US secretly cultivating Syrian opposition

The United States is secretly working to cultivate and strengthen the Syrian opposition in order to undermine Syrian President Bashar Assad's rule and bring about his overthrow, according to TIME magazine. The report exposes a classified document, according to which one proposal being considered is an election monitoring program that would need to be concealed to be effective. The report said the US effort was particularly targeting legislative elections in Syria due in March. The US government has had extensive contacts with a range of anti-Assad groups in Washington, Europe and inside Syria. The proposal has not yet been approved, in part because of questions over whether the Syrian elections will be delayed or even cancelled. TIME said the election monitoring scheme could involve "internet accessible materials" available for printing and disseminating throughout Syria and neighboring countries. The proposal also called for voter education campaigns and public opinion polling and a surreptitious effort to provide support for at least one Syrian politician, the magazine said. US officials say any efforts for opponents of Assad's regime in Syria must remain under wraps, as anyone found benefiting from such efforts could face severe reprisals. Some critics charge such an initiative would amount to a covert action to influence a foreign government, and so leave the White House legally bound to inform Congress. The two-page classified document said the United States was already "supporting regular meetings of international and diaspora Syrian activists," in Europe. It said Washington also had pursued contacts with anti-Assad groups in Washington and inside Syria. The authors of the report, remaining anonymous, hoped that "these meetings will facilitate a more coherent strategy and plan of action for all anti-Assad activists." The document said that Syria's legislative elections, scheduled for March 2007, "provide a potentially galvanizing issue for... critics of the Assad regime." TIME's report quoted one unnamed official as saying, "You are forced to wonder whether we are now trying to destabilize the Syrian government." The proposal says part of the effort would be run through a foundation operated by Amar Abdulhamid, a Washington-based member of a Syrian umbrella opposition group known as the National Salvation Front (NSF). The Front includes the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic organization that for decades supported the violent overthrow of the Syrian government, but now says it seeks peaceful, democratic reform. Another member of the NSF is Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former high-ranking Syrian official and Assad family loyalist who recently went into exile after a political clash with the regime. Representatives of the National Salvation Front, including Abdulhamid, were accorded at least two meetings earlier this year at the White House, which described the sessions as exploratory. Since then, the National Salvation Front has said it intends to open an office in Washington in the near future. However, in order to make the "election monitoring" plan for Syria effective, the proposal makes clear that the US effort will have to be concealed: "Any information regarding funding for domestic [Syrian] politicians for elections monitoring would have to be protected from public dissemination," the document says. Money for the election-monitoring proposal would be channeled through a State Department program known as the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). According to MEPI's website, the program passes out funds ranging between $100,000 and $1 million to promote "education" and "women's empowerment," as well as economic and political reform, part of a total allocation of $5 million for Syria that Congress supported earlier this year. MEPI helps funnel millions of dollars every year to groups around the Middle East intent on promoting reforms. In the vast majority of cases, beneficiaries are publicly identified, as financial support is distributed through channels including the National Democratic Institute, a non-profit affiliated with the Democratic Party, and the International Republican Institute (IRI), which is linked to the GOP. In the past, the two partisan "democracy support" organizations have come under fire for financing opposition campaigns in sovereign countries whose leadership is at odds with US economic desires, such as Venezuela. In the Syrian case, the election-monitoring proposal identifies IRI as a "partner"–although the IRI website, replete with information about its "democracy promotion" elsewhere in the world, does not mention Syria. A spokesperson for IRI had no comment on what the organization might have planned or have under way in Syria, describing the subject as "sensitive." US foreign policy experts familiar with the proposal say it was developed by a "democracy and public diplomacy" working group that meets weekly at the State department to discuss Iran and Syria. Along with related working groups, it prepares proposals for the higher-level Iran Syria Operations Group, an inter-agency body that several officials said has had input from Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, deputy National Security Council advisor and ex-Iran-Contra criminal Elliott Abrams, and representatives from the Pentagon, Treasury and US intelligence. The State Department's deputy spokesman, Thomas Casey, said the election-monitoring proposal had already been through several classified drafts, but that "the basic concept is very much still valid." After the story broke, the United States said it supported groups rivaling Assad but said such support was overt, and not a secret bid to undermine his government. President George W. Bush earlier again dismissed calls for a direct US dialogue with Syria, which Washington accuses of letting extremists into Iraq and undermining Lebanon's fragile democracy by funding and training the militant group Hezbollah. "We've suggested to them that they no longer allow Saddamists to send money and arms across their border into Iraq to fuel some of the violence that we see," he said. "They're not unreasonable requests." "What I would suggest: that if they are interested in better relations with the United States, that they take some concrete, positive steps that promote peace, as opposed to instability," Bush said. Meanwhile, on Dec. 20, Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and John Kerry (D-MA) met Assad for two hours in Damascus, and told him only concrete action by Syria could help convince the US the country was open to dialogue.