debkafile Exclusive: Assad handed US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a four-point plan for Syria and Iran to help solve the Iraq crisis

The plan was presented to Nancy Pelosi when she met president Bashar Assad in Damascus Wednesday, April 4. debkafile‘s Middle East sources report that she and the members of her delegation were given to understand – although this was not spelled out by Assad – that Tehran was willing to be part of the first stages of the plan’s implementation, but might have reservations at later stages
The four points, according to our sources, cover Iraq’s military situation (terror), political situation and the roles played by Iraq’s neighbors in the conflict.
The Syrian ruler rounded off his conversation with the US House Speaker, the highest American official to talk to him in two years, with this comment:
“If the United States decides to reject my plan, then Condoleezza Rice’s talks with Arab intelligence chiefs in Amman and Cairo in the last two months will be become ducks’ quacks [in Arabic “geagea” – roughly, ‘meaningless chitchat’].”
This was taken to mean that Rice will fail in her goal of establishing an anti-Syrian, anti-Iranian Arab bloc while also stabilizing Iraq.
debkafile‘s sources reveal here the sense of the four-point blueprint, which Assad read out to his American visitors from a piece of paper:
1. The US must recognize that the situation in Iraq has no military solution, only a political one. No indigenous Iraqi group or faction may be shut out of the political process. debkafile‘s sources interpret this point as a demand to reinstate Saddam Hussein’s Baath party in Iraq’s political life as an integral part of the political solution.
2. No religious or ethnic community must be given a sense of victory over the others, and no group feel itself defeated. In other words, neither Shiite nor Sunni Muslims may be allowed triumph over the other.
3. Following point 2., the US must cease its practice of categorizing the various groups in Iraq and treat them all as equals. This means that America will no longer be allowed to regard the Sunni Arabs as enemies.
4. The US must generate circumstances in Iraq that provide its neighbors – Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey – with an interest in achieving an accommodation that guarantees Iraq’s unity, security and stability.
The members of the US congressional delegation, headed by Pelosi, gave debkafile‘s Middle East sources the impression that at this stage Tehran concurred with the Syrian president’s plan. They were not clear whether Iran would go along, once implementation began, or even discussion of the practical details. The delegates surmised that Tehran might possibly demur once the blueprint entered its operational stages.