Abdul Halim Khaddam, the former vice president of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, called on the United States and Europe to work towards overthrowing the current regime in Syria through peaceful means. Khaddam, who resigned from his position in 2005 and moved to live in France, where he formed a group called the “Opposition National Salvation Front,” stated in an interview with the American website “World Net Daily”: “We do not ask the United States or Europe to resort to violence in extending a helping hand to the Syrian people in their struggle for democratic salvation. We only call on the international community to lift the cover of the despotic regime and stop its diplomatic relations with the ruling authority. The change in the regime is now looming on the Syrian horizon.”
He considered the current regime “a threat to the security of the United States, just as the previous regimes of South Africa that followed the policy of racial segregation.”
He said, “The Syrian regime represents a real threat to the United States and the West because it turns Syria into fertile ground for the spread of terrorism and extremism, which is considered a natural outcome of the dictatorship, oppression, and corruption of the ruling regime.”
Khaddam also accused Syria of being involved in supporting extremist Muslim terrorists, including those fighting in Iraq. He stated, “Some may wonder why those sects do not fight against Bashar al-Assad within Syria, and the answer is that there are mutual interests between them. The extremists reject Assad’s actions, and he, in turn, facilitates their infiltration into Iraq and Lebanon.”