NCRI – There are growing signs about the Iranian regime’s increasing role in Syria’s suppression of protests, according to CNN.
On June 20, CNN aired interviews discussing the regime’s role in Syria.
CNN interviewed Professor Fouad Ajami of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and the Hoover Institution, and national security contributor Frances Townsend, currently a member of the Department of Homeland Security and CIA External Advisory Committee.
According to the CNN transcripts, anchor Anderson Cooper said, “the fact that Iran is aiding the regime of Bashar al-Assad, not really a surprise, I suppose, but really confirmation of — of just the nature of this regime.”
Professor Ajami said, “Well, this is it. I mean this is the — this is the radical access in the region. It is Iran. It has this access. It’s Damascus. It rides with Iran, and that it’s Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories. This is the — this is the gang.
Ms. Townsend added, “There’s a close personal relationship between Bashar al-Assad and Ahmadinejad, but the two countries — Iran has been shipping weapons into Syria, supporting Hezbollah with money and arms for decades and threatening Israel. So this is not a surprise. This is — this is the patron to whom Syria looks to when they need this kind of support and obviously now they’re getting it.”
Cooper added, “And for a regime which claims that they are just going after armed thugs, I mean Iran — the lesson from Iran is, they go after their own people. They go after peaceful protesters. Clearly Syria is doing the same thing.”
In response, Dr. Ajami said, “Well, clearly. I mean the Syrians can be inspired by what the Iranians did in the summer of 2009. The Iranians faced a revolution of their own, a popular revolution, a bourgeois movement, a middle class movement. They crushed it and never looked back.”
“The people of Syria are done with this man … This man wishes to frighten the Syrian people into submission, and they will not submit to his tyranny,” Prof. Ajami added.
