Israel Matzav: Assad sours on Obama?

Assad sours on Obama?

The source for this report is DEBKA, so you may want to take it with a grain of salt, but it explains some other events this week, and if it's true, it's a resounding defeat for the Obama administration. According to the report, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad cut off all negotiations with the United States this week.

Assad first knocked this plan on the head on July 26 in a long conversation he had with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell in Damascus, DEBKAfile's Middle East sources disclose. It was then that the Syrian ruler turned round and rejected an American role in the next stage of his peace talks with Israel in favor of Turkey. He said he preferred to revert to the indirect format he had followed with Binyamin Netanyahu's successor [should be predecessor. CiJ], Ehud Olmert, up until the end of 2008, using the good offices of Turkish prime minister Tayyep Recip Erdogan. The US would be allowed to step in during the final stages.

Mitchell was completely taken aback by Assad's reversal. In Washington it was taken as a death knell for President Obama's plans for Middle East peacemaking and the outright rejection of peace talks with Israel, in view of its poor relations with Ankara. All the same, it was decided to keep the setback quiet and keep going on the path of engagement with the Syrian regime.

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Israel Matzav: Assad sours on Obama?