Showing posts with label Syria. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Obama Approves Air Surveillance of ISIS in Syria

By MARK LANDLER and HELENE COOPERAUG. 25, 2014

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/world/middleeast/obama-syria-ISIS.html?_r=0

WASHINGTON — President Obama has authorized surveillance flights over Syria, a precursor to potential airstrikes there, but a mounting concern for the White House is how to target the Sunni extremists without helping President Bashar al-Assad.

Defense officials said Monday evening that the Pentagon was sending in manned and unmanned reconnaissance flights over Syria, using a combination of aircraft, including drones and possibly U2 spy planes. Mr. Obama approved the flights over the weekend, a senior administration official said.

The flights are a significant step toward direct American military action in Syria, an intervention that could alter the battlefield in the nation’s three-year civil war.

Administration officials said the United States did not intend to notify the Assad government of the planned flights. Mr. Obama, who has repeatedly called for the ouster of Mr. Assad, is loath to be seen as aiding the Syrian government, even inadvertently.

As a result the Pentagon is drafting military options that would strike the militant Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, near the largely erased border between those two nations, as opposed to more deeply inside Syria. The administration is also moving to bolster American support for the moderate Syrian rebels who view Mr. Assad as their main foe.

On Monday, Syria warned the White House that it needed to coordinate airstrikes against ISIS or it would view them as a breach of its sovereignty and an “act of aggression.” But it signaled its readiness to work with the United States in a coordinated campaign against the militants.

The reconnaissance flights would not be the first time the United States has entered Syrian airspace without seeking permission. In July, American Special Operations forces carried out an unsuccessful rescue attempt for hostages held by ISIS, including the journalist James Foley, whose death was revealed last week in an ISIS video.

Mr. Obama met Monday with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and other advisers to discuss options, but the White House said Mr. Obama had not yet decided whether to order military action in Syria. The White House made clear that if the president did act, he had no plans to collaborate with Mr. Assad or even inform him in advance of any operation.

“It is not the case that the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser. “Joining forces with Assad would essentially permanently alienate the Sunni population in both Syria and Iraq, who are necessary to dislodging ISIL,” he said, using the group’s alternative name, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

Still, administration officials acknowledge that the sudden threat from ISIS to Americans — several of whom are still held by the militants in Syria — had complicated the calculus for the United States in a conflict Mr. Obama has largely avoided.

“There are a lot of cross pressures here in this situation,” the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, told reporters. “There’s no doubt about that. But our policy as it relates to pursuing American interests in this region of the world are actually really clear, that we want to make sure that we are safeguarding American personnel.”

Under plans being developed by the administration, a senior official said, the United States could target leaders of the militant group in and around their stronghold, the northern city of Raqqa, as well as in isolated outposts to the east, near the Iraqi border.

While the Syrian government has the capability to partly defend its airspace from American warplanes, American fighter jets can fly close to the border and fire on targets in Syria using long-range precision weapons.

The American military could also jam Syria’s air-defense systems by sending signals that would make it difficult or impossible for radar to pick up American fighter planes entering Syrian airspace. Such a move would give fighters a limited amount of time to hit ISIS targets or camps before leaving Syria. The military could also use B-2 stealth bombers, which are almost invisible to radar, or could fire at stationary targets in Syria using Tomahawk cruise missiles, launched from ships at sea.

On Monday, even as he warned the Obama administration against unilateral strikes in Syria, Walid Muallem, the foreign minister, said, “Syria is ready for cooperation and coordination at the regional and international level to fight terrorism.” Mr. Assad has long tried to rally support by portraying the insurgency against him as a terrorist threat. He has made little headway with the West or his Arab neighbors.

Syria’s strategy, some former administration officials say, carries a risk for the United States, particularly if the moderate opposition is squeezed out by ISIS.

“We’re going to find ourselves maneuvered into a very uncomfortable position,” said Frederic C. Hof, a former State Department official who worked on Syria policy. “We’re unconsciously walking into an ambush.”

The White House is betting that airstrikes against ISIS in Syria might help moderate Syrian opposition groups, which are opposed to the Assad government — and which are also fighting ISIS themselves, in Aleppo. The Free Syrian Army, which the United States has provided with training and equipment, is at risk of losing access to aid and other supplies from Turkey to ISIS militants.

A spokesman for the rebel coalition, Oubai Shahbandar, said, “The Free Syrian Army commanders on the ground fighting ISIS in northern Syria have declared their readiness to coordinate with the U.S. in striking ISIS.”

The Free Syrian Army has nowhere near the firepower or ground strength as either the Kurdish pesh merga fighters who have worked with the American military against ISIS in Iraq, or even the Iraqi Army. And the weapons and ammunition that the administration have been supplying to the rebels have so far failed to tilt the battle in their favor.

In an interview on Monday, however, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said that Secretary Hagel was “looking at a train-and-equip program for the Free Syrian Army.”

Some experts noted that the administration had another strong incentive not to do anything to help Mr. Assad. A central element of its strategy is to assemble a coalition in the region against ISIS, enlisting partners like Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

“Any hint that our actions might further reinforce Assad’s grip on power would make it hard to build that coalition,” said Brian Katulis, a national security expert with the Center for American Progress, a think tank with close ties to the White House. “They all want to see him go.”

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Russia Stands Against U.N. Action on Syria

