How Much Time Will Obama Waste Trying to Engage Syria?
Fresh off a year of failed attempts at engaging Iran – in the hopes of convincing it to stop supporting terrorism, desist in its quest for nuclear weapons and generally become a responsible member of the international community – the Obama administration has now set its eyes on neighboring Syria as the next recipient of its entreaties. Last week the White House nominated a new ambassador to Damascus. If approved by the Senate, Robert Ford will become the first American ambassador to Syria since 2005, when the U.S. recalled its top envoy to protest the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. A leader of pro-Western orientation, Hariri was a constant thorn in the side of Syria, which had occupied Lebanon for nearly three decades. Hariri, along with 21 others, paid for that independence with his life in a massive, daylight car bomb explosion in central Beirut. All signs point to Syria or its proxy army Hezbollah, which murdered 241 American servicemen in the 1983 bom
