Impromptu words, actions drive U.S. stance on Syria

It was only a single word — “legitimacy” — but in diplomatic parlance it’s a bombshell, a shot at the moral underpinnings of another government. When Hillary Rodham Clinton stood before television cameras last week to talk about Syria’s autocratic leader, not even her aides expected her to go that far.

And then she did.

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Saturday that Syria must allow opposition groups to come together as part of a process of necessary political reform. Clinton was speaking in Istanbul with Turkey's foreign minister. (July 16)

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Saturday that Syria must allow opposition groups to come together as part of a process of necessary political reform. Clinton was speaking in Istanbul with Turkey's foreign minister. (July 16)

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“From our perspective, he has lost legitimacy,” the secretary of state said of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The line, an unscripted response to a reporter’s question, was instantly hailed as a shift for the Obama administration, which until Monday had been relatively restrained in its public criticism of Assad. But while the White House had intended to sharpen its tone toward the Syrian leader, the decision to use the word was Clinton’s, according to two administration officials familiar with the incident.

Clinton’s utterance, coupled with Ambassador Robert Ford’s decision — also unscripted — to visit the opposition stronghold of Hama on July 7 , nudged the administration a step closer to declaring that Assad must step down. Taken together, the visit and Clinton’s remark show how the administration’s policy toward the Syrian autocrat has lately been shaped more by diplomatic improvisation than methodical planning within the White House.

With a single remark, Clinton put the administration more firmly on the side of protesters demanding Assad’s ouster, eliciting cheers from opposition groups and plaudits from former diplomats and Middle East experts who have pressed for a forceful repudiation of a government accused of killing more than 1,500 protesters since March. The calls for a harder stance increased after last week’s attack on the U.S. Embassy by a Damascus mob that smashed windows and pelted the building with fruit.

President Obama echoed Clinton’s phrase on Tuesday in a CBS News interview, though with a careful qualifier: “Increasingly you’re seeing President Assad lose legitimacy in the eyes of his people.”

The State Department’s activist approach highlighted divisions within the administration over the proper U.S. response to the crackdown. Some policy advisers, including senior members of Clinton’s staff, have cautioned against firm statements committing the United States to a policy of seeking Assad’s removal. There is no support internationally for a Libya-style military intervention in Syria, these advisers observe, and also little evidence that the country’s loosely organized opposition is prepared to take control of the country, raising the risk of prolonged turmoil or even civil war.

But after nearly four months of worsening violence and a string of broken promises by Assad, a growing faction within the administration began to urge a more assertive posture. These include Ford, the veteran diplomat and newly appointed ambassador to Damascus, as well as Clinton herself, who aides say reacted viscerally to reports of Syrian troops firing on peaceful demonstrators from tanks.

“She was disgusted,” said a senior administration official who attended high-level meetings on Syria. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatically sensitive deliberations, said Clinton was increasingly chagrined by the behavior of Assad, a Western-educated ophthalmologist who many White House and congressional officials had regarded as a potential reformer.