Since taking office, the Obama administration’s policy toward Syria has been one of engagement. Repeated visits by high-level U.S. officials, as well as a strong push to re-send an ambassador there, were meant to signal to Damascus a departure from the Bush administration’s policy of isolation. The Syrian response, however, has left many in Washington miffed.
Take the most recent example of how Syria returns Washington’s favors. In an interview on Tuesday with the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad officially—and publically—bit the outstretched hand, perhaps for the last time. Assad told the interviewer that the U.S. has “created chaos in every place it entered.” “Is Afghanistan stable?” he rhetorically asked. “Is Somalia stable? Did they bring stability to Lebanon in 1983?” Assad’s statement is the continuation of a series of provocative actions that have signaled clearly that Syria, although perhaps interested in reconciliation with the U.S. on a theoretical level, is not prepared to pay the price where it counts. Continued support of Hezbollah and a refusal to break with Iran suggest that Damascus has already made its calculation that its interests are better served by aligning with what it perceives to be an ascendant Iran.
