A different kind of ambassador

The Syrian government is so anxious to keep order in Hama, where the American ambassador Friday expressed solidarity with the protesters, that it couldn’t manage to protect the American and French embassies over the weekend.  I guess Bashar al Assad figures that will show us what failure to use his security forces would lead to. All it really proves is that he isn’t any better than the thugs he hires for his rent-a-mob.

The question is what to do about behavior of this sort. My friends over at the Washington Institute are proposing vigorous diplomatic protest, not only to the Syrians but also to the Russians, whose flag the demonstrators carried during the attack. Somehow that doesn’t sound likely to prove effective.

Attacks on American embassies of this sort are diplomatic signals, in this case a signal that Ambassador Ford’s presence in Hama was vastly unappreciated, as I trust is his open Facebook support for the protests: 

Hama and the Syrian crisis is not about the U.S. at all. This is a crisis the Syrian people are in the process of solving. It is a crisis about dignity, human rights, and the rule of law.

He has been bold, bolder than the Administration and therefore exposed.  I hope they come around to his perspective rather than making him heel to theirs.

The only real limit for Ford should be maintaining his presence in Damascus.  He is valuable there as a symbol of international support to the protesters, as a restraining influence on the regime, as a communicator of American views, which have unfortunately been less clear than I might have liked.  But those who think we would be better off withdrawing him are wrong.  This is an ambassador who has now made himself clear.  He deserves Washington’s support so long as the Syrians allow him to stay.

That likely won’t be for long, though I can hope they may wait until his “recess” appointment is up at the end of the Congressional session, likely sometime late next year.  Whenever it is, at least we have occasion to applaud a courageous ambassador, one who is showing those who resisted his appointment and others who have wanted him recalled why they were wrong.