From the NPR show All Things Considered last night, an interview with a spokesperson for president Bashar al-Assad on his proposed reforms:
Ms. [Bouthaina] SHAABAN: We are inviting all leaders of the opposition, all leaders of social groups to come and participate in the national dialogue.
[Host Robert] SIEGEL: Would the Muslim Brotherhood be welcome to sit at that – in those talks, in that dialogue or not?
Ms. SHAABAN: Well, we don’t have religious (unintelligible) in Syria because Syria is a multi-candidate and secular society. We are talking about a political system. We are not talking about a religious dynasty.
This concern with the Muslim Brotherhood is a refrain in our press. But we have religious right candidates in our country and they’re allowed to run. And the Muslim Brothers are a longtime force in the Egyptian polity– I don’t know about Syria. Still it makes me wonder, How long before the reflexive defense of a Jewish state just across the Syrian border, where nearly half the people who are subject to the government can’t vote on an ethnic basis, will begin to dissolve in the American discourse?
