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| Volume XV, Fall 2008, Number 3 |
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EXCERPT
A New U.S. Policy for Syria: Fostering Political Change in a Divided State
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| Seth Kaplan |
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Mr. Kaplan is a business consultant to companies in developing countries as well as a foreign-policy analyst. His book Fixing Fragile States: A New Paradigm for Development (2008), critiques Western policies in places such as Pakistan, Somalia, Congo (Kinshasa) and West Africa, and lays out a new approach to overcoming the problems they face (sethkaplan.org).
The American foreign-policy establishment seems deeply divided over how to deal with Syria. No one in Washington doubts that Damascus plays a pivotal role in the Middle East, helping to shape events in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine while influencing calculations in Jerusalem, the capital of its principal foe, and Tehran, the capital of its principal ally. But there is considerable disagreement within Washington on how to approach Damascus. Should Syria be isolated until its economy and its leadership crack under the strain, as the Bush administration has long favored? Should it, to use fashionable parlance, be forced into a “hard landing” — bullied into abandoning its disruptive behavior on the regional stage and softening its internal political complexion? Or should the United States help Syria achieve a soft landing, as many commentators outside the White House now propose? Should engagement with President Bashar al-Asad’s authoritarian regime be the order of the day, with carrots as well as sticks employed to persuade Syria of the benefits of a more cooperative relationship with its neighbors and the West and of more democracy at home?
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