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U.S. Sees Opening For Change in Syria
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"And if this regime implodes, you would probably get chaos and violence along ethnic and sectarian lines . . . with spillover into Iraq and other parts of the region."
Yet Washington also believes that Assad -- an ophthalmologist who inherited power from his father in 2000 because his older brother, the designated heir, was killed in a car crash -- probably will not fully comply with the new terms laid out by the Security Council this week.
The Syrian leader vowed to punish anyone tied to the Hariri case. But he is unlikely to sacrifice his own brother, Maher Assad, or Gen. Asef Shawkat, his brother-in-law and the head of Syrian military intelligence, U.S. officials said.
Both were cited in the U.N. report by investigator Detlev Mehlis for allegedly planning the Hariri bombing. For his political salvation, Gaddafi turned over two agents tried for the Pan Am bombing. But the younger Assad has yet to demonstrate the confident pragmatism of his father, who sent troops to join the U.S.-led coalition to liberate Kuwait in 1991 and participated in the U.S.-orchestrated 1993 Madrid peace talks.
"For the past few years, there's been a deliberate effort to change Syria's behavior" -- with limited results, said Edward P. Djerejian, former U.S. ambassador to Syria. Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was among several officials during the first Bush term who went to Damascus to seek common ground on terrorism, Lebanon, Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Djerejian told Assad in January that Washington believed the time had arrived for Syria to finally act against Iraqis tied to Saddam Hussein in Syria. Assad took "half-measures" -- after the election -- reflecting his failure to understand how "to engage constructively and actively," Djerejian said.
And that may force the Bush administration to make a tougher decision, U.S. officials acknowledged. "The big question is: Is there anything to indicate that Assad would show any deviation from past behavior," said the senior U.S. official. "We're certainly not trying to save the regime."
And, unlike in Libya, Washington is unwilling to let the process of change take a decade, U.S. officials said. "Syria's situation is much more urgent," the senior official said.
