Word: bashar
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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...
Such an assault on Syria's client state Lebanon would enrage Damascus. To which the view in the Administration seems to be, Too bad. Even some officials who are privately dismissive of the neoconservative agenda seem prepared to yank the chain of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom they consider a disappointing, feeble reformer who has failed to rein in his own security forces. U.S. intelligence believes Syria allowed men and materiel--including night-vision goggles--to cross its border and join Saddam's forces during the war. When asked last week what he would do if Saddam's weapons...
...After all the protest against the bullying of young President Bashar al-Assad, the joint declaration contained only a muted reference to the controversy. It expressed "disagreement with allegations directed toward Syria, and welcomed the news regarding the intention of the American Secretary of State to visit Damascus to discuss Syrian-American relations...
...While authorities put the heat on Hizballah here, the U.S. has also moved to try to rein in the terror group abroad. In a private meeting in Damascus last April, Secretary of State Colin Powell asked Syrian President Bashar Assad to restrain Hizballah forces that had been firing rockets at Israel from the north. A diplomatic source critical of Iran's role in arming Hizballah tells TIME that the U.S. has at least twice asked Saudi Arabia to stop giving Iranian military supply planes overflight permission for loads of weaponry earmarked for Hizballah. "We continually raise this issue with diplomatic...
...August that Ibrahim's conviction jeopardized aid, Egyptians condemned the U.S. for meddling. The head-scratching continues in Cairo about why the government is dragging out a case that has so damaged the country's reputation. Some speculate that Mubarak was goaded by an article Ibrahim wrote shortly after Bashar Assad succeeded his late father as President of Syria, lampooning Egypt's government as a beast halfway between a monarchy and a republic - the implication was that Mubarak had similar dynastic designs. The episode may have provided an excuse for going after Ibrahim, but most observers agree that the government...