This reporting is the latest and most in depth on the Obama administrations contingency plans for regime change in Syria, a scenario that has been on the White House docket since last April. On the 29th of the month, Obama issued an executive order leveling personal sanctions against three prominent Syrian officials, one of whom was the brother of President Assad. Concerning the Syrian leader, an unnamed White House Official stated at the time "Don’t think for a second Bashar is not on our radar, and that if these abuses continue we won’t sanction him."
Obama's bellicosity was backed up by a gaggle of prominent Senate hawks, most notably Joe Lieberman, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham. One day prior to the White House sanctions announcement, the three Senators released a joint statement, calling on the President to "take tangible diplomatic and economic measures to isolate and pressure the Assad regime, including through targeted sanctions against Assad himself and other regime officials who are responsible for gross human rights abuses." While their statement also asked Obama to call for Assad to step down, it was clear that the Obama administration and the Senate hawks were close to lockstep in their thinking on Syria. Reporting on this new Syrian policy was Josh Rogin at Foreign Policy's blog, The Cable. He wrote that in the past two weeks a White House "mood shift" on Syria had occurred, with President Assad no longer being seen as likely to reform. Then, "after a series of deliberations, culminating in a Deputies Committee meeting at the National Security Council last week, a new policy course was set."
This new policy course revealed itself as summer began. In mid-May, another round of economic sanctions was leveled against top Syrian officials, this time including President Assad, as well as six of his top aides. Just as before, Obama's Congressional flank was protected by the Senate hawks, led by Marco Rubio, a republican Senator from Florida and a members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. One week prior to the second round of sanctions, Rubio sponsored a resolution urging President Obama to issue more sanctions against Syria, this time targeting the very top leadership. Rubio's resolution was cosponsored by Senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, and Ben Cardin. Internationally, the White House policy was buttressed by the European Union, which also issued sanctions against the Syrian government. At the same time, the rhetorical pressure against the Assad regime began to reflect this new policy, with Obama stating in a speech on May 17th that the Syrian people have demanded a transition to democracy, and Assad was faced with a choice, to "lead that transition, or get out of the way." Speaking to reporters at the State Department, Secretary of State Clinton added that: "Every day that goes by, the position of the government becomes less tenable and the demands of the Syrian people for change only grow stronger."
As the summer heated up, so did Washington's designs for Damascus. In June, reports began to come out that the Syrian army and populous were facing a battle with foreign fighters. An unnamed EU diplomat told the EUObserver that, "we have reports that Wahhabists [radical Sunni Islamists], who are not necessarily controlled by any state, are coming into Syria from Iraq and from Saudi Arabia to create chaos. Inside Syria, there are snipers shooting at demonstrators who are not controlled by Assad but by the deep state, and other snipers who are shooting at both demonstrators and police." There was also a claim, made months later, that beginning in April-May 2011, the NATO airbase at Incirlik, Turkey was being used as an arms-smuggling hub for Syrian opposition fighters, run by a defected Syrian army colonel, Riad al-Assad. This story was broken by FBI whistleblower-turned activist Sibel Edmonds, who is a native of Turkey. While her reporting was not picked up by the mainstream U.S. press, she quotes her high-level source as to why "Who said we didn’t go to [Mainstream Media] first? We got them the info back in October. First they were interested and drooling. At least the reporters. Then, they disappeared. We sat and waited for a few weeks, and no one followed up. It is Turkey. It is NATO. It is our CIA guys. The media hot shots would not touch those cases without State Department sanction attached."
By early July, the State Department was openly courting the Syrian opposition, with Ambassador Robert Ford taking a much publicized visit, accompanied by the French Ambassador, to meet anti-government protesters in Hama on July 7th. A great deal of tension resulted from this visit, as it triggered a pro-Assad demonstration at the American and French embassies in Damascus, where windows were broken, flags torn down. and walls besmirched with graffiti. Back in Washington, Secretary of State Clinton upped the ante once again, telling reporters "President Assad is not indispensable, and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power." For his part, Ambassador Ford relayed his thoughts on the ordeal through a Facebook post (perhaps to posture himself as a protester and not a government man) where he wrote "And how ironic that the Syrian government lets an anti-U.S. demonstration proceed freely while their security thugs beat down olive branch-carrying peaceful protesters elsewhere." By early August, Secretary of State Clinton was holding official meetings in Washington D.C. with Syrian opposition figures. Herbert London, the president of the Hudson Institute, characterized the State Department as "betraying" the pro-Democracy forces within the opposition, writing: "Most of those invited, however, have links to the Muslim Brotherhood. Missing from the invitations are Kurdish leaders, Sunni liberals, Assyrians and Christian spokesmen. According to various reports the State Department made a deal with Turkey and Muslim Brotherhood representatives either to share power with Assad to stabilize the government, or replace him if this effort fails."
