Bush Team At Odds Over Dealing With Syria
By Stephen J. Hedges, Washington Bureau
Chicago Tribune
July 23, 2006
WASHINGTON -- In a presidency that prides itself on a simple, unified foreign policy message, the Bush administration has stumbled through five years of rare internal dissent over its relations with Syria, a Middle East wild card that has played the spoiler to U.S. efforts in Iraq and now is openly enabling Hezbollah in a fight against Israel.
That lack of consistency in dealing with Syria has been dramatically underscored by the escalation of violence between Israel and Hezbollah, some Middle East analysts say, and it points to an erosion of diplomatic influence with Syria.
"This is really demonstrating the fact that they've been emboldened," David Schenker, a former Pentagon Middle East aide, said of Syria. "They think they've dodged a bullet."
Schenker, now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is one of a number of former Pentagon officials who used their posts to press the case for taking a tougher line against Syria. In policy meetings with the White House and State Department, those Pentagon aides pushed for sanctions and measures to enlist U.S. allies in Europe in an effort to apply trade pressure to change Syria's behavior.
In public, the Pentagon view was pushed repeatedly by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, especially after the U.S. invaded Iraq. In a series of statements, Rumsfeld accused Syria of a variety of misdeeds, from providing Iraqi forces with night-vision technology to opening the Syria-Iraq border to foreign Muslim extremists who were entering Iraq to join the anti-American insurgency.
"We consider such trafficking as hostile acts," Rumsfeld said during a March 2003 Pentagon media briefing, "and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments."
During most of that period, though, the administration followed a diplomatic approach led by Flynt Leverett, a former CIA analyst who until last year was the top Syrian expert within Bush's National Security Council. Leverett declined to return phone calls.
The administration, chiefly through the State Department, engaged Syria and its president, Bashar Assad. The dialogue eventually included a trip by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to Damascus in 2002, as well as other trips by U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials.
`The golden days'
Initial signs were encouraging. Syria cooperated with the administration after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, sharing intelligence on terrorist cells and taking part in meetings with U.S. intelligence officers.
"These were the golden days, the best possible days," said Imad Moustapha, Syria's ambassador to the U.S. "Our security agencies were dealing directly with each other against what President Bush himself called the first priority, the fight against terrorism."
But while Sept. 11 was a rallying point, the U.S. invasion of Iraq had the opposite effect.
"We thought this will bring only more problems to us than it will solve," Moustapha said. "From that, relations spiraled down. But then our cooperation on terrorist groups continued, despite the problems with Iraq."
Schenker, among others, said Syria's actions have worked against stability in Iraq. The Pentagon has accused Syria of harboring Iraqi insurgents and fugitives and moving slowly on a pledge to better police the Syria-Iraq border.
"Their behavior was unhelpful at best," Schenker said.
In 2003, Bush signed the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, a measure to impose economic sanctions against Syria. But the real-world impact of the act may be marginal. Syria trades far more with Europe than the U.S., and business with European countries appears to be expanding, not shrinking.
In January 2005, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage traveled to Damascus and asked, according to Moustapha, for Syrian cooperation in the capture of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, a half brother of Saddam Hussein.
While accounts of al-Hassan's capture vary--Moustapha said he was handed over to the U.S. by Syria, while media accounts at the time state that al-Hassan was deported from Syria to Iraq and then arrested--there's no question that he was detained.
A downward spiral
But after that, Moustapha said, matters with Washington only grew worse, despite a pledge by the Bush administration that Syria's cooperation in the capture of al-Hassan would bring more cooperation, not less. Instead, he said, the administration's anti-Syrian rhetoric grew stronger.
"For us, that was the last straw," he said. "We severed all cooperation with the United States."
At about the same time, on Feb. 14, 2005, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed in a car bomb blast in Beirut. The U.S. withdrew its ambassador from Syria shortly after Hariri's death.
The assassination fueled pressure in Lebanon and in the United Nations for Syria to withdraw its military forces from Lebanon. But months after the last Syrian soldier left, the military's absence does not seem to have reduced Syria's influence over events there.
Supplies to Hezbollah, which in some respects is more powerful than ever, continue to arrive from Damascus.
