Tag Archives: Bashar al-Assad

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obama celebrates an unapologetic vogue magazine editor

One year ago this month, Vogue Magazine published a glowing profile piece of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s wife, Asma. Over the last year, Vogue Editor in Chief Anna Wintour has defended her magazine’s portrayal of the Syrian First Lady despite the brutal crackdown in Syria by Asma’s husband’s regime that has killed more than 8,000 citizen protesters.

This week, President Barack Obama invited Wintour to the White House for the coveted State Dinner of America’s greatest ally – the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The invite is yet another signal that Obama doesn’t understand how important Syria’s future is to U.S. national security.

Not only has Obama ignored the Syrian people’s cry for help, but he is honoring and rewarding the woman who celebrated the killer’s wife in the pages of a fashion magazine.

Vogue has since deleted the profile piece from its pages. But for a refresher, here are some controversial quotes from writer Joan Juliet Buck:

- “When I first arrive, I’m met on the tarmac by a minder, who gives me a bouquet of white roses and lends me a Syrian cell phone; the head minder, a high-profile American PR, joins us the next day. The first lady’s office has provided drivers, so I shop and see sights in a bubble of comfort and hospitality.” The high profile American PR firm working for the Syrian regime is the notorious firm of Brown Llyod James.

- “The old al-Assad family apartment was remade into a child-friendly triple-decker playroom loft surrounded by immense windows on three sides. With neither shades nor curtains, it’s a fishbowl. Asma al-Assad likes to say, “You’re safe because you are surrounded by people who will keep you safe.” Neighbors peer in, drop by, visit, comment on the furniture. The president doesn’t mind: “This curiosity is good: They come to see you, they learn more about you. You don’t isolate yourself.”

- “Asma al-Assad empties a box of fondue mix into a saucepan for lunch. The household is run on wildly democratic principles. “We all vote on what we want, and where,” she says.”

- “I can’t talk about empowering young people, encouraging them to be creative and take responsibility, if I’m not like that with my own children.”

- “The president joins in the punch line: “Brad Pitt wanted to send his security guards here to come and get some training!”

- “This is the diversity you want to see in the Middle East,” says the president, ringing his bell. “This is how you can have peace!”

Is what’s going on in Syria the kind of peace Wintour was thinking of? And more importantly, is this piece something that President Obama should honor by inviting its unapologetic editor to a White House State Dinner?

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bring home u.s. ambassador to syria robert ford

This week, United States Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford participated in a tour sponsored by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government in the Northwest province of Idlib.  The propaganda tour was organized to show the devastation caused by what government officials described as “foreign outlaws” and “radical Islamists”.  The excursion included Syrian officials who explained to Ford that Islamic extremists were responsible for the more than 1,500 deaths that have occurred since anti-government protests began on March 15.  Government officials also told Ford that there have been no peaceful freedom marches, as has been reported by the international media, only foreign radicals looking to destabilize Syria.  Ambassador Ford dutifully attended the government’s tour but has since failed to respond or react.

Ford’s silence dramatically contrasts with his tough talk during his confirmation hearing in March 2010 when he told Senators, “Unfiltered straight talk with the Syrian government will be my mission priority.”  We can only hope Ford’s public silence means he has been giving it to Assad privately.  But unfortunately there are press reports
indicating that Ford hasn’t been able to schedule a private meeting with any senior government officials.  So the U.S. Ambassador to Syria just sits and waits.

