Syria Debate Exposes Iraq Fault Lines

Neil King Jr., The Wall Street Journal:

Farid Ghadry got some much-needed advice over cocktails last month from Ahmed Chalabi, Iraq's deputy prime minister and erstwhile darling of the Bush administration. "He told me to maintain the course and keep up the pressure for a democratic Syria," recalls Mr. Ghadry, who, as head of the Syrian Reform Party, dreams of one day unseating that nation's president, Bashar Assad. "Ahmed paved the way in Iraq for what we want to do in Syria," he says of Mr. Chalabi.

Tellingly, the two met just outside Washington in the suburban living room of Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, a vocal advocate for the Iraq war who now supports moves to topple the Syrian government. READ MORE

Pressure for regime change in Damascus is rising, particularly with the approach of the Dec. 15 deadline for a United Nations inquiry into Syria's alleged role in the February assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister, Rafik Hariri.

Some hard-liners are quietly calling on Mr. Bush to pursue the Iraq model in Syria, though not necessarily by force. But senior Bush aides -- already back on their heels in Iraq and juggling knotty challenges from North Korea to Iran -- have decided, at least for now, that it is better to push for changed behavior in Damascus than risk the perils of a political upheaval.

In short, the debate over how to proceed with Syria is exposing some familiar and increasingly raw fault lines in Washington over whether, and how, to seek political change in countries with governments inimical to U.S. interests.

The current go-slow approach toward Syria masks a deep animosity within the administration toward Mr. Assad. He is accused by the U.S. of continuing to support terrorist groups while allowing hundreds of insurgents to slip across the border into Iraq. Some administration officials say there is a strong desire to see him deposed, but that there is too much uncertainty over who might succeed him -- and too much unease over Iraq -- to make that the stated policy of the U.S. government.

That wariness has left unhappy pockets in the administration and a wing of the Republican Party. Many in Congress, while leery of calling for an end to the Assad government, want to support Syria's re-energized but weak opposition groups. They also would like to see Mr. Bush use a wider range of sanctions under legislation approved two years ago.

"There is no reason to think that engagement with Syria will bring about any change," says Mr. Perle, who frets that the passion for democracy promotion in the Arab world is ebbing within the Bush administration. "Assad has never been weaker, and we should take advantage of that."

Syria has come under intense diplomatic pressure since the Hariri assassination. The nation was forced to end its decades-long occupation of Lebanon, while a continuing U.N. investigation led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis has pointed the finger at several senior Syrian officials. The U.N. Security Council in October threatened further action against Syria if it failed to cooperate with the Mehlis investigation.

Yesterday, Mr. Mehlis's team questioned five top Syrian officials in Vienna. Mr. Assad repeated his assertion that Syria had no hand in the Hariri car bombing, which killed 21 other people.

Despite rumblings of support for an overt regime-change policy within the Pentagon and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, the State Department is successfully promoting what one administration official describes as "an Arafat strategy" toward Syria.

Mr. Bush in 2002 decided to cut off all contacts with longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, arguing that Mr. Arafat, who died last year, was part of the problem in the Middle East and couldn't be trusted. The U.S. is now waging a similar freeze-out campaign toward Mr. Assad.

The U.S. withdrew its ambassador from Damascus after the Hariri assassination and has since cut off all but the lowest-level contacts with the Syrian government. The chill contrasts sharply with the days when Damascus was seen as a key Middle East peace broker and a regular stopping-off point for U.S. diplomats. Four different secretaries of state made 42 visits to Syria between 1990 and 2003.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, while leading the effort to marginalize Damascus, now hopes the threat of international sanctions will get the Syrian government to clamp down on terrorist groups in Damascus and seal off its border with Iraq. That tack evokes less the Arafat example as it does the long squeeze of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, who two years ago renounced all support for terrorism and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction in order to end Libya's international isolation.

The biggest source of unease over an active regime-change approach is concern about the sorry state of Syria's opposition. A recent U.S. intelligence report concluded that likely successors to Mr. Assad could prove even worse for U.S. interests, while other area experts fear a surge in support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which wants to create an Islamic state in Syria.

Administration officials have met publicly twice this year with overseas Syrian opposition groups, including Mr. Ghadry's three-year-old Reform Party, which is composed almost entirely of expatriates. Mr. Ghadry, who lives in suburban Maryland, formed the party as a liberal, pro-business group that called almost immediately for a new government in Damascus. But the party is little known in Syria.

U.S. officials acknowledge that their outreach is tentative. Mr. Ghadry and his supporters aren't pleased. "We think the president wants a regime change in Syria," says the 51-year-old former businessman, whose family left Syria when he was 10. "But the traditional State Department people look at this and say, 'No, we should maintain ties with the dictatorship because the place is not ready for democracy.' "

Write to Neil King Jr. at neil.king@wsj.com