Ex-Bush Official Warns the Administration: Don't Rush on the Road to Damas

[CHIMO]

Ex-Bush Official Warns the Administration: Don't Rush on the Road to Damascus

We turn now to the Middle East. Tensions continue in Lebanon after a series of explosions amidst the ongoing political instability sparked by the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri earlier this year. The Bush administration, meanwhile, continues to amplify its rhetoric against Syria. And this policy is drawing fire from some former senior members of Bush's foreign policy team. In a recent Op-Ed in The New York Times called "Don't Rush on the Road to Damascus," our next guest writes, "Does the Bush administration understand that for the foreseeable future, any political order in Lebanon that reflects, as the White House put it, the "country's diversity," will include an important role for Hezbollah? Does the administration feel confident about containing Hezbollah without on-the-ground Syrian management and with the group's sole external guide an increasingly hard-line Iran? Even Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's national security adviser recently said that an overly precipitous Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon could pose a threat to Israel."

The Op-Ed continues, "The sudden end of the regime headed by Bashar al-Assad would not necessarily advance American interests. Syrian society is at least as fractious as Iraq's or Lebanon's. The most likely near-term consequence of Mr. Assad's departure would be chaos; the most likely political order to emerge from that chaos would be heavily Islamist. In the end, the most promising (if gradual) course for promoting reform in Syria is to engage and empower Mr. Assad, not to isolate and overthrow him."

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is Flynt Leverett, former member of President Bush's National Security Council, former C.I.A. analyst and Middle East specialist. He has written the book Inheriting Syria: Bashar’s Trial By Fire. So, very briefly, the effects of the neoconservative ascendancy, are they still in it, Paul Wolfowitz in particular, and today the whole issue of him becoming President of the World Bank.

FLYNT LEVERETTPersonally I don't see any real decline in the influence of the so-called neo-cons in the administration. I know there are some who are arguing that the administration is trying to chart a more centrist course, the voices of the neoconservative camp are more muted than they were during the first term. That's not my reading of the center of gravity in this administration. And if you look at the way policy is going on a number of issues, I don't really see a profound diminution in the influence of neoconservative ideas and perspectives. I think, to some degree, that kind of talk, in a way, it both does an injustice to and let's President Bush off the hook. In a way he is getting the policies that he wants if neoconservatives are seen at certain points as having a, quote/unquote “disproportionate level of influence.” I think that’s because the ideas and policies that they're pushing match with the President's own preferences and inclinations, and therefore he chooses them. It is, in the end, his policy.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/31/1558238