DAMASCUS, 1 March 2005 — Syrian President Bashar Assad said yesterday that the United States may attack his country, describing “armed America” as “a superpower with no vision.”
Bashar told Italian newspaper La Repubblica in an interview published yesterday that he had seen an American attack on Syria coming even before the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Feb. 14.
“Well, if you ask me whether I am expecting an armed attack (from the United States), I’ve seen it coming since the end of the war in Iraq,” said Bashar, adding that Washington started piling pressure on his country as a second target soon after toppling the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
The Syrian president, however, does not see the US attack as imminent. “They (The Americans) have imposed on us severe sanctions and tried to isolate us in the past, but each time the circle failed to close around us,” Bashar said.
Bashar believed that the language used by the White House gave an impression that the current anti-Syrian campaign was similar to the one that led up to the attack on Iraq. “However, for now it’s just skirmishing,” he said.
Bashar stressed that Syria had no hand in the assassination of Hariri, saying it would have been “political suicide” for Damascus.
He indicated that it would take Syria some time to withdraw its forces from Lebanon. “Technically, pulling back our forces could happen by the end of this year, but strategically this will happen only after we get serious guarantees: peace,” Bashar said.
He also denied US accusations that Syria lets militants slip across the Iraqi border, and said Washington was accusing Damascus to cover up strategic mistakes in its Iraq campaign.
