ASSAD THREATENS TO DESTABILIZE MIDDLE EAST AND WORLD

BBC:

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has received the second report into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The report is said to detail Syria's alleged role in the murder. It comes days after United Nations investigator Detlev Mehlis's team questioned five Syrian officials. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed again on Sunday that he would punish any Syrian involved in the murder plot. Damascus has strongly denied involvement in the car bomb which killed Hariri in February.

But an interim UN report in December has already implicated Syrian officials. Most Lebanese and Syrians are now waiting anxiously to see what evidence Mr Mehlis will reveal in his second report. The chief UN investigator has indicated it will confirm the findings of the first extensive report, but it will also include more concrete evidence. Mr Mehlis said his investigation was not affected by the retractions of a Syrian witness two weeks ago and none of his conclusions presented to the UN Security Council in October need to be altered.

Which explains THIS: AP:

Syrian President Bashar Assad warned in an interview broadcast Sunday that an attempt to impose sanctions against his nation will destabilize the region and the entire world. Assad, who was speaking to Russia's Rossiya state television ahead of this week's release of a U.N. report on the progress of the investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, again declared Syria's innocence in the murder and said that the U.N. probe was politicized. "The Middle East is the heart of the world, and Syria is the heart of the Middle East," Assad said. "If the situation in Syria and Iraq isn't good, the whole region will become unstable and the entire world will pay for that."

The is a thinly veiled threat - made while Assad on MOSCOW-TV, (Russia is supplier of Syria's missile defenses). [ASIDE: AHEM: WHy are they buiy Russian air defense systems!? Don't the Syrians know that we demolished Russian air-defenses in Serbia!?]). Assad intends to scare the faint-hearted into backing off. This might work on the euroweenies, but not on Bush and Bolton. Thank God. (BTW: we will impose TARGETED sanctions on the PERPS, not the whole Syrian nation, so Assad's anticipatory VERBAL counter-attack won't work! THEREFORE: he will use violence, by instructing his jihadoterrorist stooges, principally Hizb'Allah, to step up attacks against Israel A SOON AS ANY SANCTIONS are announced.) More HERE.