iranians have to be involved if there is going to be any kind of meaningful deal.

[Fred Sanders]

4. America supports secular military rule in Egypt, as they do in Syria. And so does Russia and Iran.

[Comrade Grumpy]

11. I cannot make sense of your response.

What does Egypt have to do with this?

And you seem to say America supports secular military rule in Syria?????

And so do Russia and Iran?

Heck, maybe this is an optimistic post. We can all work together to impose secular military rule?

[Fred Sanders]

12. The history of both nations is my source.

[roamer65]

5. I have read reports that the Chinese are sending troops.

If so, it's probably too late for any diplomacy.

[Fred Sanders]

8. Peace through strength, isn't that an accepted idea in America? Why not for others?

[McKim]

6. Why is War Always First Prority and Talks the Last Thing They Try?

It is so weird that they didn't try talks in the first place. I guess the reason is the MIC can't make money off talks, they prefer weapons sales and war bluster and TV coverage of people shooting each other. It's exciting. Now that Kerry and Neocons have made a disaster of Syria, they are trying talks. Disgusting. Too bad, I guess, about all the dead people, the destroyed families and lives, the culture and
history of Syria and a way of life utterly ruined. Our country is ruled by monsters.

[Fred Sanders]

9. Well said....war has profited only a few, while millions have to flee their homes to pay them.

[Maxinedaily]

14. It's all about the benjamins!

[JDPriestly]

7. I have an ironic view of the situation.

So Jewish people were persecuted in Europe for many centuries.

In WWII, the Germans killed millions of Jewish people (as well as other groups of people).

After WWII, Jewish people from Germany and other places where they felt unsafe and persecuted left to go to Palestine. If the world has ever seen refugees, homeless refugees with really nowhere to go, it was the Jews who went to Palestine to live in the partitioned area of Israel.

The Syrians and Palestinians did not welcome the Jews into their part of the world. In fact, they fought their presence and persecuted them during and after WWII. I personally have met many Jews from across the Middle East who have had to leave their homes in order to feel safe. They are refugees. They fled not just to Israel but to the US and France (where I first became aware of the many Jews who left countries in the Middle East in order to escape persecution).

Now -- the tables of turned. Now it is the people in the Middle East, now the Syrians and Iraquis who are refugees, hoping to be welcomed into Europe.

It is very ironic to me that people who have been so hostile to refugees FROM Europe, the Jewish refugees following WWII, now are, themselves refugees hoping to be treated well in Europe and other parts of the world.

Another example of "what goes around comes around." Let's remember this as we receive these refugees. Let's remember that we or our children or our grandchildren may one day be the refugees. We need to always help those who need our help.

Same for other immigrants. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Kant's categorical imperative.

[Fred Sanders]

10. All true, except the regime change refugees of today were created by European and American

political and military interventions to create their own friendly governments, over and over again, while Palestine was not responsible after WW2 for creating even a single Jewish refugee, and the folks who already lived there and had nothing to do with Jewish refugee creation were not consulted on having their land confiscated.

Why did Europe not resettle the Jewish refugees....in Europe?

[JDPriestly]

13. Why did Europe not resettle the Jewish refugees . . . in Europe?

Because Europe was not a safe place for them.

Why does Syria not resettle the Syrian refugees . . .. in the area around Syria?

Because it would not be safe for them.

Refugees seek safety.

You may be correct that the US and Europe caused the problems in Syria, but Syria is no safer for the Syrian refugees than Eurrope was for the Jewish people.

Are Muslim refugees really welcome and safe in Europe and America?

That is a big question. We shall learn the answer.

This is not as good a time to be a refugee as was the post-WWII time.

Their was a lot of demand and a lot of work post-WWII. Not so at this time.

This is a very bad time to be a refugee.

But Syria has been one of the meanest of countries toward the Jewish people seeking asylum in Israel. Really mean. What goes around comes around.

Our failures to welcome refugees creates more refugees.

Some of the Jewish people in Northern Europe were refugees from their country of Israel to begin with -- a couple of thousand years ago. Thrown out by the Romans? Then thrown out of Italy or Spain by CATHOLICS (and if you want to see more meanness, read Martin Luther the first one on the topic of the Jews) and not allowed to own land in other parts of Europe? Never allowed to set root and really belong? And so one refugee crisis begets another.