Friday, June 10, 2011
Russia on Thursday hinted it might block any attempt to have the U.N. Security Council penalize Syria for failing to comply with an ongoing probe of a suspected bombed nuclear reactor, the New York Times reported (see GSN, June 9).
Russia, China and four other members of the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation governing board voted against a resolution to involve the Security Council in the U.N. nuclear watchdog's dispute with Damascus. The motion -- advanced by the United States and its allies -- passed on Thursday with backing from 17 nations on the board.
Moscow and Beijing both hold permanent Security Council seats and veto authority over all decisions by the body. Brazil, India and India -- all nonpermanent council members -- have raised questions as well over possible action against Damascus.
Intelligence assessments from the United States reportedly indicate Syria's Dair Alzour facility had housed a reactor being built with North Korean aid and intended to produce weapon-usable plutonium. Damascus has rejected accusations it engaged in illicit nuclear activities, but it has denied multiple IAEA requests for return visits to Dair Alzour since inspectors found traces of anthropogenic natural uranium during a June 2008 inspection of the site.
The IAEA board resolution asserted that Syria's "noncompliance" with its global commitments was cause for referral to the Security Council for possible punitive action
Moscow, though, said the decision to send Syria to the United Nations was rooted in bias and conjectural data.
“The situation in this country, in our view, does not present a threat to international peace and security,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.
In arguing against the body's involvement in the Syrian dispute, Russia has contended that a Security Council resolution laid the groundwork for NATO's military involvement in Libya, according to envoys (see GSN, May 18; Dan Bilefsky, New York Times, June 9).
The IAEA board also pressed Syria to abide by the Additional Protocol to its atomic inspections arrangement, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a statement. The Additional Protocol enables IAEA inspectors to conduct snap inspections of atomic facilities and access additional information about nuclear activities in member states (International Atomic Energy Agency release, June 9).
The board's resolution on Syria "marks a significant action by the international community to uphold the nonproliferation rules of the road," the White House said in a statement.
"As the IAEA reports, with assistance from North Korea, Syria attempted to build a secret nuclear reactor capable of producing large amounts of nuclear weapons-usable plutonium, but with no apparent legitimate civilian purpose," according to the statement. "Syria has stonewalled and obstructed the efforts of the IAEA to investigate the nuclear reactor for years, refusing to provide access to associated sites, personnel and documents in violation of Syria’s freely accepted legal obligations.
"With this resolution, the board has referred Syria to the U.N. Security Council for further deliberation, consistent with the board’s mandate and authorities when confronted with noncompliance," the White House said.
"The United States remains determined to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. We will work with partners and allies around the world to stand together to insist that every country meet its responsibilities or be held accountable for its actions," it added (White House release, June 9).
The State Department in a press release demanded that Damascus "fully cooperate with the IAEA by providing necessary access to all sites, items, and information related to the Dair Alzour investigation and allow the IAEA to verify that Syria is fully complying with its safeguards agreement.
"Syria is challenging the authority of the IAEA and the integrity of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty regime. The only way Syria can demonstrate that it has come back into full compliance with the NPT is by cooperating with the IAEA and providing the necessary information and access" the document states (U.S. State Department release, June 9).

UN nuclear agency votes to send Syria to the UN Security Council for violating nuclear accords

Washington Post

By Associated Press,

VIENNA — The U.N. nuclear watchdog voted Thursday to report Syria to the U.N. Security Council for violating its safeguard agreements, citing Syria’s undeclared construction of a covert nuclear reactor and refusal to supply information.

The move by the International Atomic Energy Agency comes amid political protests in Syria, but Washington and its allies insist the timing of the recommendation has nothing to do with the crackdown on pro-democracy protesters and is separate from an effort by European nations to have the Security Council condemn Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.

“The resolution is a necessary and appropriate step in light of the troubling findings in the IAEA’s latest report, including Syria’s refusal of the last three years to cooperate with the investigation,” Glyn Davis, the chief U.S. envoy, to the IAEA told reporters after the vote.

Ministers of the IAEA’s 35 governing members have been meeting since Monday to discuss a raft of issues ranging from the disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant to a lack of satisfactory cooperation from member states, including Syria and Iran.

Although the vote on taking action against Syria passed, it proved divisive. Seventeen members voted in favor, while six opposed the measure, based on the findings of IAEA chief Yukiya Amano. However, 11 nations abstained, meaning they did not contribute to the tally. One member was absent from the vote.

In Washington, White House press secretary Jay Carney said the vote marks a “significant action by the international community to uphold the nonproliferation rules of the road.” He said Syria for years has “stonewalled and obstructed” the IAEA’s efforts and pledged that the U.S. will stand with its partners and allies around the world to ensure that countries meet their responsibilities or be held accountable for their actions.

China and Russia voted against the recommendation, meaning it could face stiff opposition in the U.N. Security Council, where those nations hold veto power.

Before the vote, the Russians called the referral “untimely and not objective.” They said the evidence against Syria was hypothetical and based on “possible alleged insufficiencies.”

Indeed, the recommendation is the first from the IAEA that was based on an interpretation of evidence gathered against Syria. Amano acknowledged that while the agency did not have “absolute proof,” it was solid enough to justify taking action against Damascus.

Amano said that Syria should have declared its Dair Alzour site, which was destroyed by Israeli warplanes in 2007, but was believed to have been capable of producing plutonium for possible use in nuclear weapons. Since 2008, the IAEA has been frustrated in repeated attempts to follow up on further evidence regarding the site.

“Syria’s apparent attempt at constructing a secret, undeclared plutonium production reactor ... represents one of the most serious safeguards violations possible,” Davis said.

He went on to accuse Syria of “choosing to actively hinder the investigation by denying access, providing incomplete and misleading information, sanitizing multiple locations, and refusing to respond substantively to the agency’s requests for further information and access.”

In a separate report on Iran, Amano cited fresh information acquired by the agency that indicated a “possible military dimension” to Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, called the report “not balanced and factual,” and went on to insist that Amano was “not doing his job.”

Iran announced Wednesday that it would triple its output of enriched uranium at a higher level than is needed for nuclear fuel — near 20 percent — by installing more efficient centrifuges.

Davis called that move “brazen” and told the board the agency’s admission that it knows ever less about Iran’s enrichment activities is “deeply troubling.”

Together with China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom, the U.S. called on Tehran to “cooperate fully with the agency” and uphold its agreements.

Iran insists its nuclear program is purely civilian, yet steps such as the enrichment are moving it closer to a weapons capacity.

“We will not suspend any of our nuclear activities, including enrichment,” Soltanieh said.

Tehran is already under four rounds of U.N. Security Council sanctions over its refusal to halt enrichment. The IAEA did not recommend any fresh action at this week’s meeting.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

