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Setting the Record Straight

Counterproductive Isolation

posted on 03/24/08

“We need to do everything possible to destabilize the Syrian regime and exploit every single moment they strategically overstep. That would include the willingness to escalate as far as we need to go to topple the regime if necessary."
–David Wurmser, former Middle East adviser to Vice President Richard Cheney, interview with The Daily Telegraph, September 5, 2007

VS.

"Right now we are in a muddled middle ground. We have sanctions that are symbolic in nature, we have withdrawn our ambassador so we don’t really have any deep diplomatic contact certainly not on the ground … Either we supercharge an isolationist policy in order for it to be effective and here I’m talking about multilateral sanctions, you’d have to have not only the Europeans on board but the Russians, the Turks, the Chinese and you still have Iran out there. I don’t think that will work and I don’t think it is effective. Or you embark on a strategy of genuine engagement, where all the issues are put on the table to include Syria’s abysmal human rights record … So this is a very difficult nut to crack. I believe we have to engage rather than isolate."
–Mona Yacoubian, special adviser, Muslim World Initiative, U.S. Institute of Peace, "Resurrecting the Wall of Fear: The Human Rights Situation in Syria," USIP, February 29, 2008