As the murderous Assad regime in Syria approaches its presumptive end, it might be useful to review widely shared delusions about the nature of the regime.
In March 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was asked why the United States, which had intervened in Libya, had ruled out doing so in Syria. She replied Bashar al-Assad was generally regarded as a "reformer." She was far from alone in seeing Assad as a ruler who, though authoritarian, had basically been trying to modernize his country.
In 2007, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stated, "the road to Damascus is a road to peace." Even after anti-Assad demonstrations had begun, Sen. John Kerry said Assad was a man of his word and that "Syria will change as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the United States."
U.S. efforts to impose trade and military embargoes on Assad were doomed to failure, because we insisted only the United Nations, in which Assad's allies Russia and China have a veto power, could impose legitimate sanctions. Russia and China have vetoed three such resolutions. The net effect of our failed diplomacy was to allow the Assad regime to buy time.
Some whose views have been justified by events paid a penalty for being right prematurely. John Bolton's nomination in 2005 as our U.N ambassador was rejected by the Senate largely because he had stated in 2003 that Syria had chemical weapons and was trying to develop nuclear ones, views the CIA characterized as "alarmist."
Israeli bombs effectively ended Syria's nuclear program in 2007. The Assad regime now admits having chemical weapons and threatens to use them.
Malcolm Sherman
Albany