Word: assad
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...American pressure still has a purpose. The noisy accusations that Syria may be harboring Saddam's henchmen are intended to ensure that Assad doesn't do so in the future. "What you want to do is send a clear signal to Assad that if Saddam wants to come to Damascus, he's not welcome there," says a U.S. official. Washington also hopes to strong-arm the Syrians into giving up some of their worst habits--such as sponsoring organizations like Hizballah, which the U.S. labels a terrorist group, and the violent Palestinian activists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well...
With Syria keenly aware of the 250,000 U.S. troops next door, Bush's advisers decided "to rattle the cage" of Syrian President Bashar Assad, says a White House aide. Overnight the Administration swung its big guns from Baghdad toward Damascus and read Syria the riot act. President Bush charged Damascus with possessing illicit chemical weapons. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said there was "absolutely no question" that Syria was harboring Iraqi leaders who had fled their defeated country; he added that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction might have been spirited to Syria as well. The Pentagon accused Damascus...
...prove the Administration's claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the new charges against Syria sounded particularly unnerving, as if hard proof no longer matters to a victorious Washington. Until last month, the Administration had rarely let its disgruntlement with Syria rise above a whisper: after all, Assad had cooperated with the U.S. by detaining and interrogating members of al-Qaeda. But Bush & Co. were ticked off by Syria's meddling in the Iraq war. The Pentagon particularly resented Syria's shipments of night-vision goggles, which could have vitiated one of its key technological advantages. U.S. officials...
...prove to be an early test of the belief among Administration neoconservatives that the victory in Iraq could persuade recalcitrant Arab regimes to accede to U.S. demands. As Bush put it, "Syria just needs to cooperate with us." The U.S. apparently expects that by cranking up public pressure on Assad, it can extract concessions. The U.S. saber rattling, says a British official, has "made the Syrians sit up and think." And it has left many in the Middle East and elsewhere wondering, Exactly what does Washington have in mind for the neighborhood? --Reported by Scott MacLeod/Damascus, Aharon Klein and Matt...
...Bashar Assad, Syria's baby-faced, blunt-spoken President, probably never imagined he would be going head to head with the U.S. over the future of the Middle East. That was more the kind of mission relished by his late father Hafez Assad, the stern military commander who ruled Syria for 30 years until his death in 2000. Bashar's humble ambition was to leave politics to others in the clan and become a doctor. In the early '90s he went to London to study ophthalmology. There he courted his wife Asma, a young banker of Syrian origin...