The central question President Obama will have to answer this week as he defines his vision for the Middle East is this: Why Libya and not Syria? Two months after he dispatched U.S. fighter jets to Libya as part of a NATO campaign to aid anti-government rebels bent on ousting President Moammar Gadhafi, the president is being widely criticized for not taking similarly strong action in Syria, Israel’s neighbor, which is facing the same kind of destabilizing popular uprising as Libya.
“Those who threaten Israel also threaten us,” National Security Adviser Tom Donilon said.
But that’s all the more reason, analysts said, for Obama to act more boldly on Syria.
“It has mystified me and others as to why the administration has been so slow-footed [in Syria],” said Steven Cook of the Council on Foreign Relations. “The administration certainly set a precedent in what it did in Libya … and now [it] seems to be passing up a tremendous strategic opportunity.”
Early last year, Obama dispatched a U.S. ambassador to Syria, five years after President George W. Bush recalled American diplomats from that country. Obama also sent senior officials, including Under Secretary of State William Burns, to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in an effort to revive Syrian-Israeli peace talks.
While foreign policy experts claim Assad’s behavior in Syria is more threatening to U.S. interests than Gadhafi’s in Libya, the White House swatted down comparisons between the two countries.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Assad still has an “opportunity still to bring about a reform agenda.”
“Nobody believed Gadhafi would do that,” Clinton said. “People do believe there is a possible path forward with Syria. So we’re going to continue joining with all of our allies to keep pressing very hard on that.”
Still, Assad has reacted to internal political uprisings with the same kind of violence unleashed in Libya by Gadhafi.
Assad ordered troops to fire on his opposition and, most recently, ignited a bloody firefight on Syria’s border with Israel. Instead of intervening in Syria, however, the White House repeatedly condemned the violence there without ever mentioning Assad by name. And when the Obama administration sanctioned a number of top Syrian officials recently, Assad was not among them.
The administration’s dual approach in the region, analysts said, is contradictory at best and will have to be clarified when Obama lays out his vision for the region Thursday at the State Department.
“No matter how hard they try to say Libya doesn’t reflect a precedent, there’s no doubt that it does,” Cook said. “I think [administration officials] are confused and caught by a precedent they hoped they would never have to address.”
Some experts say the administration’s expectation that peace will prevail in the Middle East without deeper U.S. involvement is “delusional.”
“It’s really the triumph of hope over reality,” said Tony Badran, an expert with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The peace process is dead.”
