- Amministrazione Bush vede governo siriano come
ostile, per sostegno a gruppi terroristi e perché lascia infiltrare resistenti
in Irak, ma è divisa su linea da tenere: - Pentagono e Cheney + neocons come R. Perle
pro rovesciamento Assad; - Dipartimento di Stato, con Rice, per linea isolamento,
come con Arafat (o meglio con Gheddafi), per costringerlo a collaborare: tesi
che chi sostituirebbe Assad potrebbe essere anche più ostile a USA (integralisti
islamici). Questa sarebbe la linea ora prevalente. - USA stanno coltivando rapporti con partiti
d’opposizione, che tuttavia sono deboli e prevalentemente nell’emigrazione (es.
Partito della Riforma). - Ė dibattito ricorrente, con divisioni sempre più nette
e accese, sull’atteggiamento verso paesi avversi a USA, se e come puntare a un
mutamento di regime - Un’ala dei Repubblicani chiede di appoggiare i gruppi
di opposizione siriani, e di appesantire le sanzioni, sulla base di legge del
2003. - Posizione Siria indebolita dopo assassinio Hariri in
Libano: ha dovuto ritirare esercito, e ora è pressata da indagine ONU sul caso,
indiziati dirigenti siriani. - Nel 2002 Bush decise di abbandonare la linea del
“coinvolgimento” della Siria (42 visite a Damasco di 4 Segretari di Stato tra
1990 e 2003), ritirando l’ambasciatore e tagliando le relazioni tranne che al
livello più basso.
Pressure for Regime Change Renews Fight
Over How to Seek Political Change Abroad
By NEIL KING JR.
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 6, 2005; Page A4
WASHINGTON — Farid Ghadry got some
much-needed advice over cocktails last month from Ahmed Chalabi, Iraq’s
deputy prime minister and erstwhile darling of the Bush administration.
"He told me to maintain the course and keep
up the pressure for a democratic Syria," recalls Mr. Ghadry, who, as head
of the Syrian Reform Party, dreams of one day unseating that nation’s
president, Bashar Assad. "Ahmed paved the way in Iraq for what we want to
do in Syria," he says of Mr. Chalabi.
Tellingly, the two met just outside
Washington in the suburban living room of Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, a
vocal advocate for the Iraq war who now supports moves to topple the Syrian
government.
Pressure for regime change in Damascus is
rising, particularly with the approach of the Dec.
15 deadline for a United Nations inquiry into Syria’s alleged role in the
February assassination of Lebanon’s former prime minister, Rafik Hariri.
Some hard-liners are quietly calling on
Mr. Bush to pursue the Iraq model in Syria, though not necessarily by force.
But senior Bush aides — already back on their
heels in Iraq and juggling knotty challenges from North Korea to Iran — have
decided, at least for now, that it is better to push for changed behavior in
Damascus than risk the perils of a political upheaval.
In short, the debate ovr how to proceed with
Syria is exposing some familiar and increasingly raw fault lines in
Washington over whether, and how, to seek political change in countries with
governments inimical to U.S. interests.
The current go-slow approach toward Syria
masks a deep animosity within the administration toward Mr. Assad. He is
accused by the U.S. of continuing to support terrorist groups while allowing
hundreds of insurgents to slip across the border into Iraq. Some
administration officials say there is a strong desire to see him deposed, but
that there is too much uncertainty over who might succeed him — and too
much unease over Iraq — to make that the stated policy of the U.S. government.
That wariness has left unhappy pockets in
the administration and a wing of the Republican Party. Many in Congress, while leery of calling for an end to the
Assad government, want to support Syria’s re-energized but weak opposition
groups. They also would like to see Mr. Bush use a wider range of
sanctions under legislation approved two years ago.
"There is no reason to think that
engagement with Syria will bring about any change," says Mr. Perle,
who frets that the passion for democracy promotion in the Arab world is ebbing
within the Bush administration. "Assad has never been weaker, and we
should take advantage of that."
Syria has come under intense diplomatic
pressure since the Hariri assassination. The nation was forced to end its
decades-long occupation of Lebanon, while a continuing U.N. investigation
led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis has pointed the finger at several senior
Syrian officials. The U.N. Security Council in October threatened further
action against Syria if it failed to cooperate with the Mehlis investigation.
Yesterday, Mr. Mehlis’s team questioned five
top Syrian officials in Vienna. Mr. Assad repeated his assertion that Syria had
no hand in the Hariri car bombing, which killed 21 other people.
Despite rumblings of support for an overt
regime-change policy within the Pentagon and the office of Vice
President Dick Cheney, the State Department is successfully
promoting what one administration official describes as "an Arafat
strategy" toward Syria.
Mr. Bush in 2002 decided to cut off all
contacts with longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, arguing that Mr.
Arafat, who died last year, was part of the problem in the Middle East and
couldn’t be trusted. The U.S. is now waging a similar freeze-out campaign
toward Mr. Assad.
The U.S. withdrew its ambassador from
Damascus after the Hariri assassination and has since cut off all but the
lowest-level contacts with the Syrian government. The chill contrasts sharply
with the days when Damascus was seen as a key Middle East peace broker and a regular stopping-off point for U.S. diplomats. Four
different secretaries of state made 42 visits to Syria between 1990 and 2003.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
while leading the effort to marginalize Damascus, now hopes the threat of
international sanctions will get the Syrian government to clamp down on
terrorist groups in Damascus and seal off its border with Iraq. That tack
evokes less the Arafat example as it does the long squeeze of Libyan leader
Moammar Gaddafi, who two years ago renounced all support for terrorism and
pursuit of weapons of mass destruction in order to end Libya’s international
isolation.
The biggest source of unease over an active
regime-change approach is concern about the sorry state of Syria’s
opposition. A recent U.S. intelligence report concluded that likely
successors to Mr. Assad could prove even worse for U.S. interests, while other
area experts fear a surge in support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which wants to
create an Islamic state in Syria.
Administration officials have met publicly
twice this year with overseas Syrian opposition groups, including Mr. Ghadry’s
three-year-old Reform Party, which is composed almost entirely of expatriates. Mr. Ghadry, who lives in suburban Maryland, formed the party as a
liberal, pro-business group that called almost immediately for a new government
in Damascus. But the party is little known in Syria.
U.S. officials acknowledge that their
outreach is tentative. Mr. Ghadry and his supporters aren’t pleased.
"We think the president wants a regime change in Syria," says the
51-year-old former businessman, whose family left Syria when he was 10.
"But the traditional State Department people look at this and say,
‘No, we should maintain ties with the dictatorship because the place is not
ready for democracy.‘ "