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Sin of Omission

(New Republic) Robert Satloff - * President Bashar al-Assad of Syria has lately seemed to be doing everything possible to make himself an ex-dictator - and this week he took yet another step in that direction. * Whereas his father, Hafez, mesmerized American presidents with his cunning, guile, and tenacity, Bashar's equivocation on Iraq, support for Hizballah and Palestinian terror groups, and barely visible aid in the battle against al-Qaeda have earned only contempt from the White House's current inhabitant. * In a truly stunning display of diplomatic ineptitude, Assad strong-armed Lebanon to accept a second term for a quisling president and, by all accounts, arranged the daylight assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri. This had the result of reviving U.S.-French relations from their Iraq-war nadir by giving the two countries a common purpose: evicting Syria from Lebanon. * This week's Ba'ath Party Congress was supposed to give Bashar the opportunity to make a fresh start. But Assad, a world-class underachiever, fooled us again. He did nothing. * For decades, America has been reluctant to classify Syria as a full-blown rogue regime because of its potential role in the Arab-Israeli peace process. That policy should be jettisoned. In its place, Washington should search for a third way between the bad option of a more effective Ba'athist dictatorship and the worse option of helping to empower Syria's radical Sunni Islamist militants. * This will mean publicly encouraging the small, hardy band of domestic liberals that is routinely hounded by the regime and thrown in jail. Today, this group has little popularity, poor visibility, and virtually no organization; but if it becomes clear that the West will no longer throw lifelines to the Assad regime, the ranks and confidence of reformers may grow. The writer is executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
2005-06-09 00:00:00
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