U.S. May Call for Assad to Step Down in Syria, Official Says
August 12, 2011, 1:57 AM EDTBy Massoud A. Derhally
(Updates with deaths in 17th paragraph. See EXTRA and MET for more on Middle East unrest.)
Aug. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The Obama administration may call on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down soon, a U.S. official said as the State Department said the Syrian government has detained more than 30,000 people, some in cages.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she wants to see more pressure on Assad to step down from Europe, India and China, including the sanctioning of Syria’s oil and gas industry, speaking in an interview with CBS News yesterday.
While the U.S. is concerned about the possibility of civil war in Syria, it is more focused on the prospect of sectarian violence promoted by the Assad government and the chance that the Syrian situation will spark instability in the wider Middle East, said the official, who asked not to be identified because the administration is still discussing the issue and considering the timing of a possible announcement about Assad.
A call for Assad to quit would be the strongest U.S. condemnation of his crackdown on dissenters who began an uprising five months ago.
The demonstrations are the biggest challenge to Assad’s rule since he inherited power from his father 11 years ago. Human-rights activists who have compiled the names of the dead say Assad’s forces have killed more than 2,400 protesters and detained thousands since mid-March.
Prisoners in Cages
The Syrian government has detained more than 30,000 people, with some in cages, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said yesterday.
“The violence continues at extremely horrific levels” in Syria, Nuland told reporters at a briefing in Washington.
Asked whether Assad should step down, Nuland said, “Syria would be a better place without Assad. This is a decision for the Syrian people.”
The U.S. will “continue to ratchet up the pressure” on Assad, White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters traveling with President Barack Obama to Michigan yesterday. Carney repeated his Aug. 10 statement that Syria would be “better off” without Assad, stopping short of calling for his removal.
‘Critical’ Period
Momentum may be building for bolder steps to stop Assad after Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain recalled their ambassadors from Damascus this week and Turkey said its neighbor is entering a “critical” period.
Their appeal to both sides for an end to the violence came as European nations renewed a push for a UN resolution against the bloodshed and the U.S. imposed new financial sanctions on Syrian banks and telecommunications. Pushing back, Syria’s UN ambassador, Bashar Ja’afari, drew parallels between Prime Minister David Cameron’s response to U.K. riots and Syria’s approach to armed “gangs.”
While further action is needed, getting the Security Council “on board” in light of Russia-led opposition may prove difficult, said George A. Lopez, a peace studies professor at University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute who was on a UN panel of experts monitoring compliance with sanctions. “Only massive and tight arms embargo, oil sanctions and further financial freezes can work now,” he said.
Russia has indicated it isn’t convinced that a UN resolution is needed to stop the repression of protesters.
Obama Telephone Call
Obama spoke by telephone yesterday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the situation in Syria. The two agreed on “the need for an immediate halt of all violence and bloodshed” and “to closely monitor the actions that the Syrian government is taking” in response to anti-government protests, according to a White House statement.
“To the U.S., getting Assad out now would maybe save lives and avoid bigger regional pressures later,” said Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis. “However, even if he steps aside, that won’t take care of the problem because it’s not just the person, it’s the system itself.”
Assad this week responded to growing criticism about the crackdown by admitting “some mistakes” were made by his security forces in the “initial stages” of unrest. Diplomats representing Brazil, India and South Africa -- a bloc in the UN Security Council reluctant to punish Assad -- said in an e- mailed statement that they met in Damascus with the Syrian leader, who told them “efforts were under way to prevent” the mistakes from recurring.
At least 39 people have been killed in the past two days in Deir al-Zour in the eastern part of the country, the central province of Homs and northern governorate of Idlib and in Daraa in the south, said Ammar Qurabi of the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria.
Abdul-Karim Rihawi of the Syrian Human Rights League was arrested at a café in central Damascus yesterday, Qurabi said.
Over 300 people have been killed by Syrian security forces and the army since July 31, the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to Qurabi and Mahmoud Merhi, head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights.
--With assistance from Emre Peker in Ankara, Margaret Talev aboard Air Force One, and Flavia Krause-Jackson, Jonathan Salant, Jeff Bliss and David Lerman in Washington. Editors: Ben Holland, Andrew J. Barden
To contact the reporters on this story: Massoud A. Derhally in Beirut, Lebanon, at mderhally@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net.
