What Obama Should Write Assad

Hon. Bashir Assad
President of Syria
via US Embassy-Damascus

Dear Mr President:
Thank you for your kind invitation to visit your country this year. However, I have concluded that a state visit to Syria must await the resolution of several important issues between your country and ours.
As you know, the United States supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unfortunately, some of the policies and actions of your government are making the achievement of this goal extremely difficult. Most salient is Syrian support for Hamas, which operates openly in Damascus, and receives major supplies of Iranian arms through Syria, including medium and long-range rockets. During my 2008 visit to Sderot, Israel, I vehemently condemned firing these rockets at civilian targets in Israel, particularly Sderot. Israeli co-operation in establishing a Palestinian state is possible only if Israel is secure from attacks such as these.
In addition, your government has been supplying rockets and other arms to Hezbollah, which deliberately provoked a war between Lebanon and Israel in 2006 by crossing an internationally-recognized border to capture Israeli soldiers. Although a cease-fire is in effect, the soldiers have not been repatriated. We are also concerned about the role of Hezbollah in fomenting violence within Lebanon.
The United States supports bi-lateral negotiations aimed at restoring Syrian sovereignty over the Golan Heights. We consider the 1977 settlement between Israel and Egypt a model for attaining this goal. But progress on this issue, too, is not possible while Syria continues to support Hezbollah, whose actions continue to threaten the security of Israel.
We believe that peace and stability in the Middle East are in the interests of your country, as well as that of other states in the region. Accordingly, I have instructed the Department of State to work with your Foreign Ministry to seek areas of common interest between our two countries. However, a significant change in Syrian policy regarding both Hamas and Hezbollah is essential if Syria is to play a positive role in securing a durable and just peace in the Middle East.
If Syria will support our peace efforts with both words and deeds, the United States will co-operate with you. In that case, a presidential visit to your country before the end of my current term in office will be possible.
Aleikum es-salaam.

Yours truly,
/s/ Barack Hussein Obama

Why Syria Needs Peace

A member of Syria's cabinet told Al Jazeera TV that Israel has offered to withdraw from the Golan Heights in exchange for a peace treaty. The message, which Israel will neither confirm nor deny, was said to have been passed to Syria through Turkey, with whom both countries have diplomatic relations