ABC News' Diane Sawyer Interviews Assad

Diane Sawyer managed to snag an interview with the Long Neck in Damascus, Bashar Assad, and promptly begins currying the Iraq Study Group line, wondering how and why the US isn't negotiating with Syria. With that line of questioning, what do you suppose Assad is going to say?

Sawyer: There are a chorus of voices in the United States saying that talking to Syria is the way to end the war in Iraq. Can you stop the violence in Iraq?

Assad: First of all, the problem in Iraq is political, and talking to Syria as a concept means talking to all the other parties inside Iraq and outside Iraq. We're not the only player. We're not the single player, but we are the main player in this issue, and our role is going to be through supporting the dialogue between the different parties inside Iraq with the support from the other parties like the Americans and the other neighboring countries and any other country in the world. So that's how we can stop the violence.

Sawyer: Are you waiting to hear from the Americans? Why not begin it now?

Assad: We are hearing, but we don't expect that much. We don't expect that they're going to. After nearly four years of occupation they haven't learned their lesson, they haven't stopped the dialogue. I think it's too late for them to move toward that.

Sawyer: Too late?

Assad: That does not mean we cannot turn the tide, but it's too late because Iraq is heading toward the chaos for civil war. So maybe this is the last chance that we have now to start helping Iraq.

Syria wants to help Iraq about as much as it wants to help the Siniora government in Lebanon. In other words, it has absolutely no interest in helping Iraq or Lebanon. Syria wants to maximize its influence in the region and the countries on its immediate borders. It wants to reassert its power and prominence in Lebanon, and its ongoing support of Hamas and Hizbullah show that it has no intention of giving up its support for proxy terrorist groups.

What is absolutely outrageous is the fact that not once did Sawyer mention Lebanon and what Syria was doing to support Hizbullah against Israel during the August war, and its ongoing destabilization efforts against the legitimate government in Beirut.

No mention of Hizbullah either.

That speaks volumes more than what Assad did say. It tells you what you need to know about Sawyer and the media's interest in getting to the bottom of the story about who is to blame for much of the violence in the region - dictators like Assad.

UPDATE:
Others taking note of the Sawyer interview, of which this was Part 1, see Hot Air (who has video of the hot topic issues covered, including what's on Assad's iPod playlist), Dan Riehl, and LGF.

Still others commenting: Biga's Blog, and Newsbusters.

UPDATE:
Michelle Malkin weighs in on the interview and isn't impressed. Others weighing in on Sawyer's fawning interview that doesn't even begin to ask a single tough question of the Damascus dictator: The Political Pit Bull, Bill's Bites, Old War Dogs, and Don Surber.