This was published in Al-Akhbar English: Syrian regime inconsistency

We should send this to our friend, Max Blumenthal, so that he won't stereotype the coverage of Al-Akhbar English (or Arabic for that matter):
"There are several thousand cables relating to Syria, almost all of which were composed during Bashar al-Assad’s presidency. A full survey of this material has yet to be concluded, but even a targeted reading of a few hundred cables points to a yawning chasm between the Assad regime’s public rhetoric about mumanaa (anti-imperial resistance) and its actual maneuverings. Today, as Assad continues to be championed by some on the Arab Left as a Gramscian paladin, gamely leading a war of position against hegemonic Empire and the global capitalistic elite, it is worth revisiting the WikiLeaks corpus to set the record straight.

Assad’s assurance to Murphy about Hezbollah’s pragmatism is a leitmotif that is repeated in several other cables. It is regularly accompanied by Syrian earnestness about resuming peace negotiations with Israel over the Golan Heights. In 2002, Assad told Congressman David Price: “Off the record, I can say I want peace. But I can’t tell that to the media, because no one wants to hear it.” A couple years later, Assad took a further step by confiding to Spanish officials that he was willing to relinquish all water and navigation rights of Lake Tiberias, as long as Syria retained the symbolic significance of having recovered all of its territory." (thanks Elias)