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March 5, 2004/Adar 12 5764, Vol. 56, No. 24
Bush ponders imposing Syria sanctions
RON KAMPEAS
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
WASHINGTON - The United States no longer wonders whether or not Syrian President Bashar Assad is a reliable diplomatic partner.
The question now, according to an official close to govern-ment deliberations on whether to sanction Syria, is why Assad is proving so hopeless.
"The debate on Bashar Assad is not 'Can we work with him?' it's more, 'Why is he such a disaster?'" one official said March 2. "Is he incapable or unwilling?"
Assad, a London-trained ophthalmologist, was regarded as pro-Western when he assumed power upon his rejectionist father's death in 2000.
Since then, however, Assad's policy decisions have stunned Americans, especially in two areas: He granted Hezbollah greater power in Lebanon just when Israel's withdrawal would have allowed him to quash the terrorist group, and he ended a decades-long feud with Saddam Hussein exactly when the United States was urging countries to distance themselves from the Iraqi dictator.
Officials don't know whether Assad is making the decisions on his own or whether he is in thrall to his father's old guard. Whatever the case, Assad's poor performance helped ruin his recent efforts to reach out to Israel to renew talks through back channels such as Turkey.
Bush administration offi-cials have discouraged Israel from taking up the offers, believing them to be red herrings designed to distract the West from Syria's continuing support for ter-rorism.
Senior officials at the Pentagon, the State Depart-ment and the White House's National Security Council are discussing what to report to Congress by its May deadline on whether Syria is complying with last year's Syria Accountability Act.
That act, which the president signed in December, imposes trade sanctions on Syria and gives the president a range of other possible punitive measures.
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