© The Washington Post Company

Monday, June 13, 2011

UN nuclear watchdog refers Syria to Security Council

BBC news

9 June 2011 Last updated at 16:45 ET

The UN nuclear watchdog is to report Syria to the Security Council over its alleged covert nuclear programme.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted to rebuke Syria on claims of an undeclared nuclear reactor.
The structure, which Syria has maintained was a non-nuclear military site, was destroyed by Israel in 2007.
The IAEA's move comes as international pressure mounts on the UN Security Council to censure Syria over its lethal crackdown on protests.
European nations on Wednesday presented a separate draft resolution to the Council condemning Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.
Desert site
At the IAEA meeting at its headquarters in Vienna, 17 countries voted for and six against, including Russia and China.
Diplomats said that overall 11 countries of the 35-member board of governors abstained and one country was absent from the vote.
Israel bombed the desert site of the alleged reactor - near Deir Alzour in the country's remote north-east - in September 2007.
The IAEA began investigating the allegations in June 2008, but Syria has refused to co-operate and, with the exception of a one-off visit, has not allowed UN inspectors to Deir Alzour or related sites to verify the US claims.
Thursday's motion was proposed by the US and its Western allies who had asked the IAEA's governing body to find Syria in "non-compliance" with its international obligations.
"Syria's apparent attempt at constructing a covert, undeclared plutonium production reactor, a reactor with no credible peaceful purpose, represents one of the most serious safeguards violations possible," said US Ambassador Glyn Davies.
He said the intentions of the structure at Deir Alzour were clear and that a resolution was the only responsible course of action.
"The reactor there was built for the express purpose of producing plutonium for possible use in nuclear weapons."
'Regrettable'
Syria's ambassador to the IAEA called the agency's move "regrettable" but pledged that the country would honour its obligations.
"I think Syria has always been committed to its obligations and to its duties and I think we will continue to do so," Bassam Al-Sabbagh said after the meeting.
Syria is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which gives it the right to enrich its own fuel for civil nuclear power, under inspection from the IAEA.
But it has also signed a safeguards agreement with the IAEA under which it is obliged to notify the UN's nuclear watchdog of any plans to construct a new nuclear facility.
The last country the IAEA referred to the Security Council was Iran, in February 2006.
The Security Council has the power to impose sanctions, a move it has taken in the case of Iran no less than four times.
However, diplomats are not convinced that this will happen in Syria's case due to opposition from both Russia and China.
The diplomatic move at the IAEA came a day after Britain, France, Germany and Portugal proposed a draft resolution condemning Syria's crackdown on protesters to the Security Council, despite the risk of a Russian veto.

Monday, June 6, 2011

The I.A.E.A. and Syria

By BENNETT RAMBERG
Published: May 31, 2011

“The Agency concludes that the destroyed building was very likely a nuclear reactor and should have been declared by Syria” according to the safeguards agreement.

So writes the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general, Yukiya Amano, in his May 24, 2011 report to the I.A.E.A. board of governors about the installation the Israeli Air Force bombed in September 2007. Although he does not explicitly say so, Mr. Amano’s finding places Syria in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Three years in the making, the I.A.E.A. certainly cannot be accused of a rush to judgment.

Now comes the hard part: At its meeting next week, the I.A.E.A. board of governors must decide whether to formally declare Syria in noncompliance with the nonproliferation treaty. Doing so will place the matter before the U.N. Security Council, opening the way for sanctions.

The decision will test whether responsibility overrides timidity. At stake, the agency’s reputation as the world’s nuclear watchdog. To date Damascus has gamed that reputation and succeeded.

For a decade, Syria has been an embarrassment to the I.A.E.A.’s nonproliferation policing responsibility. First the agency’s safeguards failed to detect construction of the plant designed and engineered by North Korea. Even today, the I.A.E.A. knows little about how the installation fit into Syria’s planning. Did Damascus have a secret reprocessing facility to extract weapons-useable plutonium? If not, why not? Did Syria intend to export the spent fuel to North Korea for reprocessing? The international community remains in the dark.

Second, following the Israeli strike, the I.A.E.A. proved very slow off the mark to investigate Damascus. For months, the then director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, ignored media accounts that Syria had built the reactor. Instead, he complained repeatedly that governments failed to provide information. By the time the agency began its investigation in mid-2008, Syria had demolished the remnants of the plant, carted away the debris and built a new non-nuclear structure to conceal evidence of the old.

To its credit, the I.A.E.A.’s inspectors did break the cover-up. Once Damascus refurbished the bombed site, it invited investigators to visit, confident they would find nothing. But inspectors uncovered suspicious nuclear particles.

Rather than follow up with an ultimatum that Damascus fess up or face the U.N. Security Council, the I.A.E.A. dithered, relying on a coaxing strategy to get Damascus to come clean. The Assad regime refused. This marked the third embarrassment.

The agency’s response to Syria’s stonewalling proved to be the fourth embarrassment. The I.A.E.A. froze, much like the deer in the headlights, issuing inconsequential report after inconsequential report. Its February 2011 review, for example, concluded, “Syria has not cooperated with the Agency since June 2008 in connection with the unresolved issues related to the Dair Alzour site and the other three locations allegedly functionally related to it. As a consequence, the Agency has not been able to make progress towards resolving the outstanding issues related to those sites.”

Mr. Amano’s timidity continued even in the May 2011 findings. Rather than affirmatively state that Syria had built a reactor, the director general said that it “was very likely a reactor.” An accompanying footnote said, “Securing absolute proof of compliance” may not be possible, but “reasonable inferences must be drawn, taking to account all the available information.”

The term “reasonable inferences” downplays definitive photos of the reactor made available to the agency by the U.S. government, NGOs and the media many months prior to the May 24 report.

Finally, the agency’s reputation for timidity arguably prompted Israel’s attack. After years of watching the I.A.E.A. fret with Iran, Israel had no confidence the agency would forcefully deal with Syria.

Now that the director general has published his findings, the I.A.E.A. board of governors must decide whether to report Syria to the Security Council. There are reports that Washington and its allies plan to introduce a resolution at the June meeting. But resistance remains. Some board members argue that Israel’s successful strike makes Syria’s nuclear violations moot.

But mootness certainly does not apply to the remaining suspect sites. Furthermore, the I.A.E.A. must get to the bottom of Syria’s atomic enterprise to prevent repeats either in there or elsewhere. The agency must understand what role North Korea and possibly others played.

Unfortunately, getting the board of governors to forward Syria to the Security Council marks only the first step in holding the Assad regime accountable. The Council itself must cobble together a strategy to move Damascus, not an easy task given political divisions.

Yet failure will only encourage prospective nuclear proliferators to follow Syria’s path. If the international community believes in the nuclear nonproliferation regime, it must act with conviction. Syria is a test case.

Bennett Ramberg served as a policy analyst in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs under President George H.W. Bush.

Syrian Violence Tests U.S.

WSJ
JUNE 3, 2011

Effort to Court Assad Crumbles Amid Crackdown; Sen. Kerry's Secret Mission
By JAY SOLOMON

Security forces loyal to Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad pressed a sustained assault against protesters Thursday in one of the bloodiest episodes in the so-called Arab Spring, exposing the quandary that President Barack Obama faces in trying to deal with a man he once thought he could convert into an ally.

The killing of at least 70 people around the central town of Homs in the past five days, according to activists, brought to an estimated 1,100 the total toll in Mr. Assad's months-long crackdown and sparked tougher condemnation from the Obama administration. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged other Arab states, Russia and China to join in protesting the violence.

