Bashar Assad loses U.S. friends as Kerry, Hagel and Biden take Bush\'s stance on Syria - Washington Times

FROM THE Washington Times

The Obama national security team that wants to go to war with Syria and demonizes President Bashar Assad is the same group that, as senators, urged reaching out to the dictator.

As a bloc on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, President Obama, Secretary of State John F. Kerry, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Vice President Joseph R. Biden all opposed the George W. Bush administration’s playing tough with Mr. Assad.

$\"Bashar$ Bashar al-Assad – Caricature (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)

PHOTOS: Bashar Assad loses U.S. friends as Kerry, Hagel and Biden take Bush\’s stance on Syria

None grew closer to Mr. Assad and promoted him in Washington more than Mr. Kerry.

\”President Assad has been very generous with me in terms of the discussions we have had,\” Mr. Kerry, as a senator from Massachusetts, told an audience at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in March 2011. He predicted that Mr. Assad would change for the better.

But that same month, pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in Syria that would lead to a civil war, unmasking Mr. Assad’s brutal tactics, including the Aug. 21 unleashing of nerve gas that killed more than 1,400 civilians.

Today, Mr. Kerry is a leading advocate for attacking Mr. Assad’s regime. On Friday, he called the man he once befriended a \”thug and murderer.\”

Mr. Hagel is assembling a small armada in the eastern Mediterranean Sea to launch scores of cruise missiles at the Assad regime as punishment for the gas attack. Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden are lobbying allies and Congress to approve an attack.