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Neocons Target Assad Regime<br>
by Jim Lobe, March 31, 2011<br>
<br>
Despite the clear opposition the Obama administration and apparent
ambivalence on the part of the right-wing government in Israel,
neoconservative hawks here have set their sights on Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad who they hope will be the next domino to fall victim
to what the so-called "Arab Spring." <br>
<br>
In a much-noted op-ed published Saturday by the Washington Post,
Elliot Abrams, who served as George W. Bush’s top Mideast adviser,
called for the administration to take a series of diplomatic and
economic measures similar to those taken against Libya before the
U.S. and NATO’s military intervention, to weaken Assad’s hold on
power and embolden the opposition. <br>
<br>
He was joined the same day by the Wall Street Journal‘s hard-line
editorial page which urged Washington to support the opposition "in
as many ways as possible." <br>
<br>
"It’s impossible to know who would succeed Assad if his minority
Alawite regime fell, but it’s hard to imagine many that would be
worse for U.S. interests," the Journal‘s editorial board asserted,
while its increasingly neoconservative counterpart at the Washington
Post, which last week called Assad "an unredeemable thug," urged the
administration to side "decisively with those in Syria seeking
genuine change." <br>
<br>
And on Tuesday, a major candidate for the 2012 Republican
presidential nomination, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, chimed
in with a full-throated endorsement of Abrams’ recommendations and
described Assad himself as a "killer."<br>
<br>
The latest campaign, which comes as the administration finds itself
ever more deeply embroiled in a civil war in Libya and remains
pre-occupied by challenges to friendly regimes in Bahrain and Yemen,
was launched as it became clear over the past week that Assad faces
what most observers here believe is the biggest crisis of his nearly
11-year-old reign. <br>
<br>
More than 60 people have reportedly been killed in clashes between
protestors and police around the country since demonstrations
erupted in the southern town of Deraa two weeks ago. <br>
<br>
Expectations that Assad, who dismissed his government Tuesday, would
announce a series of reforms, including an end to a nearly
50-year-old emergency law, were dashed Wednesday when he blamed
"conspiracies" for the unrest in a speech to parliament. Although he
suggested that major reforms were indeed impending, he failed to
specify either what they were or when they might be implemented. <br>
<br>
"There will be more demonstrations," predicted Bassam Haddad, a
Syria expert at George Mason University, who added that the regime
remains divided between reformists and conservatives. "If Bashar
gets his way, I feel the response [to further protests] will be
mild. But if the hard-liners get their way, there will be a
crackdown that will have a snowball effect and that could turn into
a nightmare for the regime." <br>
<br>
That would likely be welcomed by the neoconservatives some of whom
have already suggested that a violent repression will enable them to
invoke Washington’s intervention against Libya as a precedent for
taking strong action against his regime. <br>
<br>
The Obama administration, which has tried to engage Damascus as part
of a broader strategy to weaken its alliance with Iran, has regarded
Assad himself as reform-minded, but limited in his ability to move
against an entrenched opposition in the security forces and his
ruling Baath party. <br>
<br>
On Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described Assad as a
"different leader," noting that "many of the members of Congress who
have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a
reformer." <br>
<br>
The remark infuriated neoconservatives who have long considered the
Assad dynasty as Public Enemy Number Two, after Iran, in the Middle
East due to its ties with Tehran, its long-standing support for
Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas, and, since the 2003 U.S.
invasion of Iraq, its alleged backing for Sunni insurgents there. <br>
<br>
Indeed, the notorious 1996 "Clean Break" memo that was prepared for
then-incoming Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu by several
prominent neoconservatives who, seven years later, would take senior
posts in the Bush administration, depicted the overthrow of Saddam
Hussein as one crucial step in a larger strategy designed to
destabilize Syria. <br>
<br>
During the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Abrams reportedly
urged Israel’s defense minister to expand Israel’s bombing campaign
to include targets inside Syria, a course that was supported
publicly by other neoconservatives outside the administration. To
their frustration, the Israelis rejected their advice.<br>
<br>
Neoconservatives and their Congressional allies have fought tooth
and nail against efforts by the Obama administration to begin
normalizing relations with Damascus that were effectively broken off
by the Bush administration after it blamed the 2005 assassination of
former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut on Assad’s
regime. <br>
<br>
Now, however, they clearly believe that the Arab Spring has
presented a new opportunity for "regime change" in Damascus, one
that must be seized with delay. <br>
<br>
Abrams, who exerted a major influence on the Bush’s policy toward
Syria, has called in particular for the administration to strongly
and continuously denounce the regime, withdraw its ambassador, press
for international action against Assad, including seeking his
indictment by the International Criminal Court and using
Washington’s influence with the new governments in Egypt and Tunisia
to persuade the Arab League, which expelled Libya earlier this
month, to apply the same sanction to Damascus. <br>
<br>
But, aside from condemning specific incidents of violence by the
security forces, as well as an expression of disappointment
Wednesday at Assad’s speech before parliament, the administration
has shown no inclination to follow this advice. <br>
<br>
"Washington already has its hands full in the Middle East," noted
Dov Zakheim, who served in a senior Pentagon post under Bush. "In an
environment in which American forces are engaged in three Muslim
countries, the last thing Washington needs is to verbally trap
itself in a situation in which pressure for yet more military action
begins to mount," he wrote in the Shadow Government blog at
foreignpolicy.com Monday. <br>
<br>
"The last thing the United States need is to get enmeshed in Syria’s
troubles," he added, noting that "[a]n unstable Syria might be
tempted, as neither Assad pere nor fils were, to attack Israel on
the Golan front, or to push Hezbollah into a war that Damascus would
then widen…" <br>
<br>
Similarly, Paul Pillar, a retired CIA analyst who served as National
Intelligence Officer for the Middle East between 2000 and 2005,
warned that regime change could turn out very poorly for both the
U.S. and Israel and that Abrams’ and the Journal’s confidence that
any successor regime would be preferable to Assad’s was ill-founded.
