American Officials Concerned That Assad's Departure Will Destabilize Israel: Are They on Drugs?

As known to all, Syria is one of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East and an exporter of terrorism. Syria can "credit" itself, inter alia, with:

• murdering Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri;
• killing up to 40,000 Sunni dissidents in the city of Hama in 1982;
• providing a friendly domicile for the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad;
• arming Hezbollah to the teeth;
• seeking to build nuclear weapons;
• allying itself with the Islamic Republic of Iran;
• persecuting its Kurdish minority;
• arresting and torturing human rights activists and dissidents.

None of this, however, prevented the Obama administration from overturning Bush policy and sending John Kerry to befriend Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and appointing Robert Ford as the American ambassador to Damascus.

Today we are told in a New York Times "news analysis" entitled "Unrest in Syria and Jordan Poses New Test for U.S. Policy" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/world/middleeast/27diplomacy.html?hp) written by Mark Landler, that recent unrest in Syria, which has led to the arrest of hundreds of Syrian civilians and more than 60 dead, is causing great concern to the Obama administration. As stated in the article:

"Even as the Obama administration defends the NATO-led air war in Libya, the latest violent clashes in Syria and Jordan are raising new alarm among senior officials who view those countries, in the heartland of the Arab world, as far more vital to American interests.

Deepening chaos in Syria, in particular, could dash any remaining hopes for a Middle East peace agreement, several analysts said. It could also alter the American rivalry with Iran for influence in the region and pose challenges to the United States’ greatest ally in the region, Israel.

. . . .

As American officials confront the upheaval in Syria, a country with which the United States has icy relations, they say they are pulled between fears that its problems could destabilize neighbors like Lebanon and Israel, and the hope that it could weaken one of Iran’s key allies."

"Destabilize" Israel? Are these American officials on drugs? Since 2006 Syria has been the conduit to Hezbollah of some 40,000 rockets and missiles, including advanced, long-range Scuds, which threaten all Israeli cities with massive destruction.

The New York Times news analysis goes on to say that the Syrian "crackdown calls into question the entire American engagement with Syria." Indeed, as observed by the article, the Obama administration organized a delegation from Microsoft, Dell and Cisco Systems to visit Syria, and approved export licenses for civilian aircraft parts. However, all of these efforts failed to drive a wedge between Syria and Iran.

But more to the point, the Syrian crackdown calls into question the entire Obama administration school of diplomacy. The Obama Administration's effort to reach out to the world's most repressive regimes in order to demonstrate that tyrannies respond to kindness, i.e. the Obama Doctrine, has fallen on its face, first in Iran, now in Syria. Finally, after more than two years in the White House, Obama is coming to realize that his overtures were perceived as weakness, and instead of returning his kisses, these monstrous regimes are spitting in his face.

Is the Obama administration truly concerned that the crisis in Syria will destabilize Israel, or is it more concerned that they will come away looking like naïve bunglers and will bear this burden going into the 2012 U.S. presidential election?

Or, in other words, is the Obama administration, like the Assad regime, worried about saving its own skin . . .