Arab Revolutions, Syria, United Nations International Organizations, US Foreign Policy

BYOT Party in Montreux: your Pocket Guide to Geneva on Syria………

      

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The Geneva (actually Montreux) conference on Syria was finally held, after many false starts. Ministers, princes, potentates, and rebels all showed up. They say nearly thirty countries and organizations were invited, or just
crashed the party. It is not clear why 30, unless they mean all the
disparate and desperate Syrian opposition groups and militias and
various Arab potentates. The countries and parties and their interests
could have been represented by only three parties: Secretary Kerry for the
Friends of the Syrian Opposition, the Syrian regime, Russia for the
Friends of the Syrian Regime, and Secretary General Moony of the UN. Oh,
make that four parties: I left out France, since the French still have
the usual Anglo-Saxon complex and need to have their own representative.
It was like a BYOT party at some college. Here is a summary of the highlights and the various positions:

  • The Syrian Opposition (some of it) to Bashar Al Assad: ‘Step down and let us take over’.
  • The Qatari Minister: ‘Yeah, you’re supposed to be a dead man walking. Three years now!’.
  • Syrian government reps: ‘ForgetAboutIt! We are running in the elections‘.
  • Saudi Prince Saud Al Faisal (to Saudi-appointed Al Jarba of the Syrian SNC): ‘Your Excellency Mr. President‘
  • Syria’s Waleed Al Mu’allim (muttering): ‘LOL, president of the Syrian-Turkish border?’
  • Ahmad Al Jarba: ‘LOL in your Baathist eye. I am the legitimate president of the SNC. Ask His Highness the Prince. It says so on my Twitter account @PresidentJarba’.
  • Secretary John Kerry: ‘We are here to negotiate the overthrow of Al Assad and the easing into power of the opposition, wtf they are‘.
  • Ban Ki-Moon (of the UN): ‘It is a good thing I withdrew my invitation to the Iranians. They would have disrupted the conference, and we would not have gotten any results‘.
  • Hassan Rouhani of Iran: ‘Davos is fun-ner than Montreux or Geneva. Cooler egotistical bastards here, but count your fingers after every handshake‘.
  • Al Zawahri from some cave in Pakistan: ‘Next year or the year after in Geneva‘.

Cheers
mhg

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