**FILE** Syrian President Bashar Assad delivers a speech at Damascus University in Damascus, Syria, on June 20, 2011.
After watching Syria’s bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters for months, President Obama on Thursday morning called for Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down.
“For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “His calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow while he is imprisoning, torturing, and slaughtering his own people.”
The president said his administration is imposing “unprecedented” new sanctions against Syria's government to further pressure Mr. Assad to step down, including a freeze of Syrian assets in the United States.
The demand for Mr. Assad’s departure comes more than a month after Mr. Obama said the Syrian leader had lost legitimacy. There is a growing clamor in the United Nations to formally condemn the violence.
Human-rights activists say Syrian forces have killed more than 2,400 anti-government demonstrators since the uprising began about five months ago. As Syrian protesters have taken to the streets, Mr. Assad has sent tanks and ground troops to retake control in rebellious areas. Syrian leaders maintain they are dealing with a rebellion led by Islamic extremists.
As the pro-democratic “Arab spring” uprisings have spread throughout North Africa and the Middle East, Mr. Obama has spoken out forcefully against strongman leaders such as Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Col. Moammar Gadhafi. But critics say he has been slow to take the same forceful posture against Mr. Assad, despite the Syrian government’s clear acts of brutality.
As the killings mounted, the White House has issued a series of statements calling on Mr. Assad to “lead or get out of the way.” The administration also has imposed sanctions, including penalties on senior members of Mr. Assad’s inner circle.
“It is clear that President Assad believes that he can silence the voices of his people by resorting to the repressive tactics of the past,” Mr. Obama said. “But he is wrong. As we have learned these last several months, sometimes the way things have been is not the way that they will be. It is time for the Syrian people to determine their own destiny, and we will continue to stand firmly on their side.”
Mr. Obama signed an executive order freezing Syrian assets and banning U.S. imports of petroleum products that originate in Syria. It prohibits people in the U.S. from operating or investing in Syria.
Minutes after the president’s statement was released, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that “no outside power can or should impose” on Syria’s transition, a warning directed at Iran.
“We understand the strong desire of the Syrian people that no foreign country should intervene in their struggle, and we respect their wishes,” Mrs. Clinton said. “We will do our part to support their aspirations for a Syria that is democratic, just and inclusive. And we will stand up for their universal rights and dignity by pressuring the regime and Assad personally to get out of the way of this transition.”
In Europe, British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued their own statement, saying Mr. Assad, who succeeded his father as president in July 2000, should quit and announcing they were imposing new sanctions as well on Damascus.
“Our three countries believe that President Assad, who is resorting to brutal military force against his own people and who is responsible for the situation, has lost all legitimacy and can no longer claim to lead the country,” they said. “We call on him to face the reality of the complete rejection of his regime by the Syrian people and to step aside in the best interests of Syria and the unity of its people. Violence in Syria must stop now.”
On a visit to Israel, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican, echoed Mr. Obama’s call for Mr. Assad’s resignation.
“Under the Assad regime, Syria has been a proxy for Iran, a supporter of terror, and a threat to United States interests and our allies in the region,” Mr. Cantor said. “The recent atrocities and Assad’s brutalization of his own people in Syria are extremely alarming and reflect a long history of anti-American hostility, and I join President Obama in calling for Mr. Assad’s resignation.”
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