War of Words Shatters Hope for Improving Syrian-US Ties (Us-Ties‪)‬

The tentative rapprochement between the United States and Syria seems to be over. Developments in the past few weeks, including a war of words between Washington and Damascus, indicated that U.S. President Barack Obama's outreach to Syria has suffered a major setback, dashing hopes of any improvement in U.S.-Syrian relations in the near future. If anything, the exchange of tough rhetoric reflected the two countries' deep-seated mistrust of each other and their diametrically conflicting positions on regional issues, namely Lebanon, Iraq, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Last month, U.S. officials accused Syria of seeking to undermine stability in Lebanon. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad hit back by accusing the United States of spreading chaos in the world. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said earlier this month that Washington wanted to have "constructive relations" with Syria, but she linked this to old American demands that Damascus has to meet before bilateral ties could improve. "We want Syria to seriously put an end to all forms of support for terrorism and destabilizing Lebanon and to stop arms supplies to Hizbullah," Clinton said in an interview on December 3 with Al Hurra, an Arabic-language American satellite channel financed by the U.S. government.