"That prize should have been given to me," joked Syrian President Bashar Assad shortly after the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Oct. 11. The guests gathered in his palace in Damascus presumably laughed, out of courtesy to their host, but they all knew that giving up Syria's chemical weapons hadn't been Assad's idea at all.
Al-Akhbar, the Beirut newspaper that reported Assad's remarks, has close links with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia that is supported by Syria and Iran, and it accepted Assad's regret about the new turn of events at face value. "There is no doubt that the loss of chemical weapons has resulted in a loss of morale and a political loss for Syria," Assad said.
"Since 2003, Syria has demanded that the countries in the region dismantle their weapons of mass destruction, and the chemical weapons were meant to be a bargaining chip in Syria's hands in exchange for Israel dismantling its nuclear arsenal," the Syrian president continued. "Today the price (of the bargaining chip) has changed, and we have agreed to give up our chemical weapons to remove the threat of the U.S. attacking us."