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Bill Clinton’s Dissent on Syria Puts White House on the Spot Syria Has Used Chemical Arms on Rebels, U.S. and E.U. Say
(about 1 hour later)
WASHINGTON — A day after former President Bill Clinton endorsed a more robust American intervention in Syria, the White House pushed back on Thursday on an issue that has Mr. Clinton aligning himself with Senator John McCain, who has faulted President Obama for his reluctance to get entangled in the bloody civil war there. WASHINGTON — American and European intelligence analysts now believe that President Bashar al-Assad’s troops have used chemical weapons against rebel forces in the civil war there, an assessment that will put added pressure on a deeply divided Obama administration to develop a response to a provocation that the president himself has declared a “red line.”
Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said at a briefing that while Mr. Obama welcomed the perspective of outside experts like Mr. Clinton, “The president makes a decision about the implementation of national security options based on our national security interests, not on what might satisfy critics at any given moment about a policy.” According to an internal memorandum circulating inside the government on Thursday, the “intelligence community assesses that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale against the opposition multiple times in the last year.” President Obama said in April that the United States had physiological evidence that the nerve gas sarin had been used in Syria, but lacked proof of who used it and under what circumstances. He now believes that the proof is definitive, according to American officials.
Mr. Carney declined to say whether Mr. Obama disagreed with Mr. Clinton’s views, noting that the president himself was considering more robust options, including arming the rebels. But a flurry of high-level meetings in Washington this week only underscored the splits within the Obama administration about what actions to take to quell the fighting, which has claimed more than 90,000 people. The meetings were hastily arranged after Mr. Assad’s troops — joined by fighters from the militant group Hezbollah — claimed the strategic city of Qusayr and raised fears in Washington that large parts of the rebellion could be on the verge of collapse.
Speaking on Tuesday at a private session in New York with Mr. McCain, Mr. Clinton, drawing on his own experience as president in dealing with conflicts in Rwanda and the Balkans, said, “Sometimes it’s best to get caught trying, as long as you don’t overcommit.” Senior State Department officials have been pushing for an aggressive military response, including airstrikes to hit the primary landing strips in Syria that the government uses to launch the chemical weapons attacks, ferry troops around the country, and receive shipments of matériel from Iran. But White House officials remain wary, and one American official said that a meeting on Wednesday of the president’s senior advisers yielded no firm decisions about how to proceed.
It is unclear precisely how the Obama administration made its final determination about the chemical weapons use in Syria. According to the internal memorandum, intelligence agencies have “high confidence” in their assessment, and estimate that between 100 and 150 people have died to date from chemical weapons attacks. The memorandum goes on to say that the conclusion is based on a variety of intelligence.
“Our intelligence community has high confidence in that assessment given multiple, independent streams of information,” the memorandum said.
The Obama administration’s cautious approach about Syria has already frayed relations with important American allies in the Middle East that have privately described the White House strategy as feckless. Saudi Arabia and Jordan recently cut the United States out of a new rebel training program, a decision that American officials said came from the belief in Riyadh and Amman that the United States has only a tepid commitment to supporting rebel groups.
Moreover, the United Arab Emirates declined to host a meeting of allied defense officials to discuss Syria, concerned that in the absence of strong American leadership the conference might degenerate into bickering and finger pointing among various gulf nations with different views on the best ways to support the rebellion.
Adding to those voices was former President Bill Clinton, who earlier this week endorsed a more robust American intervention in Syria to help the rebels, aligning himself with hawks like Senator John McCain, who fault Mr. Obama for his reluctance to get entangled in the bloody civil war there.
Speaking on Tuesday at a private session in New York with Mr. McCain, Mr. Clinton said, “Sometimes it’s best to get caught trying, as long as you don’t overcommit.”
“Some people say, ‘O.K., see what a big mess this is? Stay out!'” Mr. Clinton said. “I think that’s a big mistake. I agree with you about this,” he added, gesturing to Mr. McCain, who has called for supplying the rebels with weapons and conducting airstrikes.“Some people say, ‘O.K., see what a big mess this is? Stay out!'” Mr. Clinton said. “I think that’s a big mistake. I agree with you about this,” he added, gesturing to Mr. McCain, who has called for supplying the rebels with weapons and conducting airstrikes.
