Bush Steps Up Pressure for Syrian Pullout

Buoyed by strong international support, the Bush administration Friday increased pressure on Syria, demanding the full and immediate withdrawal of its military and intelligence forces from Lebanon.

President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice issued new statements demanding a Syrian pullout a day after Russia and Saudi Arabia, both longtime friends of the Damascus regime, called on Syrian President Bashar Assad to withdraw his forces. The developments have left Syria suddenly and almost totally isolated on the issue.

“The world is beginning to speak with one voice,” Bush said during a stop in Westfield, N.J. “There’s no half-measures involved. When the United States and France and others say, ‘withdraw,’ we mean complete withdrawal, no half-hearted measures.”

Assad was expected to announce a partial pullback of his country’s forces in an address to parliament today. The troops would be moved to areas closer to Syria’s border with Lebanon. However, that option has been rejected not only by the United States, but also by other nations, including France.

“It cannot be anything less than a comprehensive withdrawal,” emphasized a senior French diplomat.

For the United States, winning public backing from France, Russia and several Arab countries on an issue related to Bush’s declared agenda of promoting democracy in the Middle East is a rare occurrence. As a result, U.S. officials left little doubt they believed that events in the region, not just in Syria, were moving broadly in their direction.

In an interview Friday on PBS’ “The NewsHour,” Rice said that Syria’s increasing isolation was the result of Damascus’ policies.

“They simply need to realize that they don’t have any support in the international system any longer to maintain their presence there,” she said.

Backed by such diplomatic momentum, a U.S. official Friday appeared to brush aside warnings from Middle East specialists that a hasty pullout of Syrian forces could result in instability and reignite the civil war that plagued Lebanon for more than a decade in the 1970s and 1980s. It was that unrest that drew Syrian forces into the country nearly 30 years ago.

“We don’t accept the view that post-Syria, Lebanon will become inherently unstable,” a senior administration official said Friday.

Still, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. on Friday, said that the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers was being discussed by members of the Security Council, of which the United States is a member.

On Tuesday in London, Rice had appeared to hint at a possible U.N. troop deployment, saying, “I think we have to look at what can be done in terms of helping them [Lebanese] to stabilize the situation, should that become necessary.”

But she stressed that no detailed talks had been held on the issue and a State Department official later told reporters that Rice was not referring specifically to an international force.

Lebanon has a 70,000-strong army drawn from the country’s different religious factions, but some observers have questioned how well it would hold together if it faced armed resistance from one or more of these groups.

Another concern is how the militant Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah will be contained in the absence of Syria’s estimated 16,000 forces and 4,000 to 5,000 spies. Hezbollah, listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, is a strong political force in Lebanese politics and is known to have the support of Syria and Iran.

Several Hezbollah members are in parliament and the group has a formidable armed force, with fighters deployed along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel. They are believed to have missiles capable of hitting the northern outskirts of Tel Aviv.

Some Mideast specialists, pointing to the Lebanese army’s recent refusal to enforce a presidential ban on demonstrations and Hezbollah’s relative silence, argue that Lebanon is far more stable today than it was at the end of its civil war, when Arab nations agreed to let Syrian forces stay to keep the peace.

“There is considerable evidence to indicate the fears of returning to what we had there in the ‘80s and ‘90s are exaggerated,” said Robert Satloff, executive director of the conservative Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Although the United States sees it as an important issue, pressuring Syria to withdraw did not come into international focus until the Feb. 14 assassination of Lebanon’s popular former prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Although no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, many in Lebanon and around the world suspect Syrian involvement because Hariri was known to have tried to loosen Damascus’ grip over the country.

The killing sparked popular outrage in the country, leading to large demonstrations in Beirut that quickly triggered broader diplomatic efforts. Tough talk from Bush and French President Jacques Chirac during the U.S. leader’s trip to Europe refocused attention on a Security Council resolution passed in September demanding that foreign troops withdraw from Lebanon, that militias disarm and disband and that free, fair presidential elections be held. The measure was sponsored by the U.S. and France.

The wording of that resolution remains the key international legal anchor behind the current push. French and U.S. officials issued a strongly worded joint statement this week calling for immediate and full implementation of the U.N. resolution.

Western experts speculated that Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries joined the diplomatic effort in part because they were embarrassed by the continued Syrian presence and partly because they were losing patience with Assad’s administration. His regime is accused of supporting both the insurgency in Iraq and Islamic militant groups working to disrupt the fragile peace effort underway between Israel and the Palestinians.

“He was talking peace on one hand, but giving support to Palestinian radicals and militant groups in Damascus,” said Geoffrey Kemp, a Middle East specialist at the Nixon Center, a Washington-based think tank. “It sent all the wrong messages.”

Saudi involvement also may have been prompted by the death of Hariri, who had a successful business career in Saudi Arabia and was considered close to several members of the Saudi royal family.

In an interview with the New York Post on Friday, Bush expressed confidence that Assad would drop his resistance to diplomatic pressure and withdraw his forces in time for Lebanon’s presidential election in May.

“I think we’ve got a good chance to achieve that objective and to make sure that the May elections are fair,” he said. “I don’t think you can have fair elections with Syrian troops there.”

Assad is believed to be holding out for a partial pullout in order to maintain influence over Hezbollah and to use the remaining Syrian presence in Lebanon as a negotiating chip in any negotiations with Israel for the return of the Golan Heights. The strategically important area of Syria was captured by Israeli forces during the 1967 war.