Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha

"Landep News"

Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha

Syria on Tuesday responded to the withdrawal of US ambassador Robert Ford from Damascus over the weekend by calling its own ambassador from Washington, thus raising the diplomatic stakes. Robert Ford had been withdrawn after the American officials got word that an imminent threat to his life existed. He came to the United States over the weekend and remained in the US, while US State Department announced that he would resume his duties in Damascus as soon as it was save for him to return there.

The State Department made it clear on that occasion that the withdrawal of the ambassador was motivated by mere safety concerns related to his person and did not mean the breaking off of relations between the two countries, which were resumed earlier this year.

The Bush administration closed the embassy in Damascus in 2005, following the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon, whose assassination the Americans blamed on Syria.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration re-opened the embassy in hopes that the new mission in Syria would improve the way Syria treats Israel, Lebanon, Iraq and its own cooperation with the terrorist organizations. Syria is listed as a sponsor to terrorism by the American State Department.

Robert Ford, the ambassador the United States sent to Damascus, angered the regime as he traveled in July to the city of Hama, where the popular uprising started against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in spite of the measures implemented by the regime to prevent him from doing such a thing.

When he returned from Hama, Ford told the international press that he had seen no thugs in the streets of the city, only people who were demanding the ouster of the president. Syrian regime said that the problems in the country were stirred by a handful of thugs who attacked the security forces as a result of an international conspiracy meant to topple the president.

Soon after he said that, Ford came under intense protests of the people in Damascus, who went as far as to attack the embassy, demanding that he be send away. The attacks were repeated when people threw eggs and tomatoes at him as he was going to the mosque.

A spokeswoman for the Syrian embassy said that the departure of the ambassador will not be followed by additional diplomatic actions.

Fear has increased in Syria that after the demise of Muammar al-Qaddafi, Syria will become the net target of the NATO coalition. The people in the streets of Syria had even demanded it as they shouted that Bashar was next after Qaddafi and demanded that NATO help them.

Robert Ford told the opposition leaders to attempt to make their ways into the hearts of the people in the country without expecting that the job be done by NATO in their stead. He warned that what happened in Libya cannot happen in Syria, because an intervention in Syria would look like the regime had always been right and the Western countries had plotted against his rule.

A NATO attack on Syria would also be strongly opposed by Russia and China, who vetoed the last resolution the European nations wanted to pass through the UN Security Council.

Russia motivated on that occasion that the language of the resolution could have been interpreted as to mean that an intervention was possible, which they could not admit. Russia said that the Libyan example served them as a lesson and that they were not ready to have the same mistake repeated again.

Even so, Russians and Chinese warned Assad to implement reforms or step down, an warning he also received from the Arab League, which fell short of expelling Syria during the last meeting.

On Sunday, the American State Secretary Hillary Clinton said that though the US strongly supports the Syrian opposition, no request for outside intervention was made by the leaders of the opposition.

While analysts consider that Syria would be a more difficult target because of its society’s religious and ethnic fabric, there is a certain concern in America that the continuation of this situation could affect at some point the security of Israel.

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