Report: Obama offered Syria an Israeli withdrawal from Golan Heights
Just a few months before the Syrian civil war erupted in March of 2011, the Barack Obama administration offered the Assad regime an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights in return for severing ties with Iran and Hezbollah, the London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Sunday.Amb. Dore Gold: Insufficient Diplomatic Strength to Stop Iran
According to the report, which was relayed to the newspaper by senior American and Syrian officials who were involved in the negotiations at the time, the talks reached an advanced stage and the sides had even prepared a document for signing.
The talks involved then-American envoy Frederic Hof, the paper said, along with ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
As stated, the proposals in the draft agreement included Damascus' abandoning of "military relations" with Tehran and Hezbollah in exchange for the Israeli withdrawal from the Golan towards the June 4 border.
Asharq Al-Awsat is a Saudi-owned newspaper and often reflects the official government position. It's possible the timing of the report is not coincidental and was intended to pressure Washington on the Iranian nuclear program.
The report was not confirmed by any official source in the US or Syria, but does somewhat coincide with claims made by another former US secretary of state, John Kerry, in his book "Every Day Is Extra."
The final meeting between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hof took place on February 28, 2011, the report said, at the height of the Arab Spring uprising that had already toppled regimes in Libya and Egypt and had just begun spreading to Damascus.
A new Iranian law mandated by the parliament has cut back the monitoring of the Iranian nuclear program. There would be no more "snap inspections" by the West on Iranian facilities.The UN Should Protect Human Rights, Not Human Rights Abusers
With Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declaring that Iran's uranium enrichment levels would no longer be limited to 20%, and adding, "We may even increase enrichment to 60%," Tehran is now on a path to get closer to an atomic bomb than ever before.
When the West created an arrangement with Saddam Hussein at the end of the First Gulf War that sought to address his weapons of mass destruction, they included all ballistic missiles above a range of 150 km. But the JCPOA did not touch Iran's missile capabilities. There is no indication that this is now going to be remedied.
The JCPOA was built around the assumption that Iranian behavior would become more moderate as a consequence of the easing of economic sanctions. But the relaxing of sanctions on Iran did not moderate its regional behavior. The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change reported in February 2021: "The number of militias created by the IRGC surged."
Iranian expansionism spread in this period to areas which are not thought to be within its sphere of influence. Its support for the Houthi guerrillas in Yemen gave it a strategic presence along the Bab al-Mandeb Strait that connected the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Iran began working with the Polisario in the Western Sahara, basing themselves in Algeria. Iran was operating far away from the Persian Gulf.
What was needed was a robust response by the West to these Iranian actions. In the past month alone, Iranian proxies rocketed an American facility in Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as a civilian airport in Saudi Arabia. True, the U.S. hit back at an Iraqi militia stationed just over the border in Syria. But without a consistent American policy of striking back, the Iranians will not internalize the U.S. message. There was no indication that the U.S. and Europe understand what they are facing.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Wednesday that the United States will seek membership at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in January 2022 as part of the Biden administration's commitment to "putting human rights at the center of U.S. foreign policy."
To be sure, the United States is at its best when it strives to model human rights at home and stand up for those principles abroad. And when Washington leads and assembles like-minded countries to advance international human rights together, we are more likely to succeed.
Accordingly, it would seem to be an easy decision for the United States to join the UNHRC. But that is not necessarily the case. To understand why, it is worth considering what the UNHRC has become.
The UNHRC certainly includes countries and individuals of good faith who are dedicated, sincere advocates for human rights. Unfortunately, they have allowed it to be increasingly coopted by countries that do not share a genuine commitment to human rights.
To escape unwanted attention or consequences for their illicit activities, criminal syndicates may attempt to control the local police department. That is not unlike what happens today at the UNHRC. The world's worst human rights abusers, such as China, have sought membership on the UNHRC to shield and enable their own egregious human rights abuses, seeking to shift attention elsewhere.
Take a moment to let that sink in. China has detained upwards of a million Uighur Muslims in what Blinken himself has described as a "genocide." China has violently suppressed pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and continues to occupy Tibet. Yet China sits on the United Nations Human Rights Council.
If the Biden administration is successful in gaining membership at the UNHRC in 2022, China is not the only authoritarian human rights abuser the U.S. delegation will find around the UNHRC table.