Four Decades of Assad Reign

AFP/Getty Images
Hafez al-Assad

1971 Hafez al-Assad assumes Syria's presidency, leading to four decades of Baath Party rule.

1983 Assad orders assault on Muslim Brotherhood stronghold in Hama, killing up to 40,000 people.

Associated Press
A destroyed Iraqi tank during the Gulf War in 1991.

1991 Assad contributes Syrian troops to U.S.-led coalition that expelled Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait.

Reuters
Bashar al-Assad

2000 Bashar al-Assad succeeds father as Syrian leader, promises to initiate political reforms.

2004 George W. Bush imposes wide-ranging sanctions on Assad regime, charging support for militant groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Palestinian territories.

Reuters
Lebanese students in Beirut in 2005.

2005 Assad orders withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon following murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

2007 Israeli jets destroy alleged nuclear reactor in eastern Syria.

2009 Obama White Houses eases some sanctions on Syrian regime in bid for rapprochement.

2011 President Obama sanctions Assad and key lieutenants following political crackdown.

But the Obama administration still wasn't quite ready to give up on Mr. Assad.

"The legitimacy that is necessary for anyone to expect change to occur under this current government is, if not gone, nearly run out," Mrs. Clinton told reporters. "If he's not going to lead the reform, he needs to get out of the way."

Mrs. Clinton's ambiguity highlights the frustrating U.S. courtship of Bashar al-Assad. For more than two years, Mr. Obama's foreign-policy team has tried to woo Mr. Assad away from America's regional nemesis, Iran, and persuade him to resume peace talks with America's regional friend, Israel. For more than two years, Mr. Assad has frustrated the U.S. with the promise of reform and the practice of repression.

At one point Sen. John Kerry, the president's informal envoy to Mr. Assad, even secretly negotiated an agreement with the Syrians to restart peace talks with Israel, according to people briefed on the matter. Having harbored such lofty aspirations, the Obama administration is finding it hard to cut loose the 45-year-old, London-trained ophthalmologist.

As democratic protests swept the Middle East and North Africa, Mr. Obama ushered Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak out the door and sent U.S. jets to try to topple Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. But so far nobody in the Obama administration has publicly urged Mr. Assad to surrender power.

Mr. Obama entered the Oval Office in 2009 determined to engage some of Washington's most intractable foes, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. But many of Mr. Obama's foreign-affairs advisers saw Mr. Assad as the most promising target.

The Syrian president had suggested to U.S. officials a willingness to break his military alliance with Tehran, forge peace with Israel and diminish Syrian support for the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas.

The White House put in place a foreign-policy team with vast experience dealing with Mr. Assad and his late father, President Hafez al-Assad. And in Mr. Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the White House found a key ally in pursuing Mr. Assad: In repeated trips to Damascus, the Massachusetts Democrat had established something approaching a friendship with Mr. Assad.

Mr. Obama quickly ran into opposition from lawmakers who argued that Mr. Assad was only feigning interest in U.S. outreach. Now they worry that the administration has waited too long to seek his ouster.

"One of the game-changers for the Middle East is the fall of Assad," says Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.). "It's just baffling to me how it's not in the U.S.'s interest to seek the removal of Bashar Assad."

Senior U.S. officials say Washington's tempered response to the Syrian crackdown has been driven by fears that Mr. Assad's overthrow could unleash even wider sectarian violence. American allies in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel have expressed similar fears. There's also a belief among some in the U.S. government that Mr. Assad will weather the current storm no matter what the U.S. does.

"He probably has the wherewithal to be sitting in the palace for quite some time," said a senior administration official.

U.S. relations with Syria were at a low when Mr. Obama took office pledging to re-engage Damascus. The George W. Bush administration had accused Mr. Assad of facilitating the flow of al Qaeda fighters into Iraq and secretly pursuing nuclear weapons in cahoots with North Korea.

President Obama's early signals were mixed. In March of 2009, Messrs. Kerry and Assad and their wives dined together in the ancient heart of Damascus, just down the street from where the head of John the Baptist is thought to be entombed. For hours the men talked bilateral relations and Mideast peace, forging a strong working relationship, according to Syrian officials and congressional aides. Mr. Kerry says he acted independently but coordinated the visit with the White House.

Unrest in Syria

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The mood quickly soured. In May 2009, Mr. Obama renewed extensive White House sanctions on the Syrian regime, citing its support for militant groups. A few days earlier, a White House mission to Damascus failed to secure better Syrian cooperation in policing the Iraqi border.

It took an intervention by Mr. Kerry to help revive the engagement. Mr. Kerry organized a phone call between Mrs. Clinton and her Syrian counterpart, Walid Moallem. That led to a higher-level visit to Damascus later in the year, headed by George Mitchell, then the special Mideast envoy. The White House agreed to ease some sanctions. The Syrians promised to better police the Syrian-Iraq border.

The Obama administration and Mr. Kerry accelerated efforts in 2010 to woo Syria, according to officials. Mr. Mitchell's team had a detailed plan for ending the Israeli-Syrian dispute over the Golan Heights. A former U.S. army attaché in Beirut, Fred Hof, began making regular trips to Damascus on the administration's behalf.

Mr. Kerry, meanwhile, became Mr. Assad's champion in the U.S., urging lawmakers and policymakers to embrace the Syrian leader as a partner in stabilizing the Mideast. At a dinner in Washington in late 2009, Mr. Kerry described how the Syrian leader bemoaned the growing conservatism in his country. Mr. Assad's London-born wife, Asma, had to wear a head-scarf when visiting Damascus's historic Umayyad mosque, while his mother hadn't decades earlier, Mr. Kerry recounted Syria's leader saying.

"He doesn't want to lead a religious-based country," Mr. Kerry told the audience.

Some at the dinner, though, were Lebanese-Americans, who knew Damascus funded such Islamist organizations as Hezbollah and Hamas. "Kerry's characterization of Assad seemed grossly exaggerated," said one attendee at the dinner. "But the senator promoted it unchecked."

European Pressphoto Agency
A funeral procession in Homs on Wednesday of policemen who were killed, according to Syria's official news agency.

Some in the U.S. government also doubted this rosy view of Mr. Assad. Damascus continued to stonewall investigators from the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, which suspected Syria of a covert program to produce plutonium for nuclear bombs. Mr. Assad showed no signs of weakening his alliance with Tehran. And U.S. intelligence services were alarmed to view satellite photos in early 2010 showing Syrian military units transferring long-range Scud missile systems to Hezbollah, which the U.S. designates a terrorist organization.

