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Washington: No Bargaining over Lebanon with the Assad Regime

The U.S. administration is irrevocably bent on clamping more sanctions against Syria if the international investigation into the murder of ex-Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri implicated the Damascus regime, An Nahar reported Saturday.
In a dispatch from Washington, the newspaper's veteran correspondent Hisham Milhem quoted a senior administration source as saying: "There is no truth whatsoever" to speculation that the United States may "strike a deal (with Damascus) or show flexibility regarding the sanctions against Syria."

Proponents of such theories, the source said, "have failed to grasp the strategic developments the region has experienced in recent years."

These changes include the war on terrorism, the invasion of Iraq, the death of the late Syrian President Hafez Assad and the frozen Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations. But the most important factor is that "George Bush is in the White House and Bashar Assad is president of Syria," the sources said.

At present, dialogue with Syria is severed. If it resumes, it would be at a significantly low diplomatic level, the source added.

Syria has tried to insinuate that it is engaged in dialogue with the United States, but this is untrue, according to Milhem. Syria has failed to meet the U.S. expectations with regard to its obligations towards the three U.S. priorities in the Middle East: Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.

"American officials say that Assad's track record over the past five years does not inspire confidence," Milhem wrote. Many promises made by Assad have not been fulfilled.

Damascus did not stop the illegal use of Iraqi oil pipelines before the U.S. invasion, it continued to allow the flow of insurgents into Iraq, it failed to halt the activities of radical Palestinian factions on its soil and never ended its tutelage over Lebanon, Milhem said.

Washington does not understand the "family dynamics" within the Assad family, especially the president's relations with his younger brother, Maher, his older sister, Bushra, and her husband, Assef Shawkat, the intelligence chief.

"Although the Bush administration is not advocating a 'regime change' in Syria, officials in Washington are no longer worried about the pressures that could lead to a transition of power to Islamic extremists," said Milhem.

The U.S. source indicated that Syria's intransigence prompted Prince Bandar bin Sultan, commander of Saudi Arabia's National Security Council, to end his mediation efforts between Damascus and the international community.

Beirut, 10 Dec 05, 09:56


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