US President Barack Obama's choice to be the first American ambassador to Syria
in five years went before a Senate committee Tuesday and said Syria remains a supporter of terrorist groups.
Robert Ford told his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations panel that as ambassador he will deliver "unfiltered straight talk" to Damascus about its support for groups the Americans consider terrorist such as Hamas,
Palestinian Islamic Jihad
and Hezbollah.
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President George W. Bush's administration withdrew a full-time ambassador from Syria in 2005 after terrorism accusations and to protest the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, killed in a Beirut truck bombing that his supporters blamed on Syria. Syria denied involvement.
"They need to hear directly from us," Ford told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, whose chairman, Senator John Kerry, a leading Democrat promised swift action on the nomination.
"We must be talking every day and every week with top-level officials who have influence and decision-making authority," Ford said.
Having served four years as deputy US ambassador to Iraq, Ford said, "I saw first-hand the tragic aftermath of terrorist car bombings perpetrated by foreign fighter networks that have infiltrated suicide bombers" over the Syrian border into Iraq.
"Without significant changes in its policy, Syria will remain on our list of state supporters of terrorism for the foreseeable future," he said.
Kerry said large numbers of weapons continue to cross Syria's border into Lebanon
and that Hezbollah now has more dangerous rockets than it did before the 2006 war
with Israel.
Senator Richard Lugar, the committee's top Republican, said, "We should temper expectations about what can be achieved diplomatically with the Syrians in the short term."
"Nevertheless, declining to post ambassadors to countries, though sometimes necessary, rarely serves US interests for long. In this case, Syria is an unavoidable factor in the Middle East peace equation," Lugar said.
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