Israel Matzav

Confusion in Washington

What is - or was - the Obama administration's policy on Syria? Good question and you're not the only one without an answer. The White House doesn't have one either. Try this on for size.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came under criticism for her March 27 statement, "Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe [Assad]'s a reformer."

But based on the information at the time, most inside the administration didn't feel she had said anything wrong. Multiple administration officials told The Cable that the administration had simply concluded, incorrectly, that the Syrian crisis would never grow this serious. That judgment informed their go-slow approach in responding to the protests.

But one month later, as the protest movement has gained strength and spread to cities throughout Syria, nobody inside the Obama administration is saying that now.

"A lot of people were wrong. The general assessment [inside the administration] was that this wouldn't happen, that Assad was too good at nipping these movements in the bud and also that he was not afraid to be brutal," one administration official said. "All of these things combined made this more of a surprise and made it much harder to deal with."

For the first three weeks of the protests, the analysts told the policy makers that it was unclear whether the opposition had wide support throughout the country and whether the protest movement would be able to sustain itself and grow.

"Then, gradually, every day we saw the protests get larger, and we realized this is going to get worse and that [Assad] wasn't going to listen to anyone else," the official said, explaining the administration's recent stream of increasingly harsh condemnations of the Syrian government's actions. "It was a reaction to the events on the ground."

Did you all get that? The Obama administration expected Assad to nip the protests in the bud and they knew that he was not afraid to be brutal. But now they've changed their tune because... he's being brutal and he's not nipping the protests in the bud? What's the takeaway for Assad here? That he should be even more brutal until he's brutal enough to stop the protests? I'm sure Assad would love that message.

Labels: Barack Obama, Bashar al-Assad, Hillary Clinton, Syrian uprising

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:41 PM