White House, in Shift, Turns Against Syria Leader

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, after weeks of urging Syria to carry out democratic reforms and end a brutal crackdown, has now turned decisively against President Bashar al-Assad, saying that he has lost legitimacy and that it has no interest in Mr. Assad keeping his grip on power.

President Obama, in an interview Tuesday with the “CBS Evening News,” stopped short of demanding that Mr. Assad step down. But administration officials said the president may take that step in coming days, as he did with Libya’s leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, much earlier in that country’s popular uprising.

Mr. Obama’s comments, and even stronger ones by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday, showed that the administration has now concluded that Mr. Assad is no more willing or capable than Colonel Qaddafi of opening a dialogue with protesters or overseeing a political transformation.

The turning point in the administration’s public posture came after angry crowds attacked and vandalized the United States Embassy in Damascus, and the residence of Ambassador Robert Ford, after his visit to Hama, the hub of the current protests and site of a bloody crackdown by Mr. Assad’s father in 1982.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/13/world/middleeast/13policy.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

[PragmaticLiberal]

1. Good.

[Javaman]

2. Yet we stay quiet on Bahrain. nt

[No Elephants]

3. About damned time. Why did we ever support him or his father again?

Maybe same reason we supported Saddam and so many other thugs: Stable regime and we loves us stability in the region of oil.

Let's never ask ourselves how that stability is attained and maintained.

Crank up the A.C. and enjoy.

[harun]

5. The U.S. never supported either. This is revisionist history.

[pampango]

6. You're right, but Bush tolerated Assad as the lesser of two evils.

http://www.juancole.com/2011/07/pro-regime-mobs-storm-damascus-embassies-of-us-france.html

Any background analysis must begin with the plain fact that the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein failed to produce an Iraq more favorable to Israel (indeed, the Shiite minions of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are substantially more anti-Israel than had been Saddam). The general view in the Middle East had been that this failure convinced the Israeli security establishment that the al-Asad regime is preferable to a Sunni fundamentalist one. The latter is widely thought likely to come to power if al-Asad falls, though of course that prediction is speculative. Al-Hayat even ran a story to this effect in 2004 as I remember.

Clinton seemed to be warning al-Asad not to rely too much on US fear of the Muslim Brotherhood, and she signalled that Washington is increasingly complaisant about the possibility that the Baath will fall from power. Her remarks on Monday are the strongest ones yet directed at Damascus since the Obama administration came into power determined to improve relations with Syria (that is why there is a US ambassador in Damascus to attack– the Bush administration used to like to pretend that Syria did not actually exist).

[plumbob]

7. Syria was a member of the coalition in 1990 to attack Iraq.

Nothing revisionist about that.

http://usforeignpolicy.about.com/od/countryprofi3/p/ussyriaprofile.htm

First Gulf War:

The United States and Syria found common ground when Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait in August of 1990. Syria was included in the American-led coalition that liberated Kuwait. After the war, Syrian and American officials met in various negotiations with Israel and other Arab countries in hopes of resolving the Golan Heights issue but with no positive result.


Looks like we took their assistance and gave nothing back. We do that often. Check any Native American treaty and come forward in time. That's one reason we take so much blowback worldwide.

We need to leave this whole area and forget it - why must we repeat ALL of the same mistakes of the French, beginning in Vietnam and continuing right down to Syria today?

[karynnj]

8. In this case much more complicated

In the first place, the Obama administration at no time ever supported Syria. What they did was to reestablish diplomatic relations. It was thought that by having an ambassador and by communicating with Assad, there was a possibility, likely quite small, that he could be brought to see that his interest does not lie with supporting Iran. There was also an attempt to get them to stop helping Hezbollah in Lebanon.

However, as seen from state department comments and even wikileaks, the US had done nothing to reward Syria - because Syria had not done anything to warrant being rewarded. It was clear that the US knew that Syria was still helping Hezbollah.

Part of the reason behind the US wanting diplomatic relations were the belief that it is always better to talk than not to talk - ie having an ambassador is not a reward. In addition, any serious comprehensive middle eastern peace settlement had to involve Syria. From comments in the SFRC, I would have guessed that the administration likely thought it was remote that Assad could be won over to acceptable behavior, but the value was so high if it happened and the cost of outreach so low that it was worth tying.

Even now, I doubt there will be an intervention. The reason may simply be that no one sees a way that creates a better situation - as bad as Assad is - and that it could become much worse for the area as a whole.

[Baclava]

4. So, after we knock out their air defenses, we'll set-up a no-fly zone.

Whole operation shouldn't take more than a few days - Assad will resign in a week, at most. We'll be done in a jiffy.
(snort)

Hillary: "I love the smell of 100 Tomahawks in the morning"