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A sea change in Washington policy toward Syria amarcnn | July 12, 2011 at 4:43 pm | Tags: Andrew Tabler | Categories: Diplomacy, Strategy, Syria, United States | URL: http://wp.me/p1bJgh-26M

Editor's Note: Andrew J. Tabler is the Next Generation Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and author of the forthcoming book In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle with Syria.

By Andrew J. Tabler - Special to CNN

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's statement yesterday that Syria's Bashar al President Assad is "not indispensable, and we have absolutely nothing invested in him remaining in power" is the latest public signal of a quiet sea change in U.S.-Syria policy over the past few weeks.

For months, Washington took a careful, cautious approach to the protests in Syria. Bashar al-Assad leads a minority Alawite-dominated regime, whose members command the country's security agencies and armed forces. This strengthened Assad's hand and mitigated the risk of the armed forces splitting off and turning against the regime as in Egypt and Tunisia. Assad was also helped by the fact that the protests largely took place in rural areas, far away from Syria's urban centers.

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