Tareq Al-Hmayid: The Hard Equation – OpEd

By Hosein Mortada

The French role is getting bigger in the protests of the Arab world. France is working hard to impose its influence through riding the wave of changes that penetrate the American castles in Arab region.

For the last 10 years, it seems that the French policy succeeded the US policies which depended on direct military intervention whereas Paris proceeded the intelligence interference. France chose supporting Arab opposition groups and creating front posts via studies and researche centers.

France, through that, aimed at weakening the American influence in the region and replacing it, exploiting the increasing popular anti-American sentiments due to the US backing for Israel. Hence and one of the most important evidence is the meeting which was held between the former US and French Presidents George W. Bush and Jacque Chirac in Brussels in 2005. That was after the assassination of the late Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The meeting then dealt with the importance of punishing Syria. However, Chirac rejected at the time the direct military intervention in Syria and told Bush “Let us help Lebanon and in this way we can punish Syria.” The former French president said then that Syria showed its muscles in Beirut and if we can enforce it to leave Lebanon, the latter would get stronger and the Syrian regime would weaken.

Tareq al-Hmayid, a Saudi journalist who is known for his excessive hatred of resistance axis, revealed in an essay published by the daily Asharq Al-Awsat under the title “Weakening Iran without fighting” the plan which was produced by the black circles in the West.

Al-Hmayid considered that the “Wisdom of Chirac in Brussels meeting succeeded Bush’s enthusiasm where he achieved through politics what cannot be achieved through military action.”

The communications done by France through its intelligence with Development and Justice Party in Turkey — despite the hostilities between Paris and Ankara due to the rejection of the accession of Turkey to the EU by France — comes in the same framework. The aim of all of that was increasing pressure on Syria. This, actually, shows the pragmatic nature of the ruling French regime and its intelligence method in dealing with the events in the region.

France’s shifting from intelligence method to military action in Libya was a dangerous step. This again and via fighting to impose international sanctions against Syria is another evidence that France seeks to repeat Libya scenario in Syria through Turkish intervention to establish a buffer zone as was the case in Benghazi. However, the awareness of the Syrian people and their insistence to support the Syrian leadership reform track foiled the plot.

What the Saudi writer has mistakenly revealed — and did not satisfy the Western intelligence networks — is evidence that what is going on currently in Syria is a French conspiracy that France has been preparing for more than six years since all the attempts of pressure on Syria has failed. As France plays the intelligence role in Syria and Lebanon via its agents, Turkey plays the military role through logistics to militants and Qatar plays the media role via false reports, exaggeration and misleading.

In his editorial, the Saudi writer did not stop at fomentation on Syria but he went on to fomenting on the Islamic Republic of Iran. Al-Hmayid disclosed that the colonial plot would not stop at this extent, calling on the West to work on awakening the sleeping cells in Iran to destabilize it, in clear fomentation against the Iranian people.

The writer stressed the importance of supporting what is called “The Syrian revolution” by the West, a step which will weaken the resistance axis and the question here is who is the main beneficiary of that?