That’s right. Regime change worked so well with Iraq, that Mr. Bush wants to expand it to Syria, this time through covert actions designed to bring down the regime of Bashar Assad:

(cont.)

The Bush Administration has been quietly nurturing individuals and parties opposed to the Syrian government in an effort to undermine the regime of President Bashar Assad. Parts of the scheme are outlined in a classified, two-page document which says that the U.S. already is “supporting regular meetings of internal and diaspora Syrian activists” in Europe. The document bluntly expresses the hope that “these meetings will facilitate a more coherent strategy and plan of actions for all anti-Assad activists.”

The document says that Syria’s legislative elections, scheduled for March 2007, “provide a potentially galvanizing issue for… critics of the Assad regime.” To capitalize on that opportunity, the document proposes a secret “election monitoring” scheme, in which “internet accessible materials will be available for printing and dissemination by activists inside the country [Syria] and neighboring countries.” The proposal also calls for surreptitiously giving money to at least one Syrian politician who, according to the document, intends to run in the election. The effort would also include “voter education campaigns” and public opinion polling, with the first poll “tentatively scheduled in early 2007.” […]

The proposal says part of the effort would be run through a foundation operated by Amar Abdulhamid, a Washington-based member of a Syrian umbrella opposition group known as the National Salvation Front (NSF). The Front includes the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization that for decades supported the violent overthrow the Syrian government, but now says it seeks peaceful, democratic reform. (In Syria, however, membership in the Brotherhood is still punishable by death.) Another member of the NSF is Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former high-ranking Syrian official and Assad family loyalist who recently went into exile after a political clash with the regime. Representatives of the National Salvation Front, including Abdulhamid, were accorded at least two meetings earlier this year at the White House, which described the sessions as exploratory. Since then, the National Salvation Front has said it intends to open an office in Washington in the near future.

And to think Bashar Assad thought he could get a “Get Out of Regime Change card” from Bush for helping the CIA torture a few renditioned detainees in the War on Terror. I bet he’s sorry for that now, eh?

The only good thing about this so-called plan to destabilize the Syrian government is that it doesn’t involve any US troops. Yet. It does make you wonder, though. Is Bush trying to bring on the apocalypse by roiling the Middle East in a death spiral of violence and war? Because that seems like the only logical explanation for his actions some days. They certainly don’t have much to do with promoting peace in the Middle East. Or democracy. Or anything a sane human being would conceive of doing absent a motivation based on blind faith in the coming Rapture.