Iranian senior MP urges Obama to eat his words on Syria

A prominent Iranian lawmaker called on the US President, Barack Obama, to decently forget about attacking Syria before it is too late. “The Americans should give up the attack on Syria before they experience another heavy defeat,” member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Mohammad Reza Mohseni Sani told FNA on Wednesday. The senior legislator called Syria the frontline of resistance against Israel, and said, “The Zionists have long been after breaking the line of resistance and they have taken numerous actions to this end and the attack on Syria is also being pursued in the same line.” Mohseni Sani said that Iran’s successful diplomacy and pressures of the US public opinion and some other countries have forced the Washington officials to withdraw from their rigid stances. US President Barack Obama said Monday he will stop a US plan to strike Syria if the country agrees with the Russian proposal to surrender its possible chemical stocks to international control. Obama said the Russian proposal could lead to a "breakthrough," but added that the US will maintain pressure on Syria by continuing his push for Congress to authorize military action. As the US Congress debates authorizing an attack on Syria, Russia on Monday proposed Syria put its chemical weapons under international control. The idea is a "potentially positive development", Obama said, adding that Washington will work with Moscow and the international community "to see if we can arrive at something that is enforceable and serious", the Islam Times reported. The government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has accepted the Russian proposal. Obama on Monday gave a series of television interviews in an attempt to gain support from lawmakers and public for a limited military strike on Syria. Recent polls show that the majority of Americans oppose any US military action against Syria. The US, Israel and France have adopted the rhetoric of war against Syria over allegations that the Syrian government was behind a recent chemical attack near Damascus. The call for military strike intensified after the militants operating inside Syria and the foreign-backed Syrian opposition claimed on August 21 that hundreds had been killed in a government chemical attack on militant strongholds in the Damascus suburbs of Ain Tarma, Zamalka and Jobar. The Syrian government has strongly denied the claim, accusing the militants of the attack.