Jumblatt: no solution in Syria with Assad in power
Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt talked about the Syrian war and the Lebanese soldiers abducted by Jabhat al-Nusra in an interview with Al-Monitor.
If there’s a name to be given to Walid Jumblatt, one of Lebanon’s veteran politicians and once a warlord during the 1975-90 civil war, he might be called the survivor. Jumblatt, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, is known in Lebanon for being the joker of politics — unpredictable, yet acceptable to his rivals, at least during the last half-decade.
He sits with both Future Movement leader Saad Hariri and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah; he is against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but a good friend of the Russians; he doesn’t admire former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and the US policies in the region, though he is ready to cross the Mediterranean and the English Channel to dine with former US Undersecretary Jeffrey Feltman in one of London’s spicy Indian restaurants.
“Anyone who claims to know what is going to happen in Syria errs, and lacks understanding of the consequences,” Jumblatt told Al-Monitor. “There is a regional, global struggle in Syria, and if the war continues this way, a real danger threatens the future of Syria as a united entity. Even now, this unity is under dire threat.”
On Dec. 6, Jumblatt told Mikhail Bogdanov, the Russian special presidential envoy to the Middle East, the same words: “Bogdanov is looking for a political solution for the crisis in Syria, I told him I am with a political solution that preserves the institutions of the Syrian government. Yet, there is no solution with Assad in power.” Jumblatt added, “There might be a transitional period agreed on with the opposition; there is no problem with that. I am not the decision-maker here, as it is all about a Russian attempt to stop the war.”
