Foreign Policy In Focus

(Pictured: Syrian President Assad and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan in happier times.)

"Until recently," reports Henri Barkey at the National Interest, the AKP, Turkey's ruling Justice and Development party, "saw its burgeoning relations with Damascus as the model success story for its improved foreign policy . . . that sought renewed political and economic engagement in the Middle East and its periphery."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Syrian Preside Bashar al-Assad "had developed a strong and close personal relationship. Erdogan appeared to take the young Bashar under his wing, and Turkey provided critical support to the embattled Assad regime when it came under pressure to remove its troops from Lebanon after the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and even at the outset of the recent uprising in Syria. The AKP developed a narrative of 'two peoples, one state' as the leaderships held joint cabinet meetings, eliminated visa requirements and discussed economic integration."

Ultimately, though, the relationship has gone south.

As protests began, Turkey made clear its preference that Assad reform his regime. . . . Ankara certainly wanted to avoid the kind of bloodshed that has characterized the Libyan and Yemeni uprisings. . . . However, by initiating a major military attack on Jisr al-Shughour, Assad may have committed a strategic blunder. [Near the border, the town's] refugees. . . . with their own tales of horror that seep into the Turkish press, making it all the more difficult to ignore their plight . . . streaming into Turkey forced Erdogan’s hand. . . . Erdogan must have come to the realization that the Ba’ath regime in Syria is doomed. . . . Assad, therefore, has lost the only friend willing to stand up for him other than the regime in Tehran.

In fact, reports Borzou Daragahi in the Los Angeles Times:

Many say it was the harrowing images and horror stories of Syrian refugees that changed political calculations for Erdogan, who considers himself a world figure embracing the oppressed. . . . Erdogan, analysts say, is enraged that Assad didn't heed his advice to curtail violence and embark on reforms, humiliated that for years he has been talking up the Syrian president to partners in the West as the man to reform Syria.

Meanwhile, much hand-wringing over how the United States should respond. At Foreign Policy's the Middle East Channel, Marc Lynch counsels caution for a variety of reasons.

I am troubled by . . . very limited international media and an aggressive activist campaign shaping the narrative. I am not confident about any assessments of Syrian public opinion, which may be tipping against Assad in response to the rolling violence but may not be. I am skeptical of the Syrian opposition coalition which has been slowly emerging. . . . And despite the horrible bloodshed and brutality, the conditions which made intervention appropriate in Libya [sic] simply do not exist in Syria.

He advises the Obama administration to

. . . continue working carefully with regional partners to shape a broad regional response to the crisis -- an approach which is paying off with Turkey, much of the Gulf, and now even the Arab League.  Attempting to lure Asad [Lynch's spelling] away from Tehran made sense even a few months ago, but by this point his brutality has rendered it virtually inconceivable that he would find an open door [to the West] even if he wished to switch sides. The policies [that, among other things, the administration] adopts should be consistently designed to shape an environment in which parts of the Syrian ruling coalition see the benefit in abandoning the regime.

At Asia Times Online, via AlterNet, M.K. Bhadrakumar explains the implications for Russia.

Russia is stubbornly blocking US attempts to drum up a case for Libya-style intervention in Syria [because it] understands that a major reason for the US to push for regime change in Syria is to get the Russian naval base in that country wound up [removed. For its part] the US wants Russia to leave Syria alone for the West to tackle. But Russia knows what follows will be that the Russian naval base there would get shut down by a pro-Western successor regime . . . that succeeds Assad.

On a related issue, Bhadrakumar points out that

. . . Western reports are completely silent as to the assistance that the Syrian opposition is getting from outside. No one is interested in probing or questioning, for instance, the circumstances in which 120 Syrian security personnel could have been shot and killed in one "incident". 

Actually, among others, the Guardian is. On June 6, it reported that Syria's

. . . state news agency, Sana, initially said 28 personnel had been killed, including in an armed ambush and at a state security post. It revised the figure up to 43, 80 and then 120 within the space of an hour without an explanation. The claims could not be independently verified. . . . The regime and state media have little credibility . . . blaming the escalating violence on armed gangs and extremist insurgents. . . . Activists and analysts suggested members of the security forces may have been killed but. . . . pointed out that armed gangs never roamed Syria before the Arab spring.

In the Washington Post Sunday noted neocon Eliot Abrams of Iran-Contra fame called for the United States to back regime change in Syria:

While the monarchies of the Middle East have a fighting chance to reform and survive, the region’s fake republics have been falling like dominoes — and Syria is next. . . .  Since the wave of Mideast revolts has spread to Syria, Assad is responding the only way he knows: by killing. What should be our response?

Abrams provides a regimen for the United States to support Syrian protesters such as recalling the U.S. ambassador. However disingenuous this always sounds coming from a conservative, he writes, "Our principles alone should lead us to this position." What's the real reason, though, El-i-ot-t-t.

The demise of this murderous clan is in America’s interest. The Assad regime made Syria the pathway for jihadists from around the world to enter Iraq to fight and kill Americans. Long a haven for terrorists, Syria still allows the Hamas leadership, among other Palestinian terrorist groups, to live and work in Damascus. 

