Will Obama Reopen the U.S. Embassy in Damascus?

Israel gets an ultimatum; Syria gets an ambassador.


John Noonan
The Weekly Standard
21 March '10

In 2005, Syria's Ba'athist dictatorship was accused of supporting the assainination of Rafik Hariri, who was then the prime minister of Lebanon. Hariri's death sparked an internal anti-Syrian uprising in Lebanon--the Cedar revolution--which was both supported vocally by the Bush administration and tangibly when the State Department yanked its ambassador from Damascus.

Now the Obama administration wants to send the State Department back, claiming that U.S. foreign policy objectives would be better served through a locally assigned embassy and ambassador. Both the White House and congressional allies are talking up the qualifications of Robert Ford, Obama's pick for a potential Syrian posting. Ford is a long time State Department veteran who served as ambassador to Algeria and more recently deputy chief of the U.S. mission in Iraq -- neither easy diplomatic postings.

But the debate isn't about Ford's qualifications. Syria's brutal Ba'athist regime is a habitual human rights offender with multiple priors -- and a fanatical enemy of the United States.

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