Jumblat Describes Assad as ‘Megalomaniac,’ Calls for Arming of Syrian Opposition
Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat described Syrian President Bashar Assad as a “megalomaniac,” calling for the arming of the Syrian opposition.
Jumblat told the French newspaper Le Monde that his last meeting with Assad was “surreal.”
Asked if the Syrian president was a reformist and those who are close to Assad prevented him from going on with his reforms, the Druze leader said that this is a “lie.”
“This reformist couldn’t bear a minimum amount of change during the Damascus Spring in the year 2000… He had imprisoned many people back then,” Jumblat told the daily.
He stressed that the dictator regimes “can’t make any change.”
Jumblat expressed satisfaction for cutting ties with the Syrian regime, denying that he had visited Syria in August.
However, he said that he doesn’t regret restoring those ties in 2000.
“The tension was high in (Lebanon) after May 7 incidents,” Jumblat said.
He said that the Syrian regime will not collapse soon.
“I wish so, but the Western countries found the Russian-Chinese veto as an excuse not to help the Syrian people,” the PSP leader noted.
Russia and China vetoed two U.N. Security Council resolutions on the crisis in Syria.
He told the newspaper that the Assad regime has reinforced security along its border with Israel, “and Israel's interest is a priority for some Western countries.”
Jumblat said if Homs falls in the hands of the regime the opposition will not collapse, but this facilitates the regime’s attempt to control the strategic coastal town of Tartous, which strengthens the Russian-Iranian-Syrian alliance.
He addressed Syria’s Druze saying: “I don’t want to be sectarian, the Syrian regime is promoting for a minority alliance… Syrian Druze are Syrian national, who are either with or against the regime.”
“In the past, the Druze fought against the French mandate, and today it’s time for them to fight against the tyranny of the regime that is killing the Syrian people everywhere,” Jumblat added.
“Druze and Christians have been living among Arab Muslims for hundreds of years, why should we fear them today, aren’t we all Arabs?” Jumblat said in another interview with the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram.
He pointed out that Syria will fall into the unknown if the regime “destroys” Homs.
Concerning the weapons of Hizbullah, Jumblat expressed support for Hizbullah arms to become part of the state’s “legitimacy” in consensus with all Lebanese parties.
“We know that these arms are to defend Lebanon, and we know that they are also to defend the Iranian revolution as (Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan) Nasrallah didn’t hide that,” he said.
I agreed to organize the ties with Hizbullah through the cabinet, but I don’t agree with it on its position from the Syrian regime and Iran.
More than 7,600 people have been killed in violence across Syria since anti-regime protests erupted in March 2011.
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