gary's choices

Political Scientist Marc Lynch reports on an interview with the remarkable US Ambassador in Syria, Robert Ford. He has made an unambiguous statement opposing Syrian brutality against its own people, and his courage in visiting battle zones has inspired the peaceful demonstrators who daily risk death — 1400 dead at the hands of regime forces so far. 

We could use a few more like him.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

“I have seen no evidence yet in terms of hard changes on the ground that the Syrian government is willing to reform at anything like the speed demanded by the street protestors. If it doesn’t start moving with far greater alacrity, the street will wash them away.”

That was the blunt verdict offered by U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford in a wide-ranging telephone interview with Foreign Policy today. Ford sharply criticized the Syrian government’s continuing repression against peaceful protestors and called on President Bashar al-Assad to “take the hard decisions” to begin meaningful reforms before it is too late. Not, Ford stressed, because of American concerns but because of the impatience of the Syrian opposition itself. “This is not about Americans, it is about the way the Syrian government mistreats its own people,” Ford stressed repeatedly. “This is really about Syrians interacting with other Syrians. I’m a marginal thing on the sidelines. I’m not that important.” … .

The Syrian people have broken the fear barrier, he argued, and now people are speaking more freely. Syria is changing, and the government needs to recognize that and respond appropriately rather than continuing in a futile effort to resist change through force. He marveled at the impact of satellite television and the Internet, which have dramatically shaped the worldviews and expectations of young Syrians. They simply will not accept what earlier generations did, and have already demonstrated powerfully that they will not shut up in the face of threats of violence. That is why Ford repeatedly deferred questions about specific political demands: “It’s not an American decision. What we will not do is to claim to speak for them. They are capable of speaking for themselves.”

Ford waved away suggestions that he might rein in his activities in the face of official pressure. “I’m not going to stop the things I do,” he said quietly. “I can’t. The president has issued very clear guidance. It’s morally the right thing to do.” He plans to take further trips around the country, to continue to meet with as many Syrians as he can, and to push to open political space and to restrain regime violence. He doesn’t think that the Obama administration will recall him, and has no indication as yet whether the Syrian government will expel him.

For now, he sees his role as doing what he can to open political space for the Syrian people to push their own demands for political freedoms, restraints on an unaccountable and anachronistic security apparatus, and a meaningful political transition. The United States, he emphasizes, is not supporting any specific Syrian opposition movement or personality. Nor is it endorsing a specific transition plan, a move which he believes would reproduce the mistakes made by the Bush administration in Iraq in 2004. The process “has to move at Syrian speed, not at a speed set in Washington, London or Brussels.”

7 months ago • 19 notes