White House: Syria would be a Better Place without Assad

The United States Wednesday said it had no interest in seeing Syria's President Bashar al-Assad survive simply to preserve regional "stability," hardening its line on what it termed a "grotesque" crackdown on dissent.

Some analysts have speculated that Washington has been wary of directly calling for Assad to quit because of anxiety that security chaos, civil war and a Middle East power vacuum might follow the demise of his regime.

But White House spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that Washington did not view Assad as "indispensible," saying he was completely "incapable and unwilling" to respond to the grievances of his own people.

"The U.S. has nothing invested in Assad remaining in power. We do not want to see him to remain in Syria for stability's sake and rather we view him as the cause for instability in Syria," Carney said.

"Syria would be a better place without President Assad," he added.

With the White House under increasing pressure for tougher action against Damascus from Syrian dissidents and on Capitol Hill, Carney said the administration was looking for new leverage against Assad.

"We are looking at ways to increase the pressure, the images coming out of Syria, of the Syrian government's brutality against its own people, have been grotesque and appalling and they demonstrate the true character of the regime."

Carney spoke as U.N. Security Council ambassadors agreed on a text to condemn the Syrian government's deadly crackdown on protests.

The criticism of Assad's deadly offensive against the opposition was to be adopted as a statement by the 15-nation council later Wednesday.

It will be the council's first pronouncement on Syria since protests started on March 15.

Past efforts by Britain, France, Germany and Portugal to pass a resolution were held up by Russia, China and other countries. But the worsening violence led to major international pronouncement for the U.N.'s supreme body to take a stand.