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Syria-Lebanon-Iran
US now backing Syrian opposition
2006-02-20
Syria has condemned America for funding opposition groups, just as Condoleezza Rice begins a Middle East tour to push efforts to spread democracy and counter Iran's aggressive nuclear policy.

The American authorities said last week that they had allocated £3 million to "democratic reformers in Syria". The money is part of £180 million in Washington funding to promote reforms in the Middle East and North Africa.

The US has also condemned Syria's alleged role in the assassination of Rafik al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, a year ago.

"It is interference in our internal affairs. We reject it totally," said Walid al-Moualem, Syria's foreign minister.

The American secretary of state arrives in Cairo today to meet Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president. Last week, Miss Rice said she was "disappointed" that the president had postponed municipal elections, planned to begin in April, for two years.

Egypt is one of America's chief targets for its scheme to promote democracy in the Middle East.

"The message that I will take to Egypt is that Egypt needs to stay on the democratic course," Miss Rice said.

She will also ask Egypt to refuse finance to the prospective new Hamas government in Palestine as long as it fails to recognise Israel's right to exist.

Egypt is one of the few Arab countries to have signed a peace deal with Israel.

Miss Rice will then travel to Saudi Arabia, continuing her appeal for regional leaders to be tougher with Iran, which last week she called "the central banker to terrorism and a strategic challenge to the United States, to the world, and a destabilising influence in the Middle East."
Posted by:Dan Darling

#4  "State" is our troll from British Columbia.
Posted by: lotp   2006-02-20 16:34  

#3  Left Dangle's ronery.
Posted by: .com   2006-02-20 16:22  

#2  In light of the recent alliance between the former Vice President of Iraq and the Muslim Brotherhood, the people of the United States are proud to finance this democratic opposition to Baathist Secularism. If yet another Islamist government forms under US subsidy, Americans will respect the will of the Syrian people. As President Bush said on Sept. 16, 2001, "Islam is peace." War cannot come out of Islam, a noble faith that gives comfort to over one billion people. Americans will fund the Muslim Brotherhood government of Syria and, in the process, extend freedom in the World. If the Muslim Brotherhood choses to finance terror and threaten Israel, then we will rely on our infinite resolve to...Let me get back to you on that.
Posted by: State Department   2006-02-20 16:17  

#1  The American authorities said last week that they had allocated £3 million to "democratic reformers in Syria".

Is that Khaddam's Muslim Brotherhood buddies or some other variety of reformer?
Posted by: Seafarious   2006-02-20 13:17  

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