When it comes to the “Arab Spring” in Syria, the silence and
lack of leadership in Washington is stunning. Two months into the
uprising, unconfirmed reports suggest that as many as 800 people
have been killed with as many as 10,000 arrested. The countrywide
crackdown is massive, with the Assad regime using tanks and sniper
fire to crush the opposition movement. Whereas the case for
intervention in Libya was made based on humanitarian needs, the
situation in Syria cries out for American leadership and not merely
on humanitarian grounds. In Egypt, America cast an ally aside and
stood with the people even though a strong case could be made that
toppling the Mubarak regime was not in America’s interest. After
all, there was near universal agreement that what would come next
in Egypt would be less amenable to U.S. interests in the region.
Yet in Syria, the case for intervention on humanitarian grounds is
already manifest and toppling the Assad regime, which remains an
enemy of the U.S. in both word and deed, is strongly in America’s
interest. What then explains Team Obama’s trepidation?
For many years America has had a bizarre love affair with
Syria — one of the world’s leading state sponsors of terrorism. It
began before the 1991 Madrid conference that set the path for a
fruitless decade in which the U.S. engaged with Syria and Israel in
order to make peace. Hafez al-Assad played the Clinton
administration like a finely tuned cello, talking about peace while
arming Hezbollah and undermining the Palestinian Authority.
Nevertheless, Syria was seen as the key to a comprehensive
Arab-Israeli peace, a state that could grant Israel its seal of
approval. But when Bashar al-Assad inherited his rule from his
father in 2000, he set his country on a collision course with the
Bush administration.
The belief in Washington is that Bashar al-Assad is a
closet reformer surrounded by a clique that prevents him from
carrying out his democratic and liberal vision for Syria. This
wishful prognosis has never been true and has never been as crystal
clear as the recent weeks of violence demonstrate. Yet simple facts
do not get in the way of former presidential hopeful, current
Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and longtime
Syria aficionado, Senator John Kerry. Asked recently about whether
the U.S. would benefit from the downfall of the Assad regime, Kerry
replied, it “depends on which Assad you are talking about.” But
there is only one Bashar al-Assad and he has actively worked to
undermine the United States at every turn.
Many in Washington — Kerry included — question what
would come after Assad. The scare tactic of Syria turning into a
Muslim Brotherhood stronghold in a post-Assad era is overblown
despite Assad’s attempt to harness this canard like all the
region’s dictators before him. Furthermore, Syria is a charter
member of the U.S. list of state-sponsors of terrorism and the
regime is in league with Iran. It served as the key transit point
for jihadists crossing into Iraq to kill American troops and
continues to pursue a nuclear program with the help of North Korea
and Iran. It hosts the headquarters for Hamas and many other
Palestinian rejectionist groups and supports Hezbollah with the
transfer of advance missile systems, all the while destabilizing
Lebanon and assassinating political rivals both at home and abroad.
The Assad regime is committed to Muqawama, which means
“resistance,” and in practice that means terrorism. So it is
difficult to believe that what comes next would be worse. Moreover,
Syria’s population is roughly 80% Sunni and they are currently
ruled by the Alawite minority that makes up some 12% of the
population. Whatever would come next in Syria would likely be
naturally opposed to Iran’s Shiite encroachment in the Middle
East.
The most mystifying aspect of Barack Obama’s approach to
Syria is that he came to office preaching diplomatic engagement
with America’s enemies. That strategy has been a resounding
failure. Nevertheless, in the case of Syria, Obama made wooing
Syria away from Iran’s orbit a strategic priority — this was the
overall goal of U.S. policy vis-à-vis Syria, and Israel was
supposed to pay the price by trading away the Golan Heights. The
U.S. even returned its ambassador to Syria in a December 2010
recess appointment while the region was undergoing the first spasms
of what would become the “Arab Spring.” Still the White House has
yet to learn that no amount of diplomatic engagement or enticements
to Syria will bring about this change in Assad’s behavior. If
President Obama believes he can weaken Iran by removing Syria from
its orbit, then hastening the fall of the Assad regime represents
the only possibility of success.
In Syria, U.S. policy should be regime change, not
behavior change. This is a historic opportunity to stand with the
people of Syria and Lebanon and work for the downfall of the Assad
regime. Unlike Egypt, Tunisia, or Libya, the effect of a new spring
in Damascus would have the greatest positive impact on U.S.
interests in the Middle East. The clock is ticking.