Ford’s stiff upper lip seems exactly what President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton want.  While they cling to the idea that Assad may still yet be a reformer, the
Obama team misses the opportunity to topple the Syrian dictator and blunt Iran’s influence in the region.  A review of Ford’s Embassy website shows a similar silence from Ford on the Syrian crackdown of the last three months.  With foreign journalists not allowed inside Syria, you might think the U.S. Embassy staff would be working overtime to tell the world and specifically the U.S. taxpayer just what is happening inside Assad’s world.  Shouldn’t Ford be calling attention to and showing the violence coming from Assad’s government?  How about demanding that the IAEA come in to inspect the Israeli-bombed suspected nuclear site Al Kibar?  Now seems like a good time to take advantage of a distracted dictator.  But our U.S. Embassy’s website is embarrassingly outdated and irrelevant.  On the home page there is a link to the text of Obama’s speech Wednesday on Afghanistan, a June 17th news summary from Washington’s Information Bureau quoting an unidentified official on Syria and an op/ed from Secretary Clinton dated June 17.  A closer look and you can find links to statements dated June 8th, June 4th and May 31 on HIV/AIDS and the internet.  There are also stories on Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and former astronaut Marsha Ivins.  But there is nothing from Ford on his reaction to the Syrian propaganda tour or the violent government crackdowns.

It’s time to end this charade and show Assad what the American government thinks of his phony excuses of “64,000 outlaws” and a “revolution by the Muslim Brotherhood who are agents of America and the West”.  Surely Ford must know Assad is not telling the truth and that Americans are not responsible for Assad’s troubles.  With 10,500 Syrians having fled into Turkey, Assad’s problem has become an issue of international peace
and security.  If U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice can’t show regional instability and thus an urgency for UN action then it’s time the U.S. act in other ways.  With more promises of reforms, new committees and conspiracy charges from Assad’s Damascus University speech on Monday, the time to do more is now.  Opposition forces need to know that the U.S. stands with them.  It’s also a chance to show the Iranian people what is possible.  Ford and Clinton look foolish doing nothing.  While some may say that the U.S. has little it can do outside of military action, Obama can still squeeze the Assad regime and isolate it further with these actions:

1. Order Ford home immediately, and shut down the Embassy.

2. Publicly call upon Assad to resign and ask other countries to do the same.

3. Call upon the Europeans and others to pull their Ambassadors from Damascus too.

4. Restrict the movement of the Syrian Ambassador to Washington and the Syrian Ambassador to the UN to a small radius around their offices.

5. Ask European capitals to restrict the movement of Syrian Ambassadors in their countries too.

6. Force the UN resolution on Syria to a vote and dare the Russians to veto it.

7. Move USAid employees into southern Turkey to care for the Syrian refugees arriving daily.

8. Schedule an Al Jazeera TV interview with President Obama to explain our actions and why Assad must go.

9. Demand the IAEA inspect Al Kibar and offer an immediate UN resolution authorizing it.

One sure way to ruin American credibility in the Arab world is to sit silently in Damascus and look like your part of the Assad show.

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obama’s silence on syria helps iran

It doesn’t seem like a gutsy call to put sanctions on a head of state who has jailed protesters and shot peaceful demonstrators since early March.  President Barack Obama’s overdue call to add Bashar al-Assad to a sanctions list restricting his travel outside of Syria is a slow start to one of the greatest U.S. foreign policy opportunities of our generation.  And today’s Middle East Speech did nothing more to push Assad.

The end of Assad’s regime would be a blow to Iran and help isolate Ahmedinejad’s government in the region by removing its main ally and partner in crime.  Isolating Iran, especially right now, could have profound consequences for Americans’ security, too, since the Iranian government announced it has mastered the technology needed to make a nuclear weapon.  The Iranian leader also said that Israel should be wiped off the map.

But the Obama team either believes it can charm Assad into ending his relationship with Iran or doesn’t see the strategic importance of ending the Assad-Iran partnership.  Obama’s engagement policy with Syria and his decision to send a U.S. Ambassador into Damascus normalized relations with a man Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called “a reformer.”  Assad responded to Obama’s overtures and acquiescence with more violence and terror and less reform.  But Obama is unfazed.  Syria has strengthened its ties with Iran and has continued to send and support terrorists into Iraq, Israel and Lebanon; And Obama can only muster enough outrage to say that Assad must stop using violence against his people.

