Policy on Syria Moves Toward Regime Change

BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 8, 2005
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/15051

WASHINGTON - In the wake of Lebanon's first elections following Syrian withdrawal, American policy toward the world's remaining Ba'athist government is approaching support for regime change.

President Bush's top foreign policy advisers met last week to discuss the government of Bashar al-Assad, mulling, according to two administration officials briefed later, a tougher policy that would allow American forces or encourage Iraqi soldiers to pursue terrorists that escape to Syria from Iraq for safe haven.

At the State Department, the Bureau of Near East Affairs and the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor have asked Congress for explicit legal authority to fund liberal opposition parties inside Syria through regional initiatives that have hitherto focused on reforming American allies such as Jordan and Egypt, two administration officials told The New York Sun.