Then, on August 18th, Obama and his NATO compatriots in London, Paris, and Berlin stated their desires bluntly, that Assad must step down. "For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside," read a White House press release. Washington backed up its rhetoric by issuing yet another round of economic sanctions against Syria, this time very broad dictates that seized all Syrian assets under U.S. jurisdiction, banned imports of Syrian oil, and banned any contact by American citizens with the Syrian government. Similar sanctions were also adopted the European Union. The New York Times described this bout of hard-edged diplomacy as the culmination of a months long debate, one that moved the administration "from discussing whether to call for Mr. Assad’s ouster to discussing how to help bring it about, and what to do after that." In short, it had become U.S. policy to destabilize the Syrian government.
It is at this juncture that the Obama administration crossed the rubicon on the Syria situation. How long could it allow Assad to continue sitting in Damascus without committing military might to the problem? How strong were the words of the NATO alliance without the firepower of their fighter-squadrons and special forces? "Saving Face" has a long tradition in American politics, and it takes a very strong leader, perhaps stronger than Obama, to go back on his word and allow Assad to stay in power, if that is how the situation in Damascus resolves. While Obama may give his new policy of destabilization time to play out, what would his deadline be before he turns to his National Security Advisor and says "protocol and law be damned, lets go get this guy?" If it is September 2012, and the President is facing an immanent election, can he withstand criticism that he went back on his word and "abandoned the people of Syria?" Being more bellicose than the Democrats has been a plank of the GOP for the past decade, and due to the Obama administrations war-happy nature, Syria could be the only talking point where a Republican candidate could really hammer down on the "dovish" president. It appears that by calling for Assad's ouster, the Obama administration backed itself into a corner, with the only way out being to machine the fall of the Syrian government through one means or another.
Throughout the fall of 2011, groundwork was laid for the new policy of "helping to bring about" the fall of the Assad government. A semi-respectable opposition group was established, the Syrian National Council, led by a Paris based exile, as well as an opposition militia, the Free Syrian Army. These group are established as much for their public-relations worth as their diplomatic value. Press, especially those relying on second-hand reports, need a good and evil dichotomy to report on, a brigade of "freedom fighters" to support against the brutal government thugs, and an "opposition leader" to quote on the political sanctity of whoever would replace Assad.
By the end of November, it was time to kick the policy into action. Reports began to filter out that NATO governments had set up three training camps for Syrian opposition fighters, one in Turkey, one in Jordan, and one in the Lebanese town of Tripoli. The Turkish camp was located in the coastal town of Iskenderun, in Turkey's Hatay province, less than 60 miles from Aleppo, Syria's largest city. The Jordanian camp was located in the town al-Mafraq, seven miles from the Syrian border. Reports indicated that when U.S. troops were departing en masse from Iraq, some planes went to Jordan, where they set up at the al-Mafraq airbase, long a center for Jordanian plots against their northern neighbor. Additionally, 600 Libyan fighters fresh from their march on Tripoli were sent to Turkey, commanded by former al-Qaeda leader turned Libyan rebel commando Abdulhakim Belhadj. This came on top of reports from Milliyet, the Turkish daily, that France, Britain, and Turkey "had reached an agreement to send arms into Syria," and that the U.S. had been notified of the decision.
Concerning the halls of Washington D.C., Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer turned journalist, revealed in early December that two new "intelligence findings" had been signed in the White House, authorizing stepped up covert action against Damascus and Tehran. Later that month, Foreign Policy magazine described a NSC working group designed to aid the Syrian opposition that was put into action, led by NSC senior direction Steve Simon and State Department official Frederic C. Hof. Then as 2012 began, out come the two reports mentioned at the beginning of this article, indicating that plans to "militarize" the situation were being put into place in the State and Defense Departments and their London counterparts.
Where does this leave the Obama administration? While rhetorically threatening a military intervention is one thing, implementing one is far different, without even considering the sphere of the UN and international law, where Assad seems to have the backing of Russia and China. Perhaps Obama is content to keep sponsoring a proxy war of destabilization through Syria's neighbors, although this does not seem to be effective in bringing down Assad. As discussed earlier, it would be very difficult for Obama to go back on his word and allow Assad to remain in power, especially now that the bureaucratic structures of the National Security State have been streamlined for destabilization.
It appears that Syria has become a crucial fulcrum for the White House, with the tantalizing option of overt military intervention on one side, and a continuation of diplomacy and covert action on the other. But as Obama is trying to stay balanced in the middle, he seems to be slipping closer towards militarization with every day that Assad remains in power. Will he sacrifice America's strategic interest in staying out of another Middle East War for his own political gain? Or will he fall on the realist sword and leave the Assad government in place, perhaps in the process giving up his own shot at a second term in the White House.
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