Obama's policies hardening allies against U.S.

[Confederate Kahanist]

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=167741




By Aaron Klein
© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad listens to a journalist's question during a news conference after his meeting with Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul June 7, 2010. REUTERS/Osman Orsal (TURKEY - Tags: POLITICS HEADSHOT)

NEW YORK – The governments of Egypt and Jordan are considering hardening their positions against the U.S., believing the Obama administration awards concessions to anti-Western regimes, according to Middle East officials.

A Jordanian intelligence official told WND in a telephone interview his country and Egypt have been dismayed at the lengths to which the Obama administration has gone to "appease" Syria and to engage Iran and Turkey.

"No matter what the Syrians do, how they declare all the time they are allied with Iran, the U.S. is trying harder and harder to attract Syria and offer them more," said the Jordanian official.

An Egyptian government official commented, "Only if you're tough with America and adopt an anti-U.S. stance will the U.S. have a more flexible attitude and pay you."

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The Jordanian official claimed the Obama administration "sold out the Christians and Druze in Lebanon, sold out the Kurds in Iraq and abandoned the Hariri probe."

That probe investigated the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, who died in a 2005 car bombing widely blamed on Syria. The killing led to massive anti-Syrian protests in Lebanon, resulting in the withdrawal of Syrian forces from the country after nearly 30 years there.

Syria, however, has since increased its influence in Lebanon while the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia gained a major bloc of the Lebanese parliament.

In recent months, traditional U.S. allies in Lebanon, most prominently Christian parties as well as Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, have openly courted Syria. Since 2005, Jumblatt has been an outspoken anti-Syrian leader.

The Egyptian official claimed the U.S. was minimizing information obtained by the International Atomic Energy Agency that indicated Syria was constructing a nascent nuclear program. Syria was recently accused of going so far as to carry out a test nuclear explosion.

In 2007, Israel bombed what is said was a nascent nuclear reactor being constructed with North Korean aid. Reports have emerged claiming Syria is working to rebuild a plant.

"The cooperation with Syria and North Korea continues and is well known, but no one is talking about that or Hariri or a Kurdish federation in Iraq," said the Egyptian official.

"Instead, the Obama administration is bribing Syria with financial deals while they are working to bribe Turkey away from Iran," the official claimed.

The official was referring to a partnership deal announced last October that will see billions of dollars in trade flow between the European Union and Syria. Egyptian and Palestinian diplomatic sources told WND the Obama administration was instrumental in facilitating the deal, which is worth an estimated $7 billion a year for the Syrian economy. The deal was ultimately delayed amid diplomatic wrangling.

The Obama administration also recently announced it would send an ambassador to Syria. The U.S. withdrew its ambassador from Damascus four years ago in protest against the assassination of Hariri.

A top official from Syria's Ministry of Information previously claimed to WND the Obama administration did not extract any major concessions from Syria in exchange for the new U.S. ambassador.

A Palestinian Authority official familiar with the negotiations confirmed: "All the Syrians did was blackmail the Americans. They didn't give the U.S. anything besides some improvement on the Syrian-Iraqi borders. In all the other cases, they didn't change their policy. They are interfering in Lebanon and shipping weapons to Hezbollah. They are partners in the region with Iran. Syria didn't change its equation with Hamas."