Sen. Kerry says he harbored no illusions about the Syrian president. "I never argued Assad was a reformer so far as the internal political affairs of Syria," he said in an interview. "But there was an opportunity staring us in the face on foreign affairs."

The White House dispatched Mr. Kerry back to Damascus in the spring of 2010 to confront Mr. Assad on the Scud issue, but Syria's dictator denied the charges. Secretary of State Clinton, while committed to engagement, complained to aides about Syrian duplicity, according to U.S. officials. She summoned Syrian diplomats to the State Department four times that spring to protest the alleged weapons shipments.

Nonetheless, Messrs. Kerry and Mitchell pressed ahead to restart peace talks. The Syrian leader stressed that reclaiming the Golan Heights from Israel, rather than advancing Iran's regional ambitions, remained his main foreign-policy objective.

"If I have everything I need as Syria, I cannot say no to the [peace] treaty," Mr. Assad said in January in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

In the second half of last year, Mr. Kerry began shuttling between the Syrians and the Israelis, according to people briefed on the diplomacy. The senator believed the talks were progressing so well that last fall he and Mr. Assad's aides secretly drafted terms they hoped would allow for the resumption of direct Israeli-Syrian peace talks, according to people familiar with their work. The plan: Israelis would agree to resume talks and commit to returning all Syrian lands seized during the 1967 Six Day War. Mr. Assad would pledge to distance himself from Iran and Hezbollah.

"I thought what I brought back in writing was sufficiently powerful and real that it merited any administration to follow up on it," Mr. Kerry recalls.

This January, however, the U.S. diplomatic pursuit of Damascus began to fray. American officials and French President Nicolas Sarkozy had pressed Mr. Assad to help stabilize Lebanon. But that month, Hezbollah and Syria's other Lebanese allies engineered the ouster of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a close Western ally.

Mr. Kerry was booked into Damascus's Four Seasons Hotel in anticipation of his seventh meeting with the Syrian leader. But days before the senator's trip, the White House and French government intervened to block the meeting, according to U.S. and European officials. They didn't want to give Syria's strongman the stamp of approval that a visit from the powerful senator would imply.

Neither the Obama administration nor Mr. Kerry appeared prepared for the political uprising that rocked Syria just weeks later. Many U.S. officials believed Syria's rulers had so repressed political dissent that the country wasn't susceptible to the type of people-power movement that overthrew Egyptian and Tunisian leaders.

Mr. Kerry gave an address on the Middle East on March 19 in Washington and again raised eyebrows by heaping praise on Mr. Assad. A few days later, Mrs. Clinton fueled even greater anger among Syrian human-rights activists by echoing Mr. Kerry's line that Mr. Assad might yet embrace reform.

The Obama administration has distanced itself from Mr. Assad as more protesters have fallen to the Assad regime's snipers and tanks in recent weeks. The White House has sanctioned Mr. Assad and many of his top advisers. And U.S. officials have acknowledged that the time for cutting a peace deal between Mr. Assad and Israel has probably passed.

Still, Syrian democracy activists, many of whom gathered in Turkey this week, voiced concern that Washington continues to cling to a hope that the Syrian leader could be rehabilitated.

"The problem here is that this policy of the U.S. still legitimates the position of Bashar al-Assad, and isn't commensurate with the position of the people demonstrating in the streets," said Ammar Abdulhamid, a Washington-based activist.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Nuclear Watchdog Details Concerns In Iran, Syria

NPR
by MIKE SHUSTER
May 25, 2011

The International Atomic Energy Agency has released troubling new reports on the nuclear activities of Iran and Syria.

The Iran report indicates the production of enriched uranium there is increasing and raises more questions about Iran's possible research into the military applications of nuclear technology.

In the Syria report, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog has reached the conclusion that Syria was very likely building a clandestine nuclear reactor when Israel bombed the site in 2007.

Iran: Uranium Enrichment Increasing

Iran's production of low-enriched uranium is on the rise, and though the facility at Natanz is far from full capacity, it is producing more per month now than in the past.

Iran's enrichment activities were hampered by breakdowns and by a computer attack last year caused by what's come to be known as the Stuxnet worm.

But the IAEA report suggests Iran has surmounted those difficulties, says David Albright, director of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

"Iran's increase in its low-enriched uranium output by 30 percent since last summer shows ... that it's getting Natanz to work better, and shows that probably any leftover effect from Stuxnet has been reduced."

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April 28, 2011
The IAEA report does confirm that Iran has not diverted any of its known uranium stocks from civilian to military uses.

The report focuses some attention on the gas centrifuges that are used to manufacture enriched uranium. Since Iran started its enrichment about four years ago, it has used only first-generation centrifuges obtained from Pakistan.

Centrifuge technology has improved since then, and Iranian leaders have boasted that they intend to install new, far more efficient centrifuges in the future. But the IAEA has found no actual evidence that Iran has installed the newer technology.

Open Questions About Weapons Development

There are also ongoing questions about research Iran has done on aspects of nuclear weapons technology. The agency has pressed Iran for years to clear up questions about its military nuclear research. Iran has left many unanswered.

One concerns experiments with a neutron generator and uranium deuteride — this is what might be called a trigger for a nuclear explosion. The agency believes Iranian scientists worked on this particular piece of technology for as many as four years, perhaps longer, says Albright.

"This particular piece is important because it doesn't have any other uses that really are legitimate or credible," Albright says. "And it also shows that Iran is working on fairly sophisticated components of a nuclear weapon. I mean there's a much simpler way to do it. If you want to perhaps do it more secretly, you may want to go this route of uranium deuteride neutron initiator."

The agency's report does not assert that Iran is currently engaged in this work — only that the agency suspects it did the work before and may have continued it in some capacity.

On Wednesday, the head of Iran's atomic energy agency said simply that the IAEA's questions are based on fabricated documents.

EnlargeDigitalGlobe/Getty Images
This site in Syria was bombed by Israeli jets more than three years ago because it was suspected to be a nuclear reactor. It is now showing new construction.
Syria Stalls IAEA Investigation

On Syria, the agency says it's reached the conclusion that a facility under construction there that was bombed by Israel more than three years ago was "very likely a nuclear reactor, similar to one in North Korea."

The IAEA has been stymied for several years in its investigation of this incident. Syria allowed one inspection of the site, after the rubble was removed. There are three other locations in Syria believed to be related to this site, but Syria has not permitted agency inspectors to visit those.

