The latest U.S. call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster and its new sanctions imposed on Damascus may not be sufficient to bring down Assad, U.S. experts said on Thursday.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday called for Assad to step down after months of alleged government violence, which human rights groups said have killed 1,800 Syrian civilians since mid-March.
In a televised speech the same day, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the democratic transition in Syria has begun and it was time for Assad to «get out of the way,» labeling his treatment of anti-government protestors a «brutal crackdown.»
Obama issued a new executive order that immediately froze all assets of the Syrian government under U.S. jurisdiction, and prohibited all U.S. citizens from engaging in any transactions involving the Syrian government.
It also «bans U.S. imports of Syrian-origin petroleum or petroleum products; prohibits U.S. persons from having any dealings in or related to Syria’s petroleum or petroleum products; and prohibits U.S. persons from operating or investing in Syria.»
Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury announced that it barred trade with five Syrian oil and gas companies, including General Petroleum Corporation, Syrian Company For Oil Transport, Syrian Gas Company, Syrian Petroleum Company and Sytrol.
Speaking on a White House conference call on Thursday, senior U.S. officials said the new sanctions, along with other measures the administration has taken against Assad, will «disrupt the Syrian regime’ s ability to finance its campaign of violence against the Syrian people.»
But there remains some questions as to whether the sanctions will have any impact at all, as the United States is no major importer of Syrian oil.
«The U.S. response alone probably will not have a substantial impact on the question of Assad stepping down,» said Wayne White, a scholar at the Middle East Institute who for decades served in various U.S. government positions in the Arab world.
David Pollock, senior fellow at the Washington Institute, echoed those thoughts.» The sanctions themselves are relatively minor,» he said. «But what’ s much more important is (U.S. President Barack Obama’s) very explicit statements that Assad should step aside.»
«So it’ s really this support (which is important for) the demonstrators in Syria, as well as other countries that are looking to see which way the wind is blowing,» he said.
U.S. Officials said they would continue to build on those actions as well as work with the international community to force Assad to step down, while insisting that the U.S. would not intervene in the domestic affairs of Syria.
Three leading European powers, Germany, Britain and France, have also called for the Syrian leader to step down, and U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Thursday said the Obama administration is now looking to more countries to take similar steps.
CRITICS ASK WHY SYRIA DIFFERS FROM EGYPT
At the same time, some U.S. critics asked why Obama administration had waited so long in calling for Assad’s resignation while it wasted little time in demanding Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to resign after anti-government protests broke out in Cairo last February.
Nuland said the U.S. has had a long-standing economic and political relationship with Egypt, whereas the situation in Syria differs in terms of U.S. and regional influence.
White said the U.S. has been reticent in calling for Syrian regime change partly out of fears of post-Assad civil unrest and a more dominant role for Muslim extremists, who formed the bulk of the challenge to the Assad government during the violence of 1978-1982.
In addition, Turkey previously asked the U.S. not to move too soon, fearing direct blowback from Assad’ s fall. That country is also concerned over a much larger influx of refugees from an unstable Syria, he said.
White said there may be no specific actions that the rest of world can take to force Assad to step down at this point, adding that the Syrian leader may well opt to fight on.
Source: news.xinhuanet.com