(Wall Street Journal) Jay Solomon - U.S. officials are virtually ruling out an international intervention to stop political violence in Syria, despite a widening crackdown against dissidents there. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington still held out hopes that Assad could be peeled away from Iran and pushed toward embracing political and economic change. "Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he's a reformer," Clinton told CBS's "Face the Nation." Earlier this month, as protests starting gripping Syria, Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has held nearly a half-dozen meetings with Assad in recent years, said he thought Syria's president was an agent for change. However, the State Department and French government intervened last month to block a scheduled meeting between the two men in Damascus.
2011-03-28 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive