Jumblatt: Assad is completely detached from reality

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt  commented on Syrian President Bashar Assad’s speech on Sunday  by saying   “It demonstrates that he is completely detached from reality.”

His speech was a far cry from the sophisticated setting of the opera house where he made his address because the speech was repetitive and reminiscent of the speech he made during the beginning of the conflict,” he noted  in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa.

Assad delivered the speech in a theater   packed  with his supporters who interrupted his speech   with applause and chants of “God, Bashar and our brave army!”

According to observers  the theater was packed with   exclusively male audience mobbing Assad onstage with hugs and other displays of devotion, presumably intended to remind the world that he still enjoys staunch support.

The only difference between his first few speeches and the last one is the death toll in Syria, which at the time of the first address had exceeded 3,000, while now latest estimates place the figure at over 60,000,   Jumblatt said.

“Assad’s detachment from reality has reached such an extent that his ‘political proposal to end the crisis’ is nothing more than a number of steps that were suspiciously implemented in the past,” he added.

“The new constitution, superficial reform, and illusory elections were carried out during the previous phase over the bodies of the Syrian people,” said the PSP leader.

“These measures were required before the eruption of the crisis,” he stressed.

“The proposals are now nothing more than soap bubbles because they are no longer able to tackle the heart of the problem,” he stated.

“The speech shut the door against all Arab and international political initiatives, no matter how weak they are, in order to exploit the international community’s unwillingness to intervene in Syria to continue the regime’s violence against the people,” Jumblatt lamented.

Jumblatt predicts the war in Syria wont be over any time soon .

Addressing the Lebanese rival factions he urged them to  restore contacts now …don’t wait for the  Syrian crisis to end  :“Those seeking to make their political plans based on the belief that the Syrian crisis will end soon are mistaken.” He said

Naharnet/ WP