In the Lion's Den_ An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle With Syria - Andrew Tabler [111]
Mitchell: President Obama is committed to comprehensive Middle East peace…. President Obama has directed that we engage Syria diplomatically. His objective is to assess Syria’s readiness to improve the US-Syria bilateral relationship so that Syrian policies and actions that have been problematic for successive US administrations will change in ways that permit the relaxation and eventual elimination of US economic and political sanctions. If the US and Syria were to share a substantially common regional, strategic outlook the implications for Middle Eastern political stability and economic progress would be quite positive.
The key problem affecting the US-Syria relationship is Syrian support of terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah and Hamas. If Syria truly wants a better relationship with the United States and a stable, prosperous future for its people, it must end its support for terrorist groups and move toward resolution of its conflict with Israel through peaceful negotiations.
We are encouraging Syria and Israel to re-engage in negotiations as soon as possible. We have offered to facilitate their discussions in any way they see fit. We recognize there will be a major US role in helping them implement a peace treaty. We intend to continue encouraging the Parties to engage by helping them come to agreement on certain understandings that would enable each to have a positive and compelling idea of what peace between them would look like once it is achieved.
Finally, on February 17, 2010, the administration dispatched undersecretary of state William Burns to Damascus to meet President Assad. Burns became the highest-level US official to visit the capital since former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage did so in January 2005. Washington simultaneously announced that Robert Ford, a former ambassador to Algeria then serving as deputy chief of mission in Iraq, would be President Obama’s choice as ambassador to Syria. For the better part of a year, the name of the administration’s candidate for ambassador had been a closely held secret, leading to wild rumors in the press. Finally, it seemed, engagement was getting off the ground in earnest. On February 24, Secretary of State Clinton told a Senate committee that the United States was “asking Syria to move away from Iran.”11
The following day, Assad invited Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to Damascus for meetings and a public dinner, which was branded in the press by pundits as the “Axis of Evil Banquet.” While Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah’s comments slamming Israel and hailing the “resistance” were predictable, what was unexpected was an especially defiant tone from President Assad. Openly mocking Clinton’s request, Assad said, “We must have understood Clinton wrong because of bad translation or our limited understanding, so we signed the agreement to cancel the visas…. I find it strange that [Americans] talk about Middle East stability and peace and the other beautiful principles and call for two countries to move away from each other.” Ahmadinejad added that “Clinton said we should maintain a distance. I say there is no distance between Iran and Syria…. We have the same goals, same interests and same enemies. Our circle of cooperation is expanding day after day.”12 Shortly thereafter, reports began to surface of Syria transferring advanced weaponry—including Scud missiles—to Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon.13
During his nomination hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 16, 2010, Ford outlined the five things that the Obama administration sought with the Assad regime. First, the United States sought Syria’s help in stabilizing Iraq, which he specifically clarified as stopping the networks that fed foreign fighters into Iraq. Second, the administration wanted help in maintaining stability in Lebanon. The third goal was to gain Damascus’s support for peace