It's one thing for Syria to be a "haven" for terrorists. but what if it were its headquarters? Ata IPS News Jim Lobe writes that, in fact, regime change in Syria may run at cross purposes to U.S. national security.

. . . Paul Pillar, a retired Central Intelligence Agency analyst who served as National Intelligence Officer for the Middle East between 2000 and 2005, warned that regime change could turn out very poorly for both the US and Israel and that Abrams' and the Journal's confidence that any successor regime would be preferable to Assad's was ill-founded. 

"Syria under Assad is probably the most secular place in the Middle East," he noted in his blog at the nationalinterest.org website. "The influence of Islamism, in whatever form, in Syria has nowhere to go but up if there is regime change. That would not be welcome to those in Israel and the United States who worry about any political role for Islamists." 

Neocons -- forever born yesterday, they forget the past and are incapable of looking ahead long term. 

"The Syrian government is struggling to contain a week-old uprising in the southern city of Deraa, the deepest popular unrest since president Bashar al-Assad took office a decade ago. . . . Syrian officials, clearly unnerved, have flown thousands of security forces into the city and brutally cracked down on demonstrators."

. . . reports Gregg Carlstrom at Aljazeera. The latest from MSNBC:

The main hospital in the Syrian city of Deraa received the bodies of at least 25 protesters after Syrian forces launched a relentless assault on a neighborhood sheltering anti-government activists.

Carlstrom again:

At the same time, though, he has made a few conciliatory gestures to protesters, like releasing the children whose arrests . . .  for writing pro-democracy graffiti . . . helped spark the protests, and sending a delegation of government ministers to meet with protesters. . . . Popular protests have been slow to kick off in Syria, where many have bitter memories of former president Hafez al-Assad's brutal repression of opposition groups in Hama.

Hama, of course, was the city that the senior Assad attacked in response to violent uprisings by the Muslim Brotherhood and killed 7,000 to 35,000, including about 1,000 Syrian soldiers. In addition, cyanide gas was reportedly used. Yes, a city -- the fourth largest -- in his own country!

In other words, thank goodness for small favors, Syrians. In fact, you should be counting your blessings. Your president only seems to be suffering sociopathic symptoms, or of Antisocial Personality Disorder, as it's called in more recent editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Whereas his father was a textbook case.

(Pictured: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.)

Below we present an excerpt from an article at Foreign Policy in Focus's sister publication Right Web.

In late December, with Congress away on recess, Robert Ford was appointed the new U.S. ambassador to Syria, filling a six-year vacancy. Shortly thereafter, condemnations poured in from those critical of U.S. efforts to engage Syria. President Barack Obama was criticized for “sending the wrong message” amounting to “a major concession to the Syrian regime.” Pundits and commentators expressed concern that such “appeasement” would compromise the influence and authority of the United States in the Middle East.

Five days later, the unity government of Lebanon collapsed after the resignation of 11 members of the pro-Syrian opposition bloc. Though the ensuing competition for power is widely expected to further empower Hizballah and undermine the Special Tribunal for Lebanon—two serious setbacks for U.S. regional policy—Washington finds itself lacking the necessary connections to alter the situation.

Lebanon's unraveling and the undiminished influence of the Syrian state clearly demonstrate that U.S. attempts to isolate Damascus have failed. Syria continues to occupy an important strategic position in the Levant, and it sits at the crossroads of a number of U.S. interests. Direct and honest engagement, which Ambassador Ford will hopefully foster, is the only way to satisfy U.S. foreign policy goals, rein in violent extremism, and encourage political reforms in that country.

A History of Hostility

During the past decade, U.S. relations with Syria have been primarily characterized by mutual distrust and antagonism. Washington's hostility toward Damascus has been fueled in part by concerns that the Syrian government has supported violent political factions in both Lebanon and Palestine, interfered in the democratic functions of Lebanon, and actively undermined the stability of the new Iraqi state. In response, a number of prominent analysts and regional experts have called for direct engagement as the only effective means to reform the Syrian state. However, the continued isolation of Syria plays to interests of powerful groups with significant political leverage, including neoconservative and other rightwing “pro-Israel” organizations, their allied politicians, and Saudi backers.

Wonks at institutes like the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs (WINEP), and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies have been amongst the most fervent hawks on Syria. Other parts of the “Israel lobby,” like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, have also used their connections in Congress to prevent engagement with Damascus.

Rightist factions in the United States have been targeting Syria since well before the 9/11 attacks and the election of President George W. Bush. Back in February 2000, for example, David Wurmser published an article for the American Enterprise Institute entitled, “Let's Defeat Syria, Not Appease It,” which called on the Israeli and U.S. governments to assist Lebanon to “take matters into their own hands, and Syria will slowly bleed to death there." 

Read the rest of the "Case for Syria" at Right Web.

Samer Araabi is a contributor to Right Web and Foreign Policy in Focus.