Mr. Clinton’s remarks, which were first reported Wednesday by Politico, came near the end of a wide-ranging conversation with Mr. McCain. He did not recommend a specific course of action on Syria or explicitly criticize the Obama administration’s policy. The White House press secretary, Jay Carney, pushed back on Mr. Clinton’s comments, saying, “The president makes a decision about the implementation of national security options based on our national security interests, not on what might satisfy critics at any given moment about a policy.”
The former president, a person close to the Clinton family said, was “talking broadly about a hypothetical situation,” and did not intend his remarks to be a “broadside” against Mr. Obama’s policy. The conclusion by American intelligence agencies strengthens their assessment earlier this year and poses an important test for the White House.
Last summer, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who departed as secretary of state in February, joined the director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time, David H. Petraeus, in arguing in favor of funneling arms to the rebels. But they were rebuffed by Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama had repeatedly said the use of chemical weapons by Syrian forces would a cross a red line, but he has not indicated what action he would take in response.
Recent advances made by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, and the deepening involvement of outside players like Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, have prompted the White House to again consider arming the rebels and even conducting airstrikes against the Syrian Air Force. Mr. Clinton’s comments came in the context of those gains. In an April letter to Congress, the White House said that intelligence agencies had “varying degrees of confidence.”
“Nobody is asking for American soldiers in Syria,” Mr. Clinton said. “The only question is now that the Russians, the Iranians and Hezbollah are in there, head over heels, 90 miles to nothing, should we try to do something to try to slow their gains and rebalance the power so that the rebel groups have a decent chance, if they’re supported by a majority of the people, to prevail?” But the conclusion of the latest intelligence review is much stronger and is based on evidence that includes reporting on planning by the regime for the use of chemical weapons, accounts of specific attacks and descriptions of physiological symptoms.
Mr. Clinton likened Syria less to Iraq or Afghanistan in the last decade than to Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Reagan administration initially helped the mujahedeen in their fight against the Soviets, he said, but lost the credit for that help by abandoning the country later. The draft statement notes there is no reason to think the resistance has access to chemical weapons.
More broadly, Mr. Clinton said the United States should expect a litany of setbacks in the Arab world, since popular uprisings do not automatically result in democratic governments. “We believe that the Assad regime maintains control of these weapons, and has taken steps to secure these weapons from theft or attack,” it states. “We have no reliable, corroborated reported to indication that the opposition has acquired or used chemical weapons.”
“It is important that we be a little humble here,” Mr. Clinton said. “It is not easy to get rid of an autocracy or the rule of a distant king and then build a free government.” According to a C.I.A. report, which was described by an American official who declined to be identified, the United States has acquired blood, urine and hair samples from two Syrian rebels — one dead, and one wounded — who were involved in a firefight with Syrian government forces in mid-March near the town of Utubya, northeast of Damascus.
Mr. Clinton was a guest of Mr. McCain at the meeting, sponsored by the McCain Institute for International Leadership, which was not open to reporters. The samples showed that the rebels were exposed to sarin and supports the conclusion that the regime has used the weapon.
Mr. McCain shared views from his own recent trip to Syria, where he met with leaders of the armed resistance. In recent days, the British and French government have also asserted that there is evidence that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons.
Mr. Clinton has studiously avoided criticizing Mr. Obama on foreign policy. For that reason alone, his comments on Syria have drawn a lot of attention. Mr. Clinton also has firsthand experience in deciding when the United States should intervene in foreign conflicts — an option he rejected in Rwanda but embraced, after a long delay, in Bosnia.
Still, analysts predicted that his comments would do little to alter the White House’s calculus in the short run. Mr. McCain remains a lonely voice for greater action, joined by a small cadre of interventionists like Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina.
“It’s the public lack of interest on this issue and the bad options that inform the president’s view,” said Aaron David Miller, a vice president and distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, who worked for Mr. Clinton as a peace negotiator.
But Mr. Miller added, “Should Clinton get energized if the Syrian crisis, and the killing, escalates, he could by talking about Rwanda, a U.S. failure, and Bosnia, a U.S. success, influence the debate on intervention and bring greater pressure to bear.”