Provides links to excellent sources while also referencing Pat Lang ...

NSC Chief Hadley asked Italy for Syria Replacement Name | Oct. 23, 2005 |

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley asked the Italians to help with regime change in Syria:

I have it on good authority that Steven Hadley, the director of the US National Security Council, called the President of the Italian senate to asked if he had a candidate to replace Bashar al-Asad as President of Syria. The Italians were horrified. Italy is one of Syria's biggest trading partners so it seemed a reasonable place to ask! This is what Washington has been up to. -- Joshua Landis

Let's take this in. Hadley is calling the Italians, asking for a name as a replacement figurehead? Stunning.

[...]
Further, as Joshua Landis logically notes, what can Syria possibly do to placate the Bush administration? "Bashar cannot possibly do what Washington is demanding of it -- give family members to an international court. My guess is that the regime will stick together on this."

But, really, none of that matters!

[Update-1]

For context, added this update today ...

"The March to War: Israel Prepares..." by Nazemroaya Posted by Joshua on Sunday, April 20th, 2008 |

The following article tries to make sense of the almost constant war scares emanating from Israel over the last two years. My bet is that the threats and psychological warfare will not escalate into full battle. Most sensible people in the US and Israel know that war would be foolish and self-defeating. Israel would not get the peace it hopes for. The Middle East would be further radicalized. Oil prices would go through the ceiling. These are the same reasons that the US and Israel will not bomb Iran.

US and Israeli analysts have tried to depict Syria as the low hanging fruit. But like the fruit that Tantalus wanted so badly, it is always out of reach. It is not as low as it seems.

In April 2003, Israel's ambassador to Washington, Daniel Ayalon, explained what conditions the US and Israel believed would cause Syria to abandon its claim to the Golan and its support for Hizbullah. Hé said:

The way to deal with [Syria] is to de-legitimize its regime and the way to do that is by applying political pressure and to really apply economic sanctions... this is the key element to pressure [it] into regime change... So, this is the direction - a lot of psychological pressure.

• What's behind Bashar Al-Assad's peace offensive? | Jan. 11, 2004 |

The bombing of Lebanon in 2006 was carried out so severely in order to signal to Assad that Syria could not resist Israel and the US. He would have to make peace on favorable terms with Israel or suffer Lebanon's fate. The neo-cons in the White House insisted that the only way to convince Asad to change was to bomb him. This is why the Wurmsers berated Israel for refusing to hit Syria directly. Unfortunately for the neo-cons, most Israeli analysts are not so stupid.

Secret talks: Israel pledges to end its occupation of the entire Golan Heights - 2009

END OF UPDATE

Cheney and Hadley are hellbent on going after Syria:

US 'seeks new Syrian leader' as pressure mounts | FT by Guy Dinmore - Oct. 9, 2005 |

As it steps up pressure on Damascus, the US is actively seeking an alternative who would take over from President Bashar al-Assad, according to sources close to the Bush administration.

Washington has consulted its allies in an inter-agency search co-ordinated by Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser. The US is also said to be considering military strikes on the Syrian border in response to its alleged support for Iraqi insurgents.

Syria is being Set Up to Fail: A Leaked Letter from Washington | Joshua Landis - Oct. 23, 2005 |

Here is a most extraordinary letter from Syria's Ambassador in Washington Imad Mustapha to Congresswoman Sue Kelly, which has come into my possession. It explains how the American Administration has been stonewalling Syrian cooperation on a host of issues. It explains how Syria is being set up to fail so that the US can isolate it and carry out a process of regime-change at the expense of Iraqi stability and the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. It explains how the US administration's policy of forcing regime change in Syria is trumping the need to save lives in Iraq.

I also have the letter written by Congresswoman Sue Kelly, and signed by 100 fellow congressmen, which was originally sent to Ambassador Mustapha on Sept. 30, 2005 and which elicited this reply. It is short and reiterates the usual administration complaints about the lack of Syrian cooperation with the war on terror and effort to stabilize Iraq. I have not had the time to type it in - but it is a demonstration of the US government's failure to appreciate how it is being railroaded by the administration into a confrontation with Syria. One must read Imad Mustapha's response, copied here, to appreciate just how the railroading is taking place.

For over a year Syria has been trying to cooperate with the West on the Iraq border, on the issue of terrorism finance, on the issue of stopping Jihadists from getting into Syria, on intelligence sharing, and on stabilizing Iraq. 

Washington has consistently refused to take "Yes" as an answer. Why?

The only credible reason is because Washington wants regime change in Syria. The US administration is sacrificing American soldiers in Iraq in order to carry out its program of "reforming the Greater Middle East." Two US policies are clashing head to head - the one is stabilizing Iraq and the other is the reform of the greater Middle East. President Bush is placing his democracy policy over his Iraq policy. This is costing American and Iraqi lives.

The world press has failed to get this story, although it has been staring them in the face for months. Human rights activists in Syria have documented for a long time how Syria is arresting Islamists, cracking down on Syrians who go to Iraq to fight by arresting their family members and jailing the fighters when they return from Iraq. Read Razan Zeitouneh's story about Syria's "Preemptive War" against Islamists here.

The Syrian secret police have been terrorizing would be terrorists in Syria for many months now.

The US has cut off all intelligence sharing with Syria despite repeated Syrian attempts to cooperate on this most important issue. Rumsfeld refused a Syria delegation of top border officials permission to meet with their Iraq and American counterparts just two months ago.

We all know the developments from Abu Ghraib detention, Camp Cropper and Bucca prison camp which led to tens of thousands radicalized Sunni fighters forming the roots of the Islamic State ... ISIL - ISIS in alliances with Al Nusra and AQI - Al Qaeda in Iraq.

ISIS: the inside story | The Guardian - Dec. 11, 2014 |

Many, many diaries of mine for over a decade on intervention and regime change by Bush and Obama from 2003 in Iraq to 2011 in Libya and Syria. One common American denominator was Senator, later VP and today President Joe Biden. Neo-conservative agenda for NWO in the Middle East.

• Clinton's 21st Century Statecraft and the Land of the Two Rivers | Aug 23, 2014 |
• Islamic State Khorasan Province | by Oui Tue Aug 24th, 2021 |

"We destroyed Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, mission accomplished. Our boys are coming home." ISIL or Islamic State or Al Nusra or dozens of affiliated terror groups are linked to jihadist terror of Al Qaeda. Pakistan and the Taliban territory from Quetta into North Waziristan is Taliban territory.