<br>
<br>
"Syria under Assad is probably the most secular place in the Middle
East," he noted in his blog at the nationalinterest.org website.
"The influence of Islamism, in whatever form, in Syria has nowhere
to go but up if there is regime change. That would not be welcome to
those in Israel and the United States who worry about any political
role for Islamists."<br>
==============<br>
On 3/30/11 11:00 PM, "E. Wayne Johnson 朱稳森" wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4D93FC50.1000604@pigs.ag" type="cite">
<meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
<p>Bloody Bill Kristol Praises Obama as a Born-Again Neo-Con.<br>
(maybe Barry is just the same old con.)<br>
</p>
<p>It’s not an endorsement Barack Obama probably expected — or
wanted —
but Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol gave the president high
marks
for his recent foreign policy gestures.</p>
<p>In his <a moz-do-not-send="true" target="_blank"
href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/you-ve-come-long-way-baby_555622.html">“You’ve
come
a long way, baby” post</a> Monday night, Kristol praised Obama
for
his address to the American people about the action he took
against
Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. On Wednesday’s “Red Eye” on <a
moz-do-not-send="true" id="KonaLink1" class="kLink"
style="text-decoration: underline ! important; position:
static; font-family: inherit ! important; font-weight: inherit
! important; font-size: inherit ! important;"
href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/30/bill-kristol-declares-obama-a-born-again-neo-con-days-after-consulting-with-him-on-libya-policy/#"><font
style="color: green ! important; font-family: inherit !
important; font-weight: inherit ! important; font-size:
inherit ! important; position: static;" color="green"><span
class="kLink" style="border-bottom: 1px solid green;
color: green ! important; font-family: inherit !
important; font-weight: inherit ! important; font-size:
inherit ! important; position: static; background-color:
transparent;">the
</span><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom: 1px solid
green; color: green ! important; font-family: inherit !
important; font-weight: inherit ! important; font-size:
inherit ! important; position: static; background-color:
transparent;">Fox
</span><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom: 1px solid
green; color: green ! important; font-family: inherit !
important; font-weight: inherit ! important; font-size:
inherit ! important; position: static; background-color:
transparent;">News</span></font></a>
Channel, Kristol took things a step further and declared Obama
“a
born-again neo-con.”</p>
<p>Host Greg Gutfeld asked Kristol how he felt about Obama coming
to
him for help (reportedly the president had met <a
moz-do-not-send="true" target="_blank"
href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/03/obama-makes-direct-libya-pitch-columnists">with
him
and others prior to his Monday night address</a>).</p>
<p>“He didn’t come to me for help, of <a moz-do-not-send="true"
id="KonaLink2" class="kLink" style="text-decoration: underline
! important; position: static; font-family: inherit !
important; font-weight: inherit ! important; font-size:
inherit ! important;"
href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/30/bill-kristol-declares-obama-a-born-again-neo-con-days-after-consulting-with-him-on-libya-policy/#"><font
style="color: green ! important; font-family: inherit !
important; font-weight: inherit ! important; font-size:
inherit ! important; position: static;" color="green"><span
class="kLink" style="border-bottom: 1px solid green;
color: green ! important; font-family: inherit !
important; font-weight: inherit ! important; font-size:
inherit ! important; position: static; background-color:
transparent;">course</span></font></a>,”
Kristol said. “I’m not going to acknowledge that. He came to me
to make
sure I was supporting his sound policies. Of course, since his
sound
policies are more like the policies people like me have been
advocating
for quite a while, I’m happy to support them. He’s a born-again
neo-con.”</p>
<p>Throughout 2007 and 2008 in the race for the Democratic
presidential
nomination, Obama ran as the anti-war candidate. But Obama has
taken on
different stripes with this gesture, Kristol joked.</p>
<p>“What’s the joke – they told me if I voted for <a
moz-do-not-send="true" id="KonaLink3" class="kLink"
style="text-decoration: underline ! important; position:
static; font-family: inherit ! important; font-weight: inherit
! important; font-size: inherit ! important;"
href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/30/bill-kristol-declares-obama-a-born-again-neo-con-days-after-consulting-with-him-on-libya-policy/#"><font
style="color: green ! important; font-family: inherit !
important; font-weight: inherit ! important; font-size:
inherit ! important; position: static;" color="green"><span
class="kLink" style="border-bottom: 1px solid green;
color: green ! important; font-family: inherit !
important; font-weight: inherit ! important; font-size:
inherit ! important; position: static; background-color:
transparent;">McCain</span></font></a>,
we’d be going to war in a third Muslim country?” Kristol said.
“I voted
for McCain and we’re doing it.”</p>
<div style="border: medium none; overflow: hidden; color: rgb(0,
0, 0); background-color: transparent; text-align: left;
text-decoration: none;"><br>
Read more: <a moz-do-not-send="true" style="color: rgb(0, 51,
153);"
href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/30/bill-kristol-declares-obama-a-born-again-neo-con-days-after-consulting-with-him-on-libya-policy/#ixzz1I97fsvH9">http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/30/bill-kristol-declares-obama-a-born-again-neo-con-days-after-consulting-with-him-on-libya-policy/#ixzz1I97fsvH9</a><br>
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