Senior State Department official Michael Posner dismissed a lawmaker's suggestion that Washington take a tougher stand by withdrawing its ambassador from Damascus, saying the envoy acted as a key defender of Syrians' rights.
Before the current unrest hit Syria, Robert Ford arrived in Damascus in January as the first US ambassador to Syria in five years, the fruit of the Obama administration's new policy to engage a longtime foe.
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Ford is "an individual who can reach out both to the Syrian government at the highest levels, but also to reach out to people who are on the receiving end of this violence," Posner told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Posner, assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, said people need reassurance from powerful countries in situations where so many are being arrested, shot and abused.
"People want to know that governments like the United States are there, meeting with them, aware of what they're facing and trying to help them in a day-to-day way," said Posner.
"He's spending long hours helping families, meeting with victims, meeting with human rights advocates, meeting with journalists trying to mitigate what is a terrible situation," Posner said.
"I think it's right for us to have a presence there," Posner said.
"It's right for us to have a senior diplomat whose role it is really to be our advocate in chief in Damascus and in Syria fighting for the very principles of human rights that you and I are talking," Posner said.
Representative Steve Chabot, who made the suggestion about withdrawing the US ambassador or expelling the Syrian envoy from Washington, expressed the committee's concern about "much tougher action with respect to Syria."
Chabot and other committee members suggested the administration was taking a softer line on Syria than it has on either Egypt or Libya.
They recalled the Obama administration had pushed for both president Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Colonel Moamer Kadhafi of Libya to step down from power, but were not asking the same of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
"Has the administration called for regime change in Damascus?" Representative Gerald Connolly asked Tamara Cofman Wittes, deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, who testified with Posner.
"No, we have not," Wittes replied.
The unrest gripping Syria comes as President Barack Obama pursues a new US policy of engaging with a former foe in a bid to promote a broader Arab-Israeli peace by driving a wedge between Syria and its ally Iran.
Analysts said early last month that the administration may be hedging its bets because it will still have to deal with the regime if Assad and his powerful security forces end up crushing the unrest.
