Clearer Policy for Syria

Washington DC April 29, 2008//RPS Opinion - Farid Ghadry// -- To those who know the history of Assad's violence not only against his own people but against many of the people in the region, including American troops in Iraq, were not surprised to hear about the revelation in last Thursday's intelligence briefing to Congress by the NSC and the CIA that Syria was building a plutonium reactor with the assistance of the North Koreans. The question today is: What will the US administration do about it beyond simply exposing the regime for its endless foray into terror?

Conventional wisdom dictates more than exposure and public pressure. The US policy on Syria has been and remains one of pressuring Assad but keen on not risking his downfall, which we know to be relatively easy given the inside job into the killing of Mughnieyeh and the sensational video and photographs we saw of the Syrian nuclear reactor destroyed by Israel some 7 months ago. The Assad regime has been penetrated to the point that should the US and Israel decide it is no longer in their best interests to defend it, its demise would not pose any serious difficulties.

The policy of continued but ineffective pressure on Assad for his violent behavior in Iraq and in Lebanon, as well as his support for the terror of Hamas and Hezbollah, has left many wondering where it will all end. Few days after the nuclear reactor disclosure, the media has almost died down on the subject leaving many Syrian experts and oppositionists scrambling for answers and believing that confrontation with Assad will have to wait for a more serious breach. One almost wonders what does Assad have to do to relinquish the free passes his regime keeps earning in spite of the knowledge of how destructive his terror has been against an Iraq ready to stand on its feet, a Lebanon eager to retain its democratic values, and an accelerated form of social Genocide against Israel through a precise policy of causing mass emigration.

This crescendo of US public pressure against Assad that we witness every other month, while his misbehavior in Iraq and Lebanon is as steady as a rock, makes one wonder what purpose it serves. Its effectiveness can be debated since we have seen, over the last five years, multiple actions by the US administration, including sanctions, yet Assad continues unabated and unfrazzled. In fact, we believe it is exactly this policy of increasing and decreasing pressure that is feeding Assad's violence because he knows no matter what he does, whether killing Americans in Iraq, Israelis in Israel, Lebanese in Lebanon, Syrians in Syria, or even arming himself with a nuke, the international community will not act against a regime viewed as untouchable. There is no international will for regime change in Syria and that gives Assad the Carte Blanche to terrorize and kill.

Hope for a better Iraq will remain an issue if this US administration cannot concoct a more effective method of dealing with Assad's terror once and for all. The new faces expected in a new US administration in 2009 will pick-up where the others have left thinking and hoping they can be more successful, and after exhausting all venues to reason with Syria the vicious cycle will continue with violence unabated and posing clear and present danger to the three democratic nations bordering Syria. There is no end in sight to Assad's violence and that is the dilemma the US will continue facing as long as its policy towards Syria remains murky with not even a hint of regime change on the table, which could have immediate and positive repercussions for Iraq and Lebanon. For maximum effect, the hint must be backed by a Reaganesque action like the one we witnessed against Libya in 1986.

The latest peace initiative proposed by Erdogan of Turkey between Assad and Israel is being viewed by many Syrians as a reward for the violence perpetrated by Assad against the Jewish State; not exactly a lesson our young Syrian people need to learn from considering the geography and the continuous feeding of extremism in our schools by a regime whose survivability is measured by how potent is its dissemination of its Nazi-like culture of hate. Israel must confront Assad by luring our Syrian youth to a public diplomacy campaign built around the economic miseries they suffer under his rule rather than the heroism of his violence.

We believe that the timing of the peace initiative is simply an Assad ploy planned to exact less pressure on his regime because of the nuclear discovery. Nothing will come of it simply because Assad, who has built his stature on a pillar called Resistance, cannot afford to be a man of peace. Does any Israeli really expect Nasrallah of Hezbollah one day to have any kind words about the peace struck between Syria and Israel? Or Ahmadinajead simply to rollover and accept Assad's betrayal? Imagine the contradictions to Hezbollah's very existence if that should happen. Imagine Hamas just giving-up on Sharia'a, which calls for an Islamic Khalifa, to please Syria and Iran. That is why peace between Israel and Assad (but not Syria) is an impossibility as long as Assad rules Syria; in fact, wars and violence will be prevalent in the region for the remainder of Assad's life and he is only 42 years old. This is not to dash the hopes for peace one day but it will not happen as long as Iran and Syria are ruled by violent men stoking the fires of wars and Hezbollah and Hamas casually causing the killing of their own people as an excuse to kill others.

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