{"id":630,"date":"2008-03-13T23:52:11","date_gmt":"2008-03-13T23:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/?p=630"},"modified":"2008-03-13T23:52:11","modified_gmt":"2008-03-13T23:52:11","slug":"can-the-international-tribunal-change-syrian-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/can-the-international-tribunal-change-syrian-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the International Tribunal Change Syrian Policy?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.justice.gov.gu\/images\/scale.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"141\" height=\"185\" align=\"right\" style=\"width: 141px; height: 185px\" \/>Can the International Tribunal Change Syrian Policy?<br \/><\/strong>By Joshua Landis<br \/>March 12, 2008<\/p>\n<p>In two recent trips to Washington DC, I had the occasion to talk to a&nbsp;number of officials, ex-officials, and policy mavens about US policy toward Damascus in this very difficult transition period.<\/p>\n<p>The <span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Verdana\">consensus <\/span>seems to be that the Bush administration is counting on the international tribunal to force Syria into changing its Lebanon policy, and presumably other policies as well.<\/p>\n<p>How this will work is not completely clear. Syria has stated that it will <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailystar.com.lb\/article.asp?edition_id=1&amp;categ_id=2&amp;article_id=89866\">not allow its citizens to appear<\/a> before the tribunal, which it has said could be used as a political tool against it.<\/p>\n<p>If&nbsp;Damascus does indeed refuse to allow Syrians to appear&nbsp;before the court, procedural difficulties will be enough to trip up the Syrians, suggest Washington officials. Whether&nbsp;sufficient evidence exists to convict Syrians would be irrelevant, in such a case.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Young in his article, &quot;<span class=\"manchettebig2\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailystar.com.lb\/article.asp?edition_id=1&amp;categ_id=5&amp;article_id=89839\">Time may play against Syria in Lebanon<\/a>&quot;<\/span>&nbsp;explains how many in Lebanon have their hopes pinned on this&nbsp;US policy.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>US efforts also include ensuring that the Hariri tribunal is established as soon as possible, and that Daniel Bellemare, the future prosecutor of the tribunal, issues his act of accusation before the US administration leaves office. This seems likely, according to diplomats in Beirut. As Bush knows, no successor would engage Assad once the Syrian regime is implicated in Hariri&#39;s murder, particularly if it rebuffs all cooperation with the tribunal.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Of course the international tribunal is not the only card the US has to play. It will continue to target Syrian politicians and regime figures for sanctions; it will accuse Syria of b<u><font color=\"#000099\">acking foreign fighters in Iraq; <\/font><\/u>and it will continue to try to isolate Syria diplomatically by dissuading Arab and European leaders from doing business with Damascus. All the same, the international tribunal is the center piece of US strategy. It&nbsp;is the only strategy of those listed here that could possible lead European nations&nbsp;to join a sanctions regime against Damascus.<\/p>\n<p>The likelihood of European nations being convinced or shamed into joining a sanctions regime against Damascus at this late date, seems improbable. Of course, if Syrian authorities stonewall the court, European statesmen will be obliged to do something. Whether their action will have real teeth will have to be seen. The notion that Damascus will reject the court in its entirety, is also doubtful. During the Mehlis investigation, Syria also said it would refuse to turn over&nbsp;witnesses. After some prevarication, it complied and avoided sanctions. Sending Syrians to an international court under indictment is different from sending them to Vienna for questioning. All the same, Syrian authorities are unlikely to refuse outright to deliver Syrians to the court.<\/p>\n<p>How effective Washington&#39;s policy will be in liberating Lebanon from the influence of Hizbullah, Lebanon&#39;s native opposition, and Syrian influence remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can the International Tribunal Change Syrian Policy?By Joshua LandisMarch 12, 2008 In two recent trips to Washington DC, I had the occasion to talk to a&nbsp;number of officials, ex-officials, and policy mavens about US policy toward Damascus in this very difficult transition period. The consensus seems to be that the Bush administration is counting on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,22,45,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hariri","category-lebanon","category-un","category-us"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.8.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Can the International Tribunal Change Syrian Policy? - Syria Comment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/joshualandis.com\/blog\/can-the-international-tribunal-change-syrian-policy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can the International Tribunal Change Syrian Policy? - Syria Comment\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Can the International Tribunal Change Syrian Policy?By Joshua LandisMarch 12, 2008 In two recent trips to Washington DC, I had the occasion to talk to a&nbsp;number of officials, ex-officials, and policy mavens about US policy toward Damascus in this very difficult transition period. 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