Assad's welcome in Muscat shows interest at the highest levels of the GCC, and experts have argued that the Syrian president could not have gone to Oman without Saudi Arabia's approval.
Oman's Royal Air Force has conducted aid flights to Syria since the earthquake. Assad was greeted by Sultan Haitham, and the leaders travelled to Al Baraka Palace for talks, where Assad thanked Oman for its efforts to help with the earthquake recovery.
On February 26, Egypt House Speaker Hanafi Gibali traveled to Damascus as part of a delegation of senior Arab parliamentarians to discuss bringing Syria back to the Arab League. Syria was suspended from the organization in 2011.
The heads of the Iraqi, Jordanian, Palestinian, Libyan, Egyptian and Emirati houses of representatives, as well as representatives from Oman and Lebanon, traveled to Syria as part of a delegation from the Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union. They met with Syrian parliamentarians and with Assad.
"We cannot do without Syria and Syria cannot do without its Arab environment, which we hope it can return to," said Iraqi parliament speaker Mohammed Halbousi.
On February 27, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry became the first Egyptian diplomat to make an official visit to Syria in a decade. Egypt will provide more aid to Syria and has already shipped 1.5k tons, Shoukry told reporters following meetings with Al Assad and Syrian Foreign Minister Faisel Mikdad.
"The goal of the visit is primarily humanitarian, and to pass on our solidarity - from the leadership, the government and the people of Egypt to the people of Syria," Shoukry said.
On March 14 and 15, Assad was in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In 2018, the US State Department laid out their foreign policy on Syria, and it hasn't changed, even though Biden was elected in 2020.
The US strategy was to isolate Assad by treating Syria like North Korea. David Statterfield, the acting assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs, described how the US would remove Assad from power while speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"Syria needs reconstruction funds of between $200-300 billion plus. The international has community has committed itself not to provide those funds," Statterfield said.
The US occupation forces control the oil fields which had provided Syria will all their domestic energy needs to heat homes, drive cars and provide electricity. Now that the US Army denies the Syrian people their own resources, the people have about 30 minutes of electricity in three intervals per day.
The US State Department's Syria policy is to prevent all reconstruction following the US attack on Syria since 2011, and now following the February 6 earthquake of 7.8 magnitude which has been called Turkish President Erdogan as the "Disaster of the Century".
With a concerted effort led by the US at the UN, the international community can deny Syria's government the funding it would need to rebuild the country and the lives and livelihoods of 20 million people.
It is now up to the Arab world, not the western "international community", to save the Syrian people and restore their human right to have shelter, income, education and a chance at happiness.
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist
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