Syrian Foreign Minister Abdul Halim Khaddam accused the United States and its allies within the multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon of seeking to restore colonialism in the Middle East.
Speaking to the 38th United Nations General Assembly, Khaddam attacked the United States six times for attempting to revise colonial expansion in the Middle East and for using Israel to support American strategic interests in the region.
Khaddam was scheduled to meet with Secretary of State George Shultz on Friday. He met with British Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe and Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti on Wednesday.
British and French officials left their meetings with Khaddam with the impression that Syria would oppose the idea of the United States and its allies strengthening the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), which has been patrolling ceasefires in the Middle East since 1948, for use in Lebanon.
The United States and other countries in the multinational peacekeeping force agreed that it should not assume the new responsibilities of monitoring the Lebanese ceasefire.
Khaddam, speaking of “Americans and others,” said: “The aircraft carriers and warships prowling the Mediterranean are just a new modern image of the colonial expeditions and Crusades to which our Arab nation has been subjected at various stages of its history.”
“We are convinced that our Arab nation will defeat the new invaders who return with their ugly faces and their formidable war machines. American intervention on one side in the Lebanese civil war represents a danger to the region.”
He stated that it would be wrong for “the United States and its allies” to involve their people in a war and predicted that “American involvement in the Middle East would be as disastrous as it was in Vietnam.”
Neither Shultz nor UN representative Jeane Kirkpatrick were in the room during Khaddam’s speech, although less prominent members of the American delegation were present while Khaddam criticized American policy and its support for Israel.
He described American forces in Lebanon as the “avant-garde forward base” of American imperialism “serving Israel’s aggressive goals.”
He stated that Syria insisted on the unconditional withdrawal of Israel from all of Lebanon and the cancellation of the Israeli troop withdrawal agreement from Lebanon negotiated by Shultz in May. Damascus has rejected this agreement.
He raised the issue of expelling Israel from the United Nations “because Israel has violated its own commitments” to withdraw from occupied territories and to address Palestinian issues.
Failing that, he suggested that the United Nations impose sanctions on Israel.
