EU Angling to Force Out Syria’s Assad
Rhetoric over the crisis in Syria heated up on Monday when European Union officials strengthened an arms embargo against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, Syria’s Foreign Ministry admitted for the first time that Damascus possesses chemical and biological weapons, but said it would not use them unless attacked by a foreign nation.
Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said that while Syria would never use its chemical and biological weapons for the country’s internal conflicts, it reserved the right to use those weapons against “external aggression.”
Makdissi’s comments come after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak raised concerns over Syria’s weapons. Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel will be forced to act militarily if Syria descends into a chaos that would allow terrorists to steal the country’s weapons of mass destruction.
Meanwhile, EU foreign ministers in Brussels have discussed the situation in Syria and are scheduled to endorse a strengthened embargo against the nation. The measure will be enforced by EU officials, who will board all ships and aircraft in EU territory that are carrying suspicious cargo to Syria. The embargo is just one tool the EU is using to continue to keep pressure on the Syrian government.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton told reporters, “We have to continue to be very, very clear in our belief that Assad must step aside. He needs to now consider the future of the Syrian people and consider how best they can have the kind of future we believe is right for Syria and that is a future of democracy and freedom.”
The Trumpet has long predicted that the conflict in Syria will create an opening for Europe to become more involved in the Middle East. The EU is actively working toward that goal as it attempts to unify Syrian opposition forces and influence the future of the country.
“The regime will fall but it will leave Syria in a very difficult situation, so we need increasingly to focus on what we can do the day after,” Sweden’s foreign affairs minister, Carl Bildt, told reporters. “We don’t know when that day will come; we know that the day will come, and that we must be there to help and assist in political and economic ways, to help a country that has been truly destroyed, first by the regime and then by the conflict, to come back again.”
Based on Bible prophecy, the Trumpet can predict the outcome of the Syrian conflict. Although it is currently a staunch ally of Iran, Syria’s alliances will change dramatically, and it will become more open to Western cooperation. For more information on this important trend, read our article analyzing the current and future state of Syria: “A Mysterious Prophecy.”