Syria has allowed Iraqi Sunni insurgents to mobilize and plan attacks from its territory, has been accused by the United Nations of planning and assassinating Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and has supported Hezbollah and Hamas efforts to destabilize Israel and Lebanon.  The reluctance by Obama and Clinton to act decisively on the Syrian government’s brutal actions against its people allows Syria to maintain its position as a legitimate member of the international community.  Obama’s Middle East missteps have also encouraged neighbors like Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan to abandon his normally pro-western positions in favor of his comfortable relationship with Assad and Ahmedinejad.

Obama’s refusal to call for an end to the Assad regime is consistent with U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s trip in 2007 to Damascus to meet with the Syrian President despite pleas from the Bush Administration to not legitimize the dictator and Vice President Joe Biden’s refusal to call for Egypt’s Hosni Mubarrak to step down or characterize him as a dictator.

The recent evidence of brutality by Assad’s government is undeniable.  More than 10,000 people have been arrested, 800 protesters killed and 120 government security forces killed since the protests began.  Opposition forces are calling for an end to President Assad’s regime and an expansion of economic and civil liberties; a goal Obama should wholeheartedly support.

An April 4th crack-down by government forces was caught on tape and posted on YouTube showing Syrian protesters shot outside a mosque and lying in the street – some dying on camera:

(Warning: This video is very graphic)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb8QgqeKeiI

Images like these have rallied hundreds of thousands of people throughout Syria to continue fighting for their rights.  These compelling stories have also prompted
human rights activists to call for more direct action from the White House.

For an Administration that criticized the international community’s slow response to Darfur and committed to utilize the United Nations more, little has been done to rally the world to support an obvious U.S. priority.  Obama and his Ambassador to
the UN Susan Rice haven’t forced a vote of the UN Security Council on Syria nor
put the UN members on record to either support the protesters or the dictators
in Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia.  While the Arab revolution has unfolded over the last several months, Rice has failed to even offer draft resolutions for discussion.
Instead, Rice has allowed Russia and China to dictate the non-agenda.

It’s clear from Obama’s Middle East speech today that he has sidelined the UN.  Team Obama should be applauded for realizing their previous commitments to utilize the UN for all international issues was a foolish campaign promise to look un-Bush (see also: Iraq pullout in one year, closing GITMO, enhanced interrogations, military tribunals).

Obama should speak more forcefully about Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and call for him to step down. He should also immediately withdraw the U.S. Ambassador from Damascus, kick out the Syrian Ambassador in Washington and call upon Europeans to do the same.  If Obama believes that the status quo is unsustainable then he should stop supporting it.  Timidity is exactly what Assad and Ahmedinejad are looking for.

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the road to de-mask-us

The revolution sweeping across the Middle East started in Beirut shortly after the February 14, 2005, assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others.  The ensuing Cedar Revolution, launched by Lebanese pro-democracy supporters, targeted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime and demanded an end to Syria’s 30 year occupation of Lebanon.  The Lebanese revolution succeeded in ousting Assad’s military and intelligence officials from Lebanon and driving them back into Syria by the end of April 2005.  It was an incredible moment celebrated by pro-democracy supporters throughout Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt and ignited the reform efforts we see in Syria today.  The United States, too, celebrated the expulsion of Assad’s militiamen because of the message it sent not only to Syria but Iran.

Syria’s defeat in 2005 was a moment of opportunity for the U.S. and our allies that has since been squandered.  The U.S. government’s efforts to build on the Cedar Revolutions’ successes faded over the years and altogether stopped with the election of President Barack Obama.  Today, Syria and Hezbollah are in control of Lebanon again with Iran calling the shots. 

But the Syrian uprisings of the last week give Obama another rare opportunity to push for greater democracy in Syria and send a powerful message to Iran that it could be next.  He should seize the moment quickly.

In 2009, after a year of ignoring the signs of Syrian and Iranian growing influence, President Obama naively ordered the return of the U.S. Ambassador to Syria after a six-year hiatus – a punishment for bad behavior.  Obama’s diplomatic gift and peace offering gave the brutal regime — controlled by Hezbollah, Damascus and Tehran — the instant credibility it desired. 

