As Assad holds firm, Obama could revisit arms policy
By Mark Landler and Michael R. Gordon
THE NEW YORK TIMES
February 19, 2013
WASHINGTON — When President Barack Obama rebuffed four of his top national security officials who wanted to arm the rebels in Syria last fall, it put an end to a debate of several months over how aggressively Washington should respond to the strife there that has now left nearly 70,000 dead.
But the decision also left the White House with no clear strategy to resolve a crisis that has bedeviled it since a popular uprising erupted against President Bashar Assad almost two years ago. Despite an American program of nonlethal assistance to the opponents of the Syrian government and $365 million in humanitarian aid, Obama appears to be running out of ways to speed Assad’s exit.
With conditions continuing to deteriorate, officials said, the president could reopen the debate over providing weapons to select members of the resistance in an effort to break the impasse in Syria. The question is whether a wary Obama, surrounded by a new national security team, would come to a different conclusion.
“This is not a closed decision,” a senior administration official said. “As the situation evolves, as our confidence increases, we might revisit it.”
Obama’s decision not to provide arms when the proposal was broached before the November election, officials said, was driven by his reluctance to get drawn into a proxy war and by his fear that the weapons would end up in unreliable hands, where they could be used against civilians or Israeli and American interests.
As the United States struggles to formulate a policy, however, Assad has given no sign that he is ready to yield power, and the Syrian resistance has been adamant that it will not negotiate a transition in which he has a role.
Even if Assad was overthrown, the convulsion could fragment Syria along sectarian and ethnic lines, each supported by competing outside powers, said Paul Salem, who runs the Middle East office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Syria,” he said, “is in the process, not of transitioning, but disintegrating.”
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