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Washington Begins to Plan for Collapse of Syrian Government

WASHINGTON — With the growing conviction that the Assad family’s 42-year grip on power in Syria is coming to an end, Obama administration officials worked on contingency plans Wednesday for a collapse of the Syrian government, focusing particularly on the chemical weapons that Syria is thought to possess and that President Bashar al-Assad could try to use on opposition forces and civilians.

Pentagon officials were in talks with Israeli defense officials about whether Israel might move to destroy Syrian weapons facilities, two administration official said. The administration is not advocating such an attack, the American officials said, because of the risk that it would give Mr. Assad an opportunity to rally support against Israeli interference.

President Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, was in Israel over the weekend and discussed the Syrian crisis with officials there, a White House official said.

Mr. Obama called President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Wednesday and urged him again to allow Mr. Assad to be pushed from power. Russia, so far, has refused. A White House statement said that Mr. Putin and Mr. Obama “noted the growing violence in Syria and agreed on the need to support a political transition as soon as possible that achieves our shared goal of ending the violence and avoiding a further deterioration of the situation.”

The statement pointedly noted the “differences our governments have had on Syria,” but said the two leaders “agreed to have their teams continue to work toward a solution.”

American diplomatic and military officials said the bombing in Damascus on Wednesday that killed several of Mr. Assad’s closest advisers was a turning point in the conflict. “Assad is a spent force in terms of history,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, told reporters. “He will not be a part of Syria’s future.”

Alluding to Russia’s position, Mr. Carney said the argument that Mr. Assad’s ouster would result in more violence was refuted by the bombing, and that Mr. Assad’s continued rule “will result in greater violence,” not less.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said on Wednesday that Syria’s crisis, was “rapidly spinning out of control.”

Within hours of the bombing, the Treasury Department announced additional sanctions against the Syrian prime minister and some 28 other cabinet ministers and senior officials, part of the administration’s effort to make life so difficult for the government that Mr. Assad’s allies desert him. “As long as Assad stays in power, the bloodshed and instability in Syria will only mount,” said David S. Cohen, a senior Treasury official.

Behind the scenes, the administration’s planning has already shifted to what to do after an expected fall of the Assad government, and what such a collapse could look like. A huge worry, administration officials said, is that in desperation Mr. Assad would use chemical weapons to try to quell the uprising.

“The Syrian government has a responsibility to safeguard its stockpiles of chemical weapons, and the international community will hold accountable any Syrian officials who fails to meet that obligation,” Mr. Carney said.

Any benefit of an Israeli raid on Syria’s weapons facilities would have to be weighed against the possibility that the Assad government would exploit such a raid for its own ends, said Martin S. Indyk, the former United States ambassador to Israel and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.

He and several administration officials said the view was that Mr. Assad might use chemical weapons as a last resort. “But it crosses a red line, and changes the whole nature of the discussion,” Mr. Indyk said. “There would be strong, if not overwhelming sentiment, internationally, to stop him.” Russia, in particular, would probably have to drop its opposition to tougher United Nations sanctions against Syria, and Mr. Assad’s other remaining ally, Iran, would probably not look too kindly on a chemical attack.

The Obama administration must also worry about Mr. Assad’s arsenal, including chemical weapons, falling into other hands, including those of Al Qaeda — a risk at the center of the administration’s concerns, according to Robert Malley of the International Crisis Group.

“The government is falling,” Mr. Malley said. “But what will the fall look like? It could fall in Damascus, but not elsewhere; it could crumble in other areas but not the Alawite ones — there are a lot of variations to this.”

Beyond trying to stop the Assad government from using unconventional weapons, the United States must also work to make sure that the Alawite minority, ascendant under Mr. Assad and largely loyal to him, is not massacred once its protector is gone.

Mr. Obama has come under criticism from some Republicans in Congress who say that the United States should intervene militarily in Syria, and from Mitt Romney, his Republican opponent, who has said that he would arm the Syrian opposition, which the administration has not done directly.

Instead, Mr. Obama has backed United Nations efforts and urged Russia to join the United States in calling for Mr. Assad to step down. While the president has been faulted for his policy toward Syria, some foreign policy experts said that Mr. Obama’s approach could be vindicated, particularly if Mr. Assad is toppled without the United States taking military action.

The administration has not officially armed the Syrian rebels, but it has provided some financial aid, and has helped to prop up the Syrian opposition by its many efforts to delegitimize Mr. Assad through a steady stream of calls for him to step down.

The United States, Mr. Malley said “may actually achieve what it wanted — a fall of the regime without having to intervene militarily.”

But, he added, “Then it has to deal with all the variants of what a fall looks like, and what a post-Assad Syria looks like.”

Peter Baker contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 13 of the New York edition with the headline: Anticipating Fall of Assad, Washington Starts Planning for a Changed Syria. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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