Behind the rhetoric from Damascus is concern that top officials in the Bush administration have targeted Syria as the next country for a change in government. In 1996, Douglas Feith, now undersecretary of defense for policy and an architect of plans for a post-Hussein Iraq, co-authored an advisory paper with Richard Perle, a close Rumsfeld adviser, for then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that called for a “clean break” from the traditional peace process approach between the Arabs and Israel. They advised replacing it with a stronger military approach and confrontation with Iraq and Syria for their support of terrorists.
From the Washington Post.