Turning a blind eye toward Syria

“The Obama administration has turned down a plea from Syria’s democratic opposition to step up diplomatic pressure on President Bashar Assad, who has violently repressed peaceful anti-government protests,” wrote the Washington Times on Thursday.

To date, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has restructured his cabinet and released political prisoners in an attempt to appease recent protests, but the opposition remains unsatisfied. Meanwhile, increasing calls of outrage over the regime’s brutal handling of the protests fall upon deaf ears in Washington.

The Times continued,

In the White House meetings, the opposition representatives have asked for President Obama personally to condemn the Assad regime on camera. They also called for the United States to impose sanctions on regime officials who ordered the military to fire on the crowds and for the United States to support a separate resolution against Syria at an April 27 session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Whether the Obama administration will acquiesce to Syrian opposition pleas for help remains to be seen, but a positive response—especially at the level the opposition is hoping for—seems increasingly doubtful.

“President Obama has not personally condemned the regime. The White House has not yet issued sanctions against officials who ordered soldiers to fire on peaceful demonstrators,” said Ammar Abdulhamid, an unofficial spokesman for Syrian opposition activists. “The White House will not say whether they will pursue a Syria specific resolution at the UN Human Rights Council.”

Director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Radwan Ziadeh highlighted the stark difference between Obama’s response to Assad and that of the comparatively mild Mubarak, describing the administration’s reaction to Syria as “lukewarm.”

According to estimates, over 200 protestors have been killed and approximately 900 have been detained in Syria so far.

Ziadeh is also working with European diplomats to document human rights violations of the Syrian government, adding, “We have a lot of video documentation and other documentation of torture.”

“It’s about time that the United States introduced targeted sanctions on the Syrian officials who are killing civilians and ordering those attacks,” said deputy director of Freedom House Daniel Calingaert.

And yet, Washington remains unmoved. This is particularly mystifying in light of the government’s haste to throw Mubarak and other former Middle East allies under the bus after protests erupted across the area earlier this year.

“[The Syrian revolution is] probably the only revolution in the Middle East that could actually advance American interests. And so America, in keeping with its recent string of strategic losses, has offered its unwavering support for Assad,” wrote columnist Stephen Flurry. “When asked why America was backing the rebels in Libya, but not in Syria, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said [March 27] that Syria was different and that Bashar Al-Assad was a ‘reformer.’”

Regarding Clinton’s statement, Charles Krauthammer wrote, “Few things said by this administration in its two years can match this one for moral bankruptcy and strategic incomprehensibility.” Not only is Clinton’s statement false, Krauthammer added, it is a “morally reprehensible” one.

Despite Clinton’s attempt to distance herself from the statement later, the point remains that “of the myriad opinions of Assad, she chose to cite precisely one: reformer,” Krauthammer wrote. He continued,

Sometimes you cover for a repressive ally because you need it for U.S. national security. Hence our muted words about Bahrain. … But there are rare times when strategic interest and moral imperative coincide completely. Syria is one such—a monstrous police state whose regime consistently works to thwart U.S. interests in the region. …This delicacy toward Assad is dismayingly reminiscent of President Obama’s response to the 2009 Iranian uprising during which he was scandalously reluctant to support the demonstrators, while repeatedly reaffirming the legitimacy of the brutal theocracy suppressing them.Why? Because Obama wanted to remain “engaged” with the mullahs—so that he could talk them out of their nuclear weapons. We know how that went.

Watch for the U.S. approach to Syria to follow the same pattern.