Same with Syria. Some of them may be Iraqis or from other parts of the Middle East, people who moved to Syria as refugees and then pushed out the Syrians who became refugees --- the story of the hate and intolerance continues.

[jamzrockz]

15. It would make a better analogy

if the Palestinians and Syrians were the ones responsible for the death of the Jews that caused them to become refugees. Instead the refugees from WWII came into their homes with permission from Europe to settle in their lands (small area to begin with). Not only that but they displaced native people and almost immediately started calling the shots. The refugees coming to Europe now are going there because of the disastrous foreign policy of the west. They first destroyed Iraq and many of the refugees went to Syria. They followed this my destroying the richest nation in Africa in Libya. A place were many migrant workers came to earn a living. Then like if that wasn't bad enough, they used weapons and fighters from Libya to attack another country that accepted many refugees from Iraq and Palestine (the ones displaced by the WWII refugees) to just set the whole place on fire.

Europe, America and their Middle East allies are responsible for this whole mess. They should take in all the refugees and quit complaining. Personally, I think reparations in the trillions of dollars should be levied on these countries to the point that they are incapable of amassing an arming big enough to go on foreign adventures

[JDPriestly]

16. And why did the Jewish people leave Israel and immigrate to Europe in the first place?

Well, there were a number of invasions of North Africa. I suggest that you read the book, Cleopatra. Her story took place just prior to Jesus birth.

The Romans ruled Israel when Jesus was born.

After that, Muslims invaded Europe.

They were in Spain. They tried to enter Italy.

And have you ever heard of the fall of Constantinople which was prior to the Turkish, Muslim occupation of that city which had been the HQ of the Christian Church. The Turks invaded it PRIOR to the Crusades.

The history of the Middle East is one of invasions, of conquest, of fighting and of dictatorships.

ISIS is just another chapter in an ongoing saga.

I hold by what I said. The Jewish people were in Europe because they were chased out of Israel. They were definitely in Israel at the time Jesus lived.

In fact, the story of invasions and counter-invasions is the history of the world. Have you ever heard of the Huns? A great deal of scientific knowledge was spread thanks to invasions and trade, the forearm of invasion.

We all have to get along. And the Syrians need to accept the presence of Jewish people in Palestine.

I cannot imagine that a penny in reparations would be paid by any state anywhere other than in exchange for peace. How can Israel trust any of its neighbors unless those neighbors really accept the modern idea of diversity and protecting the rights of people with which you disagree on religion, sexual mores, lifestyles, food and all kinds of issues?

We will accept our share of Syrian and Iraqi refugees in the US. But they will have to, when in America, do as Americans do. That means they enjoy religious and other freedom and protect the religious and other freedom of everyone else.

That is the recipe for peace in the Middle East: democracy rather than conquest combined with tolerance and respect for freedom of religion and all kinds of expression for everyone.

Can't have a peaceful world without those basic principles being respected everywhere.

Had the Europeans respected those principles in dealing with their Jewish citizens, Israel would probably never have been created and would not exist. Syrians will want to have those principles respected with regard to them as they live in Europe. They should respect those principles with regard to Jewish people in Israel.

Prior to WWII, some countries in the Middle East treated Jewish people better than others, but there was no real integration or acceptance. All people including Jewish people in Palestine and Syrians and Palestinians in other parts of the world need to be granted their basic rights and freedoms. All of us deserve respect.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

That has never been the rule followed in the Middle East.

Christians in Egypt have been persecuted as were Jews in many (not all) parts of the Middle East before Israel was founded as a separate state.

I don't know what the situation is for Christians in Egypt or other parts of the Middle East now. It used to be the law that Bibles could not be brought into Saudi Arabia. I don't know whether that is true today.

Respecting the religious freedom and the cultural freedom of others is essential to peace. Without that kind of tolerance, we humans cannot have peace.

It isn't about this group or that group. It is about tolerance and respect for others, whether the others be Jewish people in Israel or Syrians in Europe.