The investigation has reached a dead end, says Albright.

"The IAEA has been under pressure," he says. "They can't let this slide. It's bad for the credibility of the IAEA if Syria gets away with it."

State Department spokesman Mark Toner indicated the U.S. wants to see this discussed by the IAEA in an upcoming meeting of its board of governors.

"The attempt by Syria to construct a clandestine nuclear reactor site is obviously a matter of concern, and we fully expect that the IAEA board will address this issue when it meets, I believe, next week," Toner says.

There's an expectation that the U.S. will urge that Syria be referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible economic sanctions.

Iran's Syria Strategy: Heavy Meddle

NYtimes
MAY 27, 2011
By MICHAEL SINGH

A top commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Chizari was hit with sanctions last week by the Obama administration. Given his nationality, one might assume that he was sanctioned in relation to the Iranian regime's nuclear pursuits or its crackdown on dissidents. In fact, Chizari, the Quds Force Chief Qasem Soleimani, and the organization itself were targeted for abetting oppression somewhere else: Syria.

According to the U.S. government, the Iranians are complicit in the Assad regime's "human rights abuses and repression of the Syrian people."

If Chizari's name sounds familiar, it may be because he was arrested by U.S. troops in Baghdad in December 2006. According to media reports, Chizari was detained while inside the compound of Iraqi Shiite leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim with another Quds Force commander. The two men were reportedly in possession of detailed reports about weapons shipments into Iraq, including of so-called explosively formed projectiles, which were responsible for the deaths of scores of U.S. soldiers. Chizari was subsequently expelled into Iran by the Iraqi government.

It should come as little surprise that Chizari has shown up in both hot spots. Wherever there's trouble, he'll be there to aid the troublemakers or stir things up himself.

The Quds Force reports directly to Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and it serves as the linchpin in Iran's regional strategy. Iran funds and arms groups like Hezbollah to threaten Israel and thwart democracy-building in Lebanon. And it equips terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan to stymie U.S. efforts to establish peace and security in those places. In all of these cases, the Quds Force is the regime's instrument of choice.

Iran's leaders crowed when popular uprisings unseated their old foes Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. But the travails of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad have clearly caused concern in Tehran. Assad is a longtime ally of Iran, and under his rule Syria has served as a conduit eastward for foreign fighters to enter Iraq to fight U.S. troops, and for Iranian weaponry to flow westward to arm Hezbollah and Hamas. Damascus is essentially the bar scene from "Star Wars" for terrorists in the Middle East, providing a locale where Iranian allies such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad can coordinate unperturbed.

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Associated Press
Syrian President Bashar Assad

Were Assad to fall, a key link in Iran's strategic chain across the region would be broken. While Iran could possibly find work-arounds to supply Hezbollah, such as by sea or air, it would lose both strategic depth and an eager ally. Furthermore, if protesters in Syria were to inspire Iran's own democracy activists to redouble their efforts, the Iranian regime would find itself in serious peril. Thus it is unsurprising that it has dispatched the Quds Force to help Assad stop the Arab Spring at his doorstep.

Iran's latest involvement in Syria should be a wake-up call. Iran's direct assistance in the Syrian regime's crackdown has attracted criticism from many quarters; it's even put Tehran at odds with erstwhile allies such as Turkey. Iran's actions have also contributed to a shift in the Obama administration's approach toward Tehran. In addition to imposing sanctions on Chizari and his ilk, on April 22 President Obama said that Assad was mimicking Iran's "brutal tactics."

Ultimately, tough words and sanctions will not be enough. Chizari and his exploits in Iraq and Syria represent one facet of the threat posed by Iran. If our hopes for freedom and stability in the region are to be realized, we must defeat Iran's efforts to expand its power and influence—above all by denying it the nuclear weapons that would further its destabilizing designs.

Mr. Singh is the managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He was senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration.

Monday, May 16, 2011

U.S. Presses Nuclear Case Against Damascus

WSJ
MAY 14, 2011
By JAY SOLOMON

WASHINGTON—The U.S. and its European allies, seeking to pressure Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to end his violent crackdown on protesters, are lobbying the United Nations nuclear watchdog to formally accuse Damascus of covertly building a nuclear reactor.

Such a declaration by Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, could lead the U.N. Security Council to censure and perhaps penalize Syria in the coming months if it fails to provide information on its alleged nuclear activities, including at a suspected reactor site bombed by Israel in 2007, said U.S. and European officials.

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"It is our longstanding view that the Syrian facility...was a nuclear reactor configured for plutonium production," said a senior U.S. official involved in the discussions.

The U.S. and European Union have been seeking ways to further isolate Damascus in the wake of a brutal offensive by Mr. Assad's security forces. Both Washington and Brussels have announced unilateral economic sanctions on senior Syrian officials in recent weeks, although not on Mr. Assad himself.

But the Obama administration and its allies have so far been stymied in their attempts to pressure Mr. Assad through the Security Council, according to diplomats involved in the discussions. Russia, in particular, has resisted U.N. action to punish Syria, a decades-long ally of Moscow. The IAEA is viewed as a separate channel through which to put pressure on Damascus, said these officials.

"We're looking to increasingly isolate Assad," said a European official briefed on the talks. "The IAEA is one of the routes."

Syria's ally, Iran, has been hit with four rounds of U.N. economic sanctions since 2006 as a result of Tehran's own standoff with the IAEA.

For more than three years, the IAEA has been seeking access to at least four Syrian sites the U.N. agency suspects of being part of a covert nuclear program. The facility in eastern Syria destroyed in late 2007 by Israeli fighter jets, Dair Alzour, was a nearly operational nuclear reactor built in collaboration with North Korea, U.S. intelligence agencies believe.

Damascus has repeatedly denied the charges. It has refused to allow IAEA inspectors to visit the suspect sites after an initial mission went to Dair Alzour.

Mr. Amano in recent months has publicly talked about the possibility of utilizing a special power of his office to demand immediate access to Syria. But IAEA officials worry privately that Syria could again refuse to comply, making Mr. Amano's office look weak.

The U.S. and Europe, subsequently, have advised the IAEA to declare in its quarterly report on Syria, due out next month, that its inspectors have concluded that the bombed facility was a reactor. Such a move could lead the IAEA's 35-member board to issue a resolution declaring Damascus in noncompliance with its commitments to the agency. Syria's case could then be referred to the U.N. Security Council.

Unrest in Syria

Despite the rising death toll from weeks of unrest, people across Syria continue to protest the government of President Bashar al-Assad. See events by day.