Nothing has been gained by Obama’s concession to Assad and much has been lost.  As moderate regimes throughout the Arab world begin to fall, the most repressive Arab governments are reaping the benefits of weaker neighbors and moving to take more ground.  The Obama Administration meanwhile struggles to understand who our friends and enemies are.  It was more aggressive with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak than with the much more repressive Bashar al-Assad.  The inconsistent Obama strategy has been called “selective” by the U.S. media and hypocritical and foolish by the Arab street. 

Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seem to not be able to do diplomacy and chew gum.  The Administration has struggled to find a coherent policy and failed to articulate its goals.  When Yemen and Bahrain launched bloody attacks on peaceful protesters, the U.S. botched an opportunity to stand firm on our values against an ally’s repressive actions.  Instead, Clinton defaulted to the tried and true talking point about our interests and how helpful those governments have historically been to our military and the support they have given to our anti-terrorism efforts. 

But why not push our friends toward reform and our enemies toward regime change?  White House and State Department officials should be able to have adult conversations with our allies that include multi-faceted approaches to the policies we disagree with.  Certainly U.S. allies that receive vast amounts of US taxpayer dollars are able to accept our aid but stand strongly against some of our policies (Pakistan comes to mind).

For Obama, chastising brutal regimes has proven to be much harder than calling out House Republicans.  Syrian President Assad, for instance, has consistently supported Hezbollah and Hamas at Iran’s asking with little consequence from Obama and Clinton.  If we want to pressure Iran to give up its illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons then we better find enough resolve to support the overthrow of Iran’s closest ally, Syria.

Over the last month, hundreds of protesters have turned into thousands and then tens of thousands of voices throughout Syria calling for more freedoms and an end to Assad’s reign.  What started in Dara’a as a student protest has morphed into tens of thousands in Damascus demanding democratic reforms.  A simple look at Twitter shows incredible enthusiasm from Arab youth and democracy supporters for ending Assad’s government.   

While much as been written by the U.S. media that the intelligence community didn’t connect the dots in the lead up to Sept. 11, very little has been said of the State Department’s failure to recognize the intensity of Arab reform efforts.  Clinton missed the changes afoot in Syria even after opening up a new Embassy in Damascus last year, and she has chosen to stay behind the region’s news by stating the obvious and usually waiting to speak for two or three days after most everyone knows what has developed.  Clinton’s me-too message of greater political participation for women in the Arab world seems like stale and recycled talking points from former First Lady Laura Bush’s and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s efforts.  And there have been longer readouts for journalists on the president’s NCAA tournament picks than for his meetings on Libya or Syria.

The U.S. mainstream media’s protection of Clinton’s slow response peaked with Anna Wintour’s Vogue Magazine profile of Bashar al-Assad’s wife, Asma, last month.  While Syrian democracy reformers organized, an embarrassingly naïve and apologetic piece about the Syrian first lady by writer Joan Juliet Buck was released weeks before the Assads’ government started killing protesters.  To be sure, Vogue would have never produced such a ridiculous piece if its’ it-girl Hillary Clinton, instead of calling Assad a “reformer,” had been speaking out more forcefully against a regime that has supported the killing of Americans.  Buck’s piece has since been used by Arab bloggers to show the arrogance of the Syrian regime and the cluelessness of the U.S. media.

Obama now has a rare historical chance to make progress on U.S. interests and values by speaking clearly and forcefully against a brutal regime that has worked against American policy in Iraq, Iran, Israel and Lebanon.  If the president squanders that opportunity, it would be fair to conclude that the Obama Administration is strategically uninterested in changing Syrian and Iranian behavior. 

Now is not the time to back off supporting the Arab street and its march towards greater democracy and free markets.  Syria could be next; and the protesters need to know that President Obama stands with them in toppling their leader.  This isn’t a call for use of U.S. military force but it is a call to de-mask Damascus and speak out for U.S. interests at the same time.

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