Next Stop: Syria?

Just days after U.S. troops entered Baghdad, the Bush Administration was already contemplating a new scrape. A group of the President's top foreign-policy advisers--including Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell--gathered in the White House to discuss the road ahead. Only half the meeting was devoted to developments in Iraq. The rest of the session was spent debating how to tackle a fresh target: Syria.

With Syria keenly aware of the 250,000 U.S. troops next door, Bush's advisers decided "to rattle the cage" of Syrian President Bashar Assad, says a White House aide. Overnight the Administration swung its big guns from Baghdad toward Damascus and read Syria the riot act. President Bush charged Damascus with possessing illicit chemical weapons. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said there was "absolutely no question" that Syria was harboring Iraqi leaders who had fled their defeated country; he added that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction might have been spirited to Syria as well. The Pentagon accused Damascus of "hostile acts"--shipping war supplies to Saddam's forces. Secretary of State Powell demanded Assad stop sponsoring terrorism, and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer branded the country a "rogue nation." Even Congress reintroduced a bill that would cut U.S.-Syrian economic ties. It all sounded remarkably--and ominously--like the war of words that had prefaced the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The verbal barrage was greeted with incredulity in some quarters and trepidation in others. But for all the public bellicosity, war with Syria is highly unlikely. The Pentagon has its hands full trying to maintain order in Iraq, not to mention fending off a Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan and readying for a possible confrontation with North Korea. Taking on Syria would only confirm Arab fears that the U.S. intends to remake the Middle East map by force. And so, gradually the Administration toned down its rhetoric. Powell said he planned to visit Damascus during an upcoming trip to the region, and that "there is no war plan on anyone's desk right now to go marching on Syria."

But American pressure still has a purpose. The noisy accusations that Syria may be harboring Saddam's henchmen are intended to ensure that Assad doesn't do so in the future. "What you want to do is send a clear signal to Assad that if Saddam wants to come to Damascus, he's not welcome there," says a U.S. official. Washington also hopes to strong-arm the Syrians into giving up some of their worst habits--such as sponsoring organizations like Hizballah, which the U.S. labels a terrorist group, and the violent Palestinian activists of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as developing chemical weapons. Washington effectively put Assad on notice that, as Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said, "there's got to be change in Syria."