Regional Upheaval

Track events day by day in the region.

More photos and interactive graphics

Thousands of Syrians demonstrated after weekly prayers on Friday keeping up a two-month-old campaign of calls to end the autocratic rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Video courtesy of Reuters.

Mr. Amano, in a speech earlier this month, suggested he might go this route. In Paris, he told a conference that "the facility that was ... destroyed by Israel was a nuclear reactor under construction," his most definitive comment to date on the nature of the Syrian facility. Mr. Amano's representative in Vienna, however, subsequently stated that the IAEA hadn't reached a firm conclusion on the Syria case and wouldn't comment on what action the agency might take.

Syria is proving an increasingly complex diplomatic challenge for the Obama administration and its allies as Damascus continues its crackdown on protesters.

Upon taking office in 2009, President Barack Obama sought to engage Mr. Assad in a bid to stabilize the Middle East and promote a broader Arab-Israeli peace process. The U.S. has taken a more cautious response to the Syrian political rebellion than it has to similar uprisings in Egypt and Libya, refusing so far to call for Mr. Assad to step down or to formally question his legitimacy.

Human-rights groups and U.S. lawmakers have pressed the administration to call on Mr. Assad to step down. U.S. officials, in private, fear Mr. Assad's overthrow could lead to widescale sectarian violence similar to the bloodletting that consumed Iraq after Saddam Hussein's fall.

Still, the scale of the violence inside Syria is forcing Washington to take an increasingly hard line. On Friday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said: "Absent significant change in the Syrian government's current approach, the U.S. and its international partners will take additional steps to make clear our strong opposition to the Syrian government's treatment of its people."

Both U.S. and European officials have said Mr. Assad himself could be a target for future sanction measures. And some European officials have said it is possible their governments could change tack and formally announce that they think Mr. Assad should stand down in the coming weeks. One growing fear in Washington and Brussels is that Mr. Assad might survive, but so weakened that he could even further strengthen his military alliance with Iran.

"We used to think we could break Syria's relationship with Iran through diplomacy," said a European official. "Now we'll need to do so through pressure."

Monday, May 9, 2011

on Syria

Turkey Joins Effort to Spur Change in Syria

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704330404576290554149620020.html#printMode

U.S. Moves Cautiously Against Syrian Leaders

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/30/world/middleeast/30policy.html?hp

U.S. imposes sanctions on Syria’s intelligence service, security officials

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/thousands-of-syrians-protest-military-crackdown/2011/04/29/AFeX9aDF_story.html?hpid=z2

Friday, April 29, 2011

A Statement by President Obama on Syria

The White House Blog

Posted by Kori Schulman on April 22, 2011 at 06:28 PM EDT

President Obama just released the following statement on Syria:

The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the use of force by the Syrian government against demonstrators. This outrageous use of violence to quell protests must come to an end now. We regret the loss of life and our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the victims, and with the Syrian people in this challenging time.
The Syrian Government's moves yesterday to repeal Syria’s decades-old Emergency Law and allow for peaceful demonstrations were not serious given the continued violent repression against protesters today. Over the course of two months since protests in Syria began, the United States has repeatedly encouraged President Assad and the Syrian Government to implement meaningful reforms, but they refuse to respect the rights of the Syrian people or be responsive to their aspirations. The Syrian people have called for the freedoms that all individuals around the world should enjoy: freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly, and the ability to freely choose their leaders. President Assad and the Syrian authorities have repeatedly rejected their calls and chosen the path of repression. They have placed their personal interests ahead of the interests of the Syrian people, resorting to the use of force and outrageous human rights abuses to compound the already oppressive security measures in place before these demonstrations erupted. Instead of listening to their own people, President Assad is blaming outsiders while seeking Iranian assistance in repressing Syria's citizens through the same brutal tactics that have been used by his Iranian allies. We call on President Assad to change course now, and heed the calls of his own people.
We strongly oppose the Syrian government’s treatment of its citizens and we continue to oppose its continued destabilizing behavior more generally, including support for terrorism and terrorist groups. The United States will continue to stand up for democracy and the universal rights that all human beings deserve, in Syria and around the world.

Gathering Clouds for Syria's Assad

CFR

Author:	Mohamad Bazzi, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies

April 18, 2011

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is facing the most serious challenge to the Ba'athist regime since the 1980s. Assad's security forces have been unable to quell a wave of protests that began last month in the southern town of Deraa and have since spread across the country. On April 15, Syria witnessed the largest demonstrations yet, as tens of thousands of protesters marched from several suburbs into central Damascus.

Assad initially responded to the country's protests with a violent crackdown and token concessions--such as appointing a new cabinet--that failed to appease Syrians seeking dramatic change after forty-one years of autocratic rule by the Assad family. On April 16, Assad promised to lift the state of emergency in place since 1963 that grants wide authority to the security forces. But protests erupted again the next day, as thousands took to the streets across Syria chanting: "The people want the overthrow of Bashar!"

Assad enjoys greater popular support than other Middle Eastern rulers ousted by recent uprisings, such as Tunisian leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. But he is squandering this political capital as his crackdown intensifies and he continues to ignore the need for fundamental change.

In his April 16 address, Assad tried to strike a conciliatory tone after an earlier speech in which he dismissed pro-democracy activists as "dupes" or saboteurs in a plot hatched by "foreign agents" to weaken Syria. Aside from his pledge to repeal the emergency law within days, he vowed to fight corruption, reduce unemployment, and to "study" new laws that would allow the formation of political parties and guarantee the right to peaceful assembly. But repealing the emergency law would do little to restrict the power of various security agencies because Syria has other laws that guarantee members of the secret police immunity for virtually any crime committed in the line of duty.

Assad also warned that these concessions would be followed by a crackdown. Once these changes are in place, he said, "there will no longer be a need to organize demonstrations in Syria." He added ominously that the government would not "tolerate any act of sabotage."

These measures did not appease the protestors because Assad failed to loosen the Ba'ath Party's monopoly on power. In refusing to make substantial concessions, Assad is relying on a tactic he learned from his father: The Syrian regime does not respond to pressure, whether external or internal, and this principle has served it well in times of crisis. While this approach worked for Hafez Assad during the three decades he ruled Syria, it is unlikely to succeed over the long term for his son, as he confronts a different and unprecedented type of pressure rooted in deep popular grievances.

[M]any secular Sunnis, especially in Damascus, are still on the sidelines. If these Sunnis take to the streets in sustained, large-scale protests, then Assad's government will face a grave danger.

