Time has come for Syria to decide

In a special briefing at the State Department today, the U. S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad stressed the gravity of what's at stake in Iraq along with saying the time has come for Syria to decide whether it's in its own best interest to impede Iraq's progress. Here is what he had to say in part……

…foreign fighters continue to make their way into Iraq through Syria - fighters who share Zarqawi's bleak vision for the future.

"The vision of these people, the Zarqawi people, for Iraq is not a democratic, unified, self-reliant, successful Iraq, it's an Iraq that's very much what we saw in Afghanistan under the Taliban: an Islamic caliphate with a dark vision to take the region back -- where women will not have the right to vote, where there will be no democracy, where there will be a center of international terror in a rich, powerful country.”

Syria, said Khalilzad, is allowing forces who want to prevent Iraq from succeeding, to enter Iraq.

"Our patience is running out with Syria," he said. "They need to decide, are they going to be with a successful Iraq or are they going to be an obstacle to the success of Iraq? Iraq will succeed. . . . Syria has to decide what price it's willing to pay in making Iraq's success difficult. And time is running out for Damascus to decide on this issue.
Read in full here: DoD