Fox Watching The Chicken Coop?

[A_Wanderer]

DAMASCUS, Syria - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Friday that Syria has pledged to step up border patrols and work with the Lebanese army to stop the flow of weapons to Hezbollah.

Annan also said that he had asked Syrian President Bashar Assad to use his nation’s influence to help win the release of three Israeli soldiers held by Lebanese and Palestinian militants allied with Damascus.

According to Annan, Assad said at a meeting in Damascus that Syria will boost the number of its guards along the Lebanon-Syria border and establish joint patrols with the Lebanese army “where possible.”

Israel has insisted that the international force be stationed along the Syrian frontier, although Assad has warned that such a presence would be considered “hostile.”

Annan said Assad restated “Syria’s objection to the presence of foreign forces along the Lebanese-Syrian borders.”

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I hope that the US is keen to embrace this style of border patrol and leave it's southern border to be protected by drug cartels

 

[financeguy]

Damned Towelheads.

Typically irrational.

 

[A_Wanderer]

I see it more as an issue of having the state sponser supposedly stopping their weapons reaching a client group but you are free to have your opinion.

 

[yolland]

Well, I am also skeptical about how likely Syria is to uphold the pledge to "stop the flow of weapons to Hezbollah," but I do give Annan points for at least trying to bring them into the negotiations. No one else has tried it since the (US-brokered) Israel-Syria 2000 negotiations on the Golan, which initially made much progress, collapsed over Syria's unconditional demand that Israel first withdraw to the pre-'67 borders as a precondition for diplomatic recognition and border demilitarization, and Israel's refusal in response to accept that demand due to Syria's history of shelling from the (Syrian) Golan pre-1967. Syria did indicate willingness to revive negotiations in 2003, but then Israel demanded that Syria first disarm Hezbollah--Lebanon still being under Syrian military control at the time. That particular sticking point is no longer in Syria's court however, so why not give negotiations another try? Syria has more to fear from Israel than they do from the UN.

 

[nathan1977]

yolland, your knowledge amazes me.

 

[80sU2isBest]

Well, I am also skeptical about how likely Syria is to uphold the pledge to "stop the flow of weapons to Hezbollah," but I do give Annan points for at least trying to bring them into the negotiations.

Annan is, at best, ineffectual. He is, at worst, a corrupt man who helped Saddam scam money from the Food For Oil program and starve his own people.

And if the US hadn't helped the UN pressure Israel into the cease fire agreement, there would be no Hezbollah to worry about anymore.

 

[JCR]

I'm beginning to think that the best time the jewish people ever had was when they were stuck in the desert for forty years!