Chicago Tribune
July 23, 2006
WASHINGTON -- In a presidency that prides itself on a simple, unified foreign policy message, the Bush administration has stumbled through five years of rare internal dissent over its relations with Syria, a Middle East wild card that has played the spoiler to U.S. efforts in Iraq and now is openly enabling Hezbollah in a fight against Israel.
That lack of consistency in dealing with Syria has been dramatically underscored by the escalation of violence between Israel and Hezbollah, some Middle East analysts say, and it points to an erosion of diplomatic influence with Syria.
"This is really demonstrating the fact that they've been emboldened," David Schenker, a former Pentagon Middle East aide, said of Syria. "They think they've dodged a bullet."
Schenker, now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is one of a number of former Pentagon officials who used their posts to press the case for taking a tougher line against Syria. In policy meetings with the White House and State Department, those Pentagon aides pushed for sanctions and measures to enlist U.S. allies in Europe in an effort to apply trade pressure to change Syria's behavior.
In public, the Pentagon view was pushed repeatedly by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, especially after the U.S. invaded Iraq. In a series of statements, Rumsfeld accused Syria of a variety of misdeeds, from providing Iraqi forces with night-vision technology to opening the Syria-Iraq border to foreign Muslim extremists who were entering Iraq to join the anti-American insurgency.
"We consider such trafficking as hostile acts," Rumsfeld said during a March 2003 Pentagon media briefing, "and will hold the Syrian government accountable for such shipments."
During most of that period, though, the administration followed a diplomatic approach led by Flynt Leverett, a former CIA analyst who until last year was the top Syrian expert within Bush's National Security Council. Leverett declined to return phone calls.
The administration, chiefly through the State Department, engaged Syria and its president, Bashar Assad. The dialogue eventually included a trip by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to Damascus in 2002, as well as other trips by U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials.
`The golden days'
Initial signs were encouraging. Syria cooperated with the administration after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, sharing intelligence on terrorist cells and taking part in meetings with U.S. intelligence officers.
"These were the golden days, the best possible days," said Imad Moustapha, Syria's ambassador to the U.S. "Our security agencies were dealing directly with each other against what President Bush himself called the first priority, the fight against terrorism."
But while Sept. 11 was a rallying point, the U.S. invasion of Iraq had the opposite effect.
"We thought this will bring only more problems to us than it will solve," Moustapha said. "From that, relations spiraled down. But then our cooperation on terrorist groups continued, despite the problems with Iraq."
Schenker, among others, said Syria's actions have worked against stability in Iraq. The Pentagon has accused Syria of harboring Iraqi insurgents and fugitives and moving slowly on a pledge to better police the Syria-Iraq border.
"Their behavior was unhelpful at best," Schenker said.
In 2003, Bush signed the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, a measure to impose economic sanctions against Syria. But the real-world impact of the act may be marginal. Syria trades far more with Europe than the U.S., and business with European countries appears to be expanding, not shrinking.
In January 2005, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage traveled to Damascus and asked, according to Moustapha, for Syrian cooperation in the capture of Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan, a half brother of Saddam Hussein.
While accounts of al-Hassan's capture vary--Moustapha said he was handed over to the U.S. by Syria, while media accounts at the time state that al-Hassan was deported from Syria to Iraq and then arrested--there's no question that he was detained.
A downward spiral
But after that, Moustapha said, matters with Washington only grew worse, despite a pledge by the Bush administration that Syria's cooperation in the capture of al-Hassan would bring more cooperation, not less. Instead, he said, the administration's anti-Syrian rhetoric grew stronger.
"For us, that was the last straw," he said. "We severed all cooperation with the United States."
At about the same time, on Feb. 14, 2005, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was killed in a car bomb blast in Beirut. The U.S. withdrew its ambassador from Syria shortly after Hariri's death.
The assassination fueled pressure in Lebanon and in the United Nations for Syria to withdraw its military forces from Lebanon. But months after the last Syrian soldier left, the military's absence does not seem to have reduced Syria's influence over events there.
Supplies to Hezbollah, which in some respects is more powerful than ever, continue to arrive from Damascus.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 11:33 AM
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