Since the eruption of the bloody events in Syria last March, President Bashar al-Assad gave three speeches, on 1/4/2011, 22/6/2011, and 10/1/2012, (and an address on the 66th anniversary of the Syrian army on 1/8/2011). All these speeches were almost the same, as they maintained that there is a ‘big conspiracy’ against Syria staged by near and far away countries, “chapters of conspiring and killing”, or a “foreign conspiracy” at play, along with offers, on the other hand, for national dialogue, reform and resoluteness in staying the course.

Will we wake up one day to the news that rockets are raining down on Israel, and Israeli planes are carrying out retaliatory strikes? Or will we wake up to the news that an Israeli embassy or cultural center was the target of a bombing, for which Israel chooses to respond in South Lebanon? What if Israel chose to expand the war to settle the account with the Iranian nuclear facilities? And in such a case, where would Iran respond and will the United States be able to stay out of this war? What if we wake up to mines in the Strait of Hormuz?

By choosing Abdelilah Benkirane as Prime Minister, the Moroccan people, and not anyone else, would have exercised its sovereign right through the ballot boxes in all freedom and transparency.

American policies, both domestic and foreign, are a hostage of the U.S. elections, a stand-alone American industry much like the auto and hi-tech industries. Presidential elections are held every four years, along with elections for the House and a third of the Senate’s seats (in addition to local elections of every kind in the states). Then the winner in the presidential elections in November would have barely entered the White House in January, when he has to begin preparing for the U.S.

President Bashar al-Assad’s speech yesterday came to complete and explain what he said in his previous speeches. He thus used the same descriptions, analyses and policies, which means that the official handling of the Syrian crisis ever since its eruption more than ten months ago is right on the mark – in the authorities’ opinion – without any need to change it or introduce any new initiative.

The Syrian president appeared calm, comfortable and optimistic during his speech on Tuesday, while in front of him, those in attendance did not do a good job of choosing when to applaud.

The Arab peoples are living in a state of unprecedented turmoil. There are revolutions, and the risk of counter-revolutions which may have already erupted. No one is neutral anymore, as people are now either with or against this or that regime, and woe to a writer like me who lives abroad and attempts to be fair and objective. This is without claiming that I have so far been successful. All I can claim I am doing is that I am trying.

Had the opponents of the former Iraqi regime and the rebels of Libya, Tunisia and Egypt depended on the Arab League, Saddam Hussein, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Muammar Gaddafi, and Hosni Mubarak would still be in power today. This is the lesson that the regime of Bashar al-Assad learned late. Thus, it hurried – after a delay – to open its doors to the Arab observers. This implies a disregard of the “Syrian sovereignty,” at a time when the regime claimed that it is keen on protecting this sovereignty.

Are war drums resounding in the Gulf?! Will the region witness a fourth Gulf war, considering that the first was the Iraqi-Iranian war, the second was the Kuwait liberation war and the third was the American war to topple Saddam’s regime and occupy Iraq? Will the Arab Gulf states find themselves forced to enter the arena of a war that they do not want and that was imposed on them?

President Barack Obama announced a new defensive strategy, while Iran was announcing a second, third and fourth round of maneuvers in the Gulf waters. The president’s step is natural and necessary, in light of a series of developments and facts, the most prominent of which probably being the economic and financial crisis sweeping the United States and its partners in the European Union.