The unrest shows little sign of letting up. Over the past week, protests spread to several coastal towns, Damascus, and Aleppo--one of Syria's largest cities that was once a center of resistance to the Ba'ath Party. Human rights activists estimate that more than two hundred demonstrators have been killed and hundreds arrested since protests began in Deraa, a Sunni town near the border with Jordan that has suffered from economic neglect by the central government.

It is especially troublesome for Assad that the unrest started in Sunni areas that traditionally supported the Ba'ath Party and have provided recruits for the Syrian military. On March 6, the police arrested fifteen teenagers who had scrawled anti-government graffiti on several buildings in Deraa. The arrests set off large demonstrations, which led to clashes with security forces and dozens of casualties. Assad and his advisers bungled the initial response: The president failed to offer condolences to the families of those killed or to visit the town, setting off a new round of protests that spread to other areas. As the crackdown intensified, demonstrators also honed their rhetoric from demands for "freedom" and "dignity"--and an end to abuses by the security forces--to calls for Assad's overthrow.

Assad's main goal is to preserve the rule of his Alawite regime in a Sunni-dominated country. (The Alawites, who make up about 12 percent of Syria's population, are an offshoot sect of Shiite Islam.) Unlike the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, it is unlikely that the Syrian military leadership would abandon Assad. Most of the country's generals and top security officials are Alawite, and their fortunes are tied to Assad's survival. Syria is also home to Christian, Druze, and Shiite minorities--about 15 percent of the population--and they tend to support the Alawite regime. Along with many secular Sunnis, these minorities look to Assad as a source of stability, and they fear that his fall could precipitate a civil war.

The Ba'athist regime has a history of using extreme violence to suppress opposition. In 1982, as the Muslim Brotherhood carried out attacks against military and civilian targets in several cities, Hafez Assad dispatched troops to the city of Hama to put down an Islamist uprising. Assad's forces leveled sections of the city, killing an estimated twenty thousand people. Since then, membership in the Muslim Brotherhood has been punishable by death.

While the current wave of protests has been partly inspired by Sunni preachers in some cities and towns, Syria is not facing another Islamist uprising. Like other rebellions in the Arab world, the largest protests have taken place after Friday prayers. But many secular Sunnis, especially in Damascus, are still on the sidelines. If these Sunnis take to the streets in sustained, large-scale protests, then Assad's government will face a grave danger.

For an oil-poor country that has little economic clout, the Syrian regime derives its power from its strategic position and carefully nurtured alliances. Syria has played the role of a regional spoiler and Arab nationalist standard-bearer since 1970, when Hafez Assad rose to power in a military coup. He perfected the art of shifting alliances, stirring up trouble in neighboring countries, and keeping his enemies mired in costly battles.

When Hafez died in 2000 and was succeeded by Bashar, many believed the soft-spoken ophthalmologist could never balance the regional cards as masterfully as his father. But it is clear that the younger Assad has grown comfortably into the role of a strongman who must adapt to shifting Middle East realities.

Assad did not have much time to master regional dynamics before he confronted a serious external challenge. After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration turned its attention to Damascus as another candidate for "regime change." Syria meddled in Iraq, nurtured Palestinian militants opposed to peace with Israel, and dominated its smaller neighbor, Lebanon.

By 2009, Assad had waited out the Bush administration and was maneuvering himself out of international isolation. At the same time that he was reaching out to Saudi Arabia and other Arab powers, Assad maintained his relationship with Iran and its allies in the region: Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iraqi Shiite factions. These moves are a classic example of the statecraft practiced by Hafez Assad.

The younger Assad has been deft at dealing with external pressure on Syria, applying the lessons of his father's foreign policy. But today, he cannot hunker down and wait for the storm of protests to pass. To avoid considerable bloodshed, Assad must move beyond the survival methods and political instincts of his father.

U.S. Faces a Challenge in Trying to Punish Syria

NYtimes

April 25, 2011

By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON — The White House said on Monday that it was exploring new sanctions against Syria — mostly involving the assets of top officials around President Bashar al-Assad — but officials acknowledged that the country was already under so many sanctions that the United States held little leverage.

“We’re talking about a country whose economy is about the size of Pittsburgh’s,” said one administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the continuing debate within the administration about the next steps. “There are things you can do to amp up the volume” of sanctions, the official said, “but the financial impact is slim.”

The problem the Obama administration faces with Syria is similar to those involving North Korea and Myanmar, which have long been under sanctions. In Syria’s case, the United States already, in 2006, banned transactions with the Commercial Bank of Syria. In early 2007, it accused four government-related research organizations of working on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and banned transactions with them.

But later that year, when Israel found a nuclear reactor under construction in the Syrian desert and destroyed it in an airstrike, the United States took no further action, in part because the Bush administration could not think of any truly effective sanctions. Now the Obama administration is looking for specific sanctions against individual leaders, though most of their money is probably in Europe or Lebanon.

So far, President Obama has stopped well short of calling on Mr. Assad to step down, or of declaring, as he did of Libya’s leader, Col.Muammar el-Qaddafi, that Mr. Assad had lost the moral authority to lead his country. Nor, apparently, has the administration been working behind the scenes to ease Mr. Assad out of office, as in the case of Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Asked how the administration justified treating Mr. Assad so differently, Jay Carney, the president’s press secretary, said Monday that it was “up to the people of Syria to decide who its leaders should be.” He tried to differentiate Syria in other ways as well.

“Libya was, again, a unique situation,” Mr. Carney said. “We had large portions of the country that were out of the control of Muammar Qaddafi. We had a Qaddafi regime that was moving against its own people in a coordinated military fashion and was about to assault a very large city on the promise that it would show” what Colonel Qaddafi himself called “no mercy.” And, Mr. Carney continued, “we had the support of the Arab League.”

Administration officials say that while they lack many effective economic tools, they believe Mr. Assad is sensitive to portrayals of his regime as brutal and backward. “He sees himself as a Westernized leader,” one senior administration official said, “and we think he’ll react if he believes he is being lumped in with brutal dictators.”

Recently, the White House stepped up its denunciations of the Syrian government, and of Mr. Assad himself. “Over the course of two months since protests in Syria began,” Mr. Obama said in a statement on Friday, “the United States has repeatedly encouraged President Assad and the Syrian government to implement meaningful reforms, but they refuse to respect the rights of the Syrian people or be responsive to their aspirations.”

He accused Mr. Assad of putting “personal interests ahead of the interests of the Syrian people, and resorting to the use of force and outrageous human rights abuses.”

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