After a decade of policies aimed at marginalizing and ignoring the Syrian regime, U.S. policymakers have come to realize that they have very little leverage to pressure President Bashar Al-Assad. As the violence continues, Washington appears to be out of both carrots and sticks.
Bashar’s crackdown on protesters has severely hurt the prospects of renewed U.S.-Syrian ties, at least in the near future. Therefore, the Obama administration is currently on the horns of a dilemma. It has condemned Assad’s crackdown on protestors. But the administration is not sure it should alienate him entirely.
As anti-government protests in Syria showed no sign of abating, the U.S. State Department Monday denied that it was seeking the regime’s ouster.
Regime change in Syria is an appealing idea, but Islamists stand ready to fill the vacuum in power.
Though not iron-fisted like his father, the hand that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad cracks down with is heavy.
Lebanon’s unraveling and the undiminished influence of the Syrian state clearly demonstrate that U.S. attempts to isolate Damascus have failed.
The Israel-Palestine conflict has been at the heart of regional affairs since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. This is the context wherein the “de facto” Iran-Turkey-Syria axis should be understood, although substantive normalization of relations in the last decade between Turkey and its neighbors Iran and Syria served as a pre-requisite for the supposed alliance.
Some world leaders are not exactly negotiating material. The recently deceased leader of Turkmenistan renamed the months and days of the week after himself and his family and tried to build a palace constructed entirely of ice. No one really tried to negotiate with him–he placed a ban on lip-syncing.
The Bush administration continues to talk about applying the “Libya option” to Syria. In itself, this would be an excellent idea. The problem is the White House took the wrong lessons from Libya’s decision to renounce weapons of mass destruction and rejoin the international community. The Libya model may yet provide a path through the Syrian imbroglio but only if applied correctly.