On Mideast visit, Obama can expect pressure on Syria
WASHINGTON - President Obama will hear plenty about Syria when he steps off Air Force One in the Middle East this week, very likely facing new pressure from worried allies to help rebels oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad but carrying no change in U.S. policy that could calm fears of the crisis spreading across borders and destabilizing the region.
Obama, who will visit Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan, has resisted using the American military in the effort and is not planning any change to a U.S. approach that has had little effect in aiding rebels' efforts to dislodge Assad. Analysts say it is unclear what message Obama can convey as the conflict hits the two-year milestone Friday with no end in sight and no good policy options left for the administration.
The trip is about "managing expectations, managing the problems, not necessarily offering solutions to these problems," said Haim Malka, deputy director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research center in Washington.
U.S. officials failed to imagine that Assad could cling to power this long. Their mantra that his "days are numbered" was long ago rendered moot with the death toll rising to 70,000.
"All this conversation about post-Assad Syria, it seems almost unreal," said Joel Charny, a vice president at InterAction, an umbrella group for international aid agencies that have been operating in Syria and in neighboring countries.
As the crisis shows little sign of abating, Israel and Jordan have become increasingly anxious. Israel fears the rise of jihadists, the possibility that Syria's rich cache of weapons might fall into the hands of Hezbollah, and the general disintegration of Syria.
Jordan, already squeezed by a poor economy, is facing a mounting humanitarian crisis: More than 400,000 Syrian refugees have fled over the border to Jordan, a country with a population of just six million.
The White House fears that sending weapons to the rebels might further destabilize the region. Critics say the U.S. approach has been marked by miscalculations and waffling that has exacerbated the conflict and led to an anti-American backlash from the opposition the United States professed to support.
For Jordan, that strikes fear that goes beyond the refugee camps on its borders. As the Syrian regime deteriorates, and Islamists in Syria grow emboldened, the Islamic opposition in Jordan might become similarly emboldened and push for further reforms, said Marwan Muasher, a former foreign minister of Jordan who is a vice president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Muasher said he "understands perfectly the administration's reluctance to do much on Syria," noting that there is no domestic pressure in the United States for intervening. He warned, though, that the fear of not wanting to arm individuals who might become terrorists might become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"The more you wait, the more you radicalize the opposition, the more you disintegrate the country, and the more you destabilize the neighbors like Jordan and Lebanon," he said.
Obama's 2008 Republican election opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain, marked Friday's two-year anniversary of the uprising by renewing his call for intervention, saying the United States should not "stand idle," but impose a no-fly zone or attack Assad's aircraft.
Administration officials have spent millions to build up a credible, pluralistic opposition coalition to little avail: The leaders are at loggerheads over competing ideologies and are derided by Syrians as exiles riding out the revolt in five-star hotels. They have failed to pick a prime minister or agree on whether to negotiate with the regime, much less form a viable government in waiting.
