Total Collapse of Administration Policy on Syria

The administration’s Syria policy represents a total collapse of the declared U.S. position that Assad has lost legitimacy and should leave power.

5:10 PM, Mar 1, 2012 • By LEE SMITH

A number of recent articles make the case that the administration’s Syria policy is incoherent. Elliott Abrams says it’s worse than that: The White House’s position on Syria is duplicitous. Abrams looks at a series of recent interviews Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has given to the press about Syria, and identifies what appear to be the administration’s three reasons for not supporting the Syrian opposition.

First is the administration’s concern that, according to Clinton, al Qaeda may have infiltrated the opposition. Second, she contends that arming the opposition is futile because given the regime’s firepower there is no way the opposition can win. Finally, she says that the uprising is limited in scope, and more Syrians need to take to the streets before the White House knows the uprising is serious.

“This is an amazing policy combination,” writes Abrams.

Clinton appears to argue that our intelligence agencies are so inept they cannot identify terrorists and cannot find any way at all to get arms to Syrians — as opposed to Palestinians from Hamas or other foreigners from al-Qaeda…. Second, she suggests that precisely because Assad is using tanks and artillery to attack the population, we cannot aid them because our military assistance would be too limited. They are better off dying, this argument logically holds, than fighting back. Their bravery in fighting for the past year with such limited arms is to be rewarded with the complaint that the odds are just too heavily stacked against them. Then comes the coup de grace: After saying we won’t help, after saying that outside “intervention” would only lead to more violence or “civil war,” after noting the disparity of arms between the citizens and the state, she demands that they rise up.

Clinton’s statements aren’t just contradictory, they’re also just plain wrong. Let’s look at the three points that Abrams underscores in some more detail.

FOR THE FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE Total Collapse of the White House's Policy on Syria