Official Asks Obama to Avoid Following Bush’s Footsteps
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council said the US decision to call off military attack against Syria may be temporary as the Pentagon said the US military was still in position for military strikes.
“We hope that Obama will not follow in George (W) Bush’s footsteps, and if he intends to do so, all the measures in progress about Syria will be sheer deception,” Mohsen Rezaei said on Sunday.
The US had been pressing for military action on Syria since a suspected chemical weapons attack in the suburbs of Damascus on August 21, which it blamed on the forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The government of Syria has denied involvement and said the rebels were responsible.
But a proposal by Russia, one of Damascus's main international supporters, to put Syria's chemical weapons arsenal under international control, made US President Barack Obama hold off on striking Syria and helped him avoid an embarrassing rejection from Congress, or a military action detested by the public.
Rezaei, however, pointed to the uncertainty about US military action against Damascus, and added, “There is still a possibility for an attack.”
In relevant remarks on Wednesday, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said he hopes that the US is “serious” in its new attitude towards Syria, but at the same time stressed that Iran is closely monitoring the developments in the region.
“We hope that the new US attitude towards Syria is serious and free from deception,” Ayatollah Khamenei stated at the time.
The Leader added that if true, the new approach means the US retreated from “the arbitrary and wrong approach” it has adopted in the recent weeks.
On Saturday, the US and Russia reached a deal that calls on Syria to provide full details of its stockpile within a week and let international inspectors eliminate it all by the middle of 2014.
Syria has agreed to join the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the UN said it would come under the treaty from October 14.
Obama said he may still launch strikes if Damascus fails to follow the nine-month UN disarmament plan drawn up by Washington and Moscow.
