US has one aim for post-Assad Syria

WASHINGTON: Increasingly convinced that the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, will not be able to remain in power, the Obama administration has begun to plan US policy in the region for after he leaves.

In co-ordination with Turkey, the US has been exploring how to deal with the possibility of a civil war among Syria's Alawite, Druze, Christian and Sunni sects, a conflict that could quickly ignite other tensions.

Other countries have withdrawn their diplomats from Damascus, but Obama administration officials say they are leaving in place the US ambassador, Robert Ford, despite the risks, so he can maintain contact with opposition leaders and the leaders of the country's myriad sects and religious groups.
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US State Department officials have also been pressing Syria's opposition to unite as they work to bring down the Assad regime.

The US is determined to avoid a repeat of the aftermath of its invasion of Iraq.

A senior administration official said the abandonment of Mr Assad by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and European nations would increase his isolation, particularly as his military became exhausted by the lengthy crackdown.

Another Obama administration official said that shutting the European market, which accounts for 90 per cent of Syria's oil exports, could have a crippling effect and put more pressure on Mr Assad.

''Back in the 1990s, if Syria wanted credit and trade and loans that they couldn't get from the United States, they went to the Europeans,'' Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Obama administration official, said.

Now, Mr Takeyh said, Europe has joined the US in imposing sanctions on Syrian exports, including its critical oil sector.

Aside from Iran, he said, Syria has few allies to turn to.

''The Chinese recognise their economic development is more contingent on their relationship with us and Europe than on whether Assad or Gaddafi survives,'' he said, referring to the deposed Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi.

Barack Obama's call last month for Mr Assad to step down came after months of internal debate, which included discussions about whether a Syria without Mr Assad would lead to the kind of civil war that consumed Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The shift moved the administration from discussing whether to call for Mr Assad's ousting to discussing how to help bring it about, and what to do after that.

''There's a real consensus that he's beyond the pale and over the edge,'' the senior Obama official said. ''Intelligence services say he's not coming back.''

Mr Assad may yet prove as immovable as his father, Hafez, was before him. Many foreign policy analysts say that the longer Mr Assad remains in power, the more violent the country will become. And that violence, they say, could unintentionally serve Mr Assad's interests by letting him justify a continuing crackdown.

Many factors may make his exit more difficult than those of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia. For one thing, the US and Europe have become more distracted in recent weeks by their economic crises.

Furthermore, while Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and even Yemen all imploded, those eruptions were largely internal, with their most significant ramifications limited to the examples they set in the Arab world. A collapse in Syria, on the other hand, could lead to an external explosion that would affect Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and even Iraq, foreign policy analysts say, particularly if it dissolves into a civil war akin to that of Iraq.

''The Sunnis are increasingly arming, and the situation is polarising,'' Vali Nasr, a former Obama administration official and the author of The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future, said.

''Iran and Hezbollah is backing the regime,'' Mr Nasr said. ''There's a lot of awareness across the regime that this is going to be pretty ugly.''

Source: The New York Times