[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 66 (Friday, May 13, 2011)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E893-E894]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ASSAD MUST GO

                                  _____
                                 

                          HON. ADAM B. SCHIFF

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                          Friday, May 13, 2011

  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, the outrages perpetrated by Syrian President 
Bashar Assad against his own people have laid bare his regime's total 
lack of legitimacy. The shelling of Homs evokes memories of the 1982 
massacre at Hama, in which his father ordered the Syrian army into the 
rebellious city, killing up to 40,000 people.
  After the elder Assad died in 2000, the new president, in interviews 
with western journalists, made several cautious statements that led 
many Syrians to believe that their new president would be willing to 
take at least the first steps towards democracy in their ancient land. 
Indeed, the first months of the new regime saw a period of intense 
political and social debate in Syria which continued to some degree 
until the fall of 2001, when the government sharply reversed course and 
ended what had become known as the Damascus Spring.
  Similarly, others saw his succession and the September 11 attacks as 
an opportunity to coax Syria into playing a more constructive regional 
role, especially in Lebanon, and as a chance to widen the circle of 
Arab-Israeli

[[Page E894]]

peace. As with the domestic opening, this too proved fleeting and 
illusory. Tentative Syrian cooperation in the opening months of the 
campaign against al Qaeda after 9/11 did not last and, in 2005, Syrian 
intelligence officers joined with Hezbollah in murdering Lebanese Prime 
Minister Rafik Harriri and provoking a war with Israel in the summer of 
2006. In Iraq, Syria worked with Iran to supply arms to radical Shiite 
militias, even as the country sought to join its ally in the pursuit of 
nuclear weapons.
  Now the Assad regime has turned on its own people, who have been 
inspired by their fellow Arabs in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere to rise 
up to demand their rights. As Americans and as the custodians of a 
great democracy that was forged in revolution, we have a special 
obligation to support and nurture the aspirations of others who seek to 
secure for themselves and their posterity the blessings of liberty.
  We in Congress must use every diplomatic and economic tool at our 
disposal to end this dictatorship and I urge President Obama to support 
the Syrian people in their quest for an end to the corruption and 
brutality in the Assad regime.

                          ____________________