'Obama believes that any outcome in Syria is worse than the status quo under Assad!'

Excerpts from Oxford Analytica;

"US Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein yesterday said that Washington wants the new government, led by President Abd al-Rab Mansour Hadi, to be free from the influence of outside parties -- including former President Ali Abdallah Saleh. A year of political upheavals in the Middle East has thrown US policy into chaos. The three pillars of Washington's regional strategy have long been energy security, the security of Israel, and the protection of 'friendly leaders'; more recently, counter-terrorism became another pillar. Pursuing all four pillars simultaneously has always been challenging, and recent political events make it even more difficult.
Unlike in East Asia, where Washington has a clear strategy, Middle East policy is likely to remain ad hoc. Use of the term 'pivot' to describe the US shift towards East Asia undermines the confidence of its Middle East allies. Washington's regional military footprint remains very strong, but the perception that it is in decline increases the risk of instability.
What next
The administration will continue to bet that encouraging regional governments to reform, offering strong support for fighting external foes but little support to suppress internal opposition, and reaching out to new populist governments will promote US interests in the Middle East. However, this policy is likely to be viewed in the region as inconsistent and ad hoc, and to produce inconsistent results, in terms of US strategic objectives. ...
Friendly rulers are wary, and many are cracking down on civic groups. Untested populists are coming to power with priorities that often differ from those of their predecessors. Whereas most Middle East governments had fairly positive relations with Washington a year ago, their successors are exploring keeping their distance. President Barack Obama's administration is struggling to understand what the future might hold for the US position in the region ... ...
At the centre is a dilemma that US policymakers have faced for decades: whether it is better to forgo short-term stability by upsetting an authoritarian status quo in the hopes of allowing a more democratic region to emerge, or to cajole authoritarian allies gradually to open their societies....
Swiftly and urgently, the Obama administration found itself on the horns of this traditional dilemma: whether to support revolutionaries acting in the name of democracy, or authoritarians acting in the name of stability. The administration took a differentiated view, rhetorically backing change in Tunisia and Egypt, where it seemed inevitable, and being much more cautious about Bahrain, where change seemed less certain and powerful US interests were at stake....
In each case, it has taken time for the administration to settle on a position, because reconciling the varying interests is so difficult. The White House's instinct seemed consistently to be to put the president 'on the right side of history'; Obama spoke to Mubarak and urged his resignation in the midst of the protests. In the process, he seemed to undercut Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose early pronouncements had sought to protect US institutional interests. In Libya, Obama again took to the podium, and apparently overruled his secretary of defense on the use of US military assets to battle Qadhafi's forces.
Yet Obama has been quiet on Bahrain. Many believe that the US Navy's Fifth Fleet headquarters in the country is an irreplaceable asset as Washington seeks to provide energy security and deter Iranian aggression against Gulf Cooperation Council states. The strong support of Saudi Arabia and the UAE for Bahrain's Sunni monarchy, and the Sunni minority that supports it, makes it hard for Washington to condemn events there without repercussions throughout the Gulf.
The slow-moving conflict in frequent foe Syria might seem an easy case for the Obama administration, but it too is hard, because Washington has a limited ability to bring change in the country, and because it has an even more limited ability to shape post-conflict outcomes -- and some might be worse. The more Libya swirls into militia-led violence and chaos, and the more Iraq defies efforts to create a stable and democratic order, the more cautious the Obama administration grows about intervening directly and the less it seems to believe that any outcome is better than the status quo. ... ...
Many within the administration argue that elected Islamists undermine the appeal of al-Qaida and its allies. For the US government, that threatens to trade off one US interest -- the security of Israel -- for another -- counterterrorism. Thus, even if the administration's instinct is to engage populist Islamist politicians, many in Congress will seek to isolate them.
It is also unclear how much Washington will seek to -- or be able to -- buttress the rule of authoritarian allies facing popular unrest. The administration agrees that it has a commitment to protect Gulf monarchies, in particular, from external threats, but it feels no obligation to protect them from the demands of their own publics. Instead it is counselling engagement and openness...
Overall, there is no clear 'Obama doctrine' on democratic change or a clear set of principles that determine when and how the United States will abandon allies or seek to overthrow foes..."