US likely to call on Assad to step down

down amid broadening pressure to staunch the bloodshed.

The announcement, which US officials said is expected as early as yesterday, would come as President Barack Obama’s administration presses for tougher international sanctions on a regime bent on crushing a pro-democracy movement.
“The United States is looking to explicitly call for Assad to step down. The timing of that is still in question,” a US official told AFP on the condition of anonymity.

“It’s part of steps to increase the pressure given the ongoing brutality of the Assad regime.”
The administration has steadily ratcheted up the pressure on Assad who has been deaf to growing international calls to stop a crackdown that human rights groups say has killed more than 2 000 people since mid-March.

On top of earlier targeted measures against Assad, regime officials and others, the United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria and the largest mobile phone operator, Syriatel.

The Obama administration has also welcomed a tougher Arab stand against Syria. In a highly symbolic move, Arab heavyweight Saudi Arabia as well as Kuwait and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors this week from Damascus.

US officials like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN envoy Susan Rice have said that Assad has lost his legitimacy to rule, but Washington has so far resisted issuing a direct call for him to leave power. It has also resisted calls from Congress to withdraw Robert Ford, who in January became the first US ambassador to serve in Syria since the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq al-Hariri, blamed on Damascus.
The administration has said Ford is well-placed to gather information and convey the US message to the Assad regime, but he would be unlikely to be able to stay on if Washington indeed calls for the

Syrian strongman’s ouster.
Steadily escalating US rhetoric against Assad, including a warning that he is now a source of regional instability, has fueled expectations that the Obama administration will soon formally call for him to go. But the White House stuck with a rhetorical formulation towards Syria adopted last week, saying the country would be a “better place” without Assad. When they held their first meeting with Clinton on August 2, Syrian dissidents urged Obama to call on Assad to quit power and pressed for UN sanctions over the regime’s crackdown on protests.- AFP.