November 12, 2003, 8:17 a.m.
Regime Change, Again
Work undone in Syria.

We have taken great pains to teach Syria to ignore our warnings and threats. When Warren Christopher, Clinton's first secretary of state, visited dictator Hafez Assad he allowed the thug to humiliate him. Having traveled all the way to Damascus to meet with the Syrian dictator, Christopher let Assad keep him waiting for hours after the appointed time before condescending to start the meeting. Worse still, neither Christopher nor Clinton seemed to understand that we had been weakened by this action, and not just in Syrian minds.

And a lesson was taught. Colin Powell traveled to Damascus several months ago to lay down the law to Assad's son Bashar. Powell extracted promises that the Syrians would close down the terrorist bazaar that Syria has become to remain at peace with us. But the lesson Warren Christopher taught was remembered. Bashar was backing off the promises he gave by the time Powell's aircraft was wheels-up for the flight home.

Throughout the Iraq campaign, Syria proved a convenient safe haven (at least temporarily) for many of Saddam's fleeing thugs, and maybe even his WMDs. Billions of dollars looted from Iraq are sitting in Syrian banks. And the terrorists that Syria supports were — and still are — sending people, weapons, and money to the Baathist remnants and terrorists who are now killing Americans in Iraq. The Syrians are doing their best to prevent Iraq from becoming a democracy. Because it has taken the field against us, and is harboring, aiding, and abetting terror throughout the Middle East, the Syrian regime is our enemy. It is time to resolve the Syria problem.

One of the stumbling blocks in our dealings with Syria is that we have apparently misjudged the character and mind of its 38-year old president. Bashar Assad, our intelligence people repeatedly assured us, was from the shallow end of the gene pool; he was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. His brother, Basil, was to have succeeded their father. When Basil died, and then his father, we breathed easier, believing we were facing a less-capable adversary, one who could be contained or even talked into opposing terrorism. I spoke to a senior Israeli official in Tel Aviv two weeks ago, and he gave me a very different assessment. Judged against events of the past few years, my Israeli interlocutor seems more right than wrong.

The Israelis don't think Assad is dumb. He may not be a rocket scientist, but he is smart enough to be an M.D. and an ophthalmologist. He's a pretty quick study and both as ruthless and as cowardly as his father. In the Israeli raid on a terrorist camp in Syria about a month ago, one of the aircraft was diverted, for the purpose of shaking Assad out of his bed. It did just that by popping a sonic boom directly over his house at about 3 A.M. That apparently shook Assad, but kept a lid on him for only a few days. Syria and its Hezbollah terrorists (who also are funded and operated by Iran) never stopped their actions in Iraq. Now, cross-border shelling into Israel from Lebanon has recommenced, and Assad is threatening attacks in the Golan Heights.

Assad is an exceedingly dangerous man. Syria's army is large, but essentially an empty shell. Its equipment and personnel are inadequate, by any measure, to fight a conventional war against Israel. Our war planners say Syria wouldn't last three days against American forces. So why is Assad so dangerous? Because he makes decisions that cannot be explained in the context of his nation's strengths and weaknesses.

My Israeli source said that Israel's military and intelligence arms are convinced that Assad will take risks a prudent leader wouldn't, given Syria's weaknesses and immediate proximity to Israel's strength. Worse still, Assad is apparently willing to pay a higher price for his adventurism than a more levelheaded dictator might. If Bashar Assad is willing to absorb more damage than Syria can sustain, he is a man who will not respond as expected to either diplomatic or military action. Assad's unpredictability is itself a great danger.

That unpredictability has been fed by our inconstancy in dealing with him and the terrorists he uses as a tool of national policy. Hezbollah — already a tool of Syria and Iran — killed more than 200 Americans in Beirut in 1983. We withdrew with our tails between our legs. About ten years later, Warren Christopher warned Bashar's father not to risk our displeasure. And we did nothing. Only a month ago, U.N. ambassador John Negroponte told the world that Syria had chosen the wrong side in the war on terrorism. That painted a big bull's eye on Assad's forehead. And then we did what we always do: nothing. Diplomacy is like golf: If you want to make a good shot, you have to follow through. It's long past time for us to start.

Regime change must be our goal, because nothing else will work. The Syrian Baathists will do what their Iraqi brethren did. Stall, talk, whine to the U.N., and continue their business of supporting terrorism. Before we decide to remove Assad militarily, we should yank the diplomatic levers with all the force we can muster. Just because Foggy Bottom doesn't think we have any way to change Syria's conduct diplomatically don't mean it's so. In fact, there are a lot of ways we should be turning up the heat on Bashar Assad, and some may reduce his ability to provide financial support for terrorists.

Making a list of demands on Syria would be an invitation to an endless and fruitless negotiation. We tried that in Iraq, and those Baathists ran us around for years. Congress's new "Syrian Accountability Act" is another adventure in wishful thinking. We should act, not talk.

Here are some general guidelines

Our military is making progress in closing the Iraq-Syria border, but we need to do more.

There are negotiations now underway to build a new oil pipeline to Syria from Iraq, and to establish new oil contracts to benefit Syria. We should stop both forthwith. The Syrians lack oil. Shutting off their supply will squeeze Assad like no other economic sanction can.

Our pals in the Axis of Weasels are negotiating a new economic-cooperation agreement with Syria. It will be signed next year unless we stop it. We should make it clear to the EU that this, like so many other things they do in the Middle East, is unacceptable. Syria is a terrorist state, and must be treated as such by all. We should condemn the proposed agreement long, hard, and continuously. And we should implement significant economic sanctions against those nations that trade with terrorist states.

We should hold no more meetings with Assad. Let him and his Weasel pals stew in the heat we are generating.

Most importantly, beginning now, and while all this diplomatic kabuki dance goes on, we should act. President Bush should order covert intelligence and military actions against Syria, and Hezbollah terrorists there and in Lebanon. We should not hesitate to operate with the Israelis, whose intelligence apparatus there is better than ours, and whose military can operate with ours secretly. An intense covert campaign should be used to topple Assad's regime and damage Hezbollah severely. It could do so while saving us most of the cost — in blood and treasure — to do the same thing in another big military campaign. There is no reason to not to take this action, other than to salve the sensibilities of the U.N. Which is no reason at all.