Press Release
American Islamic Forum for Democracy

Contact: Mischel Yosick
480 225 7473 mischel@zliberty.com

April 4, 2017

New Administration,
Still no Red Line

Phoenix, AZ: Upon learning of yet another series of tragic murders carried out by the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, including a chemical weapons attack that has killed at least 58 people and the bombing of a mosque, the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) expresses its devastation and disappointment in the continued lack of leadership from the American government on this issue.

AIFD’s founder and president, Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, the son of Syrian immigrants who fled the Ba’athist regime there, said:

“I am gravely disappointed at the Trump administration’s failure to formulate a strong response in Syria. Secretary Tillerson’s comments last week that ‘Assad’s fate is up to the Syrian people’ added insult to the already painful reality of genocide in my parent’s motherland. The truth is that the Assad regime is rather now a proxy tyranny of Iran and Russia. The Syrian people have tried – at great cost – to tell us what they wish Bashar al-Assad’s fate to be. If the Trump administration is choosing to continue to allow this genocide to continue, they are simply extending Obama’s horrifically weak foreign policy in the region and, specifically, his shameful inaction on Syria. Standing by and allowing a dictator to murder, gas and maim hundreds of thousands of people is not ‘making America great’ it is withdrawing American hard power and soft power strength in the face of crimes against humanity. I strongly urge the administration to engage with those who know this issue best and to come up with a strategic, strong, moral and ethical American response which will both help to end the suffering of the Syrian people and re-assert American strength and leadership on the global stage – against Islamists, dictators and tyrants all at once. Simply “killing ISIS” alone does not a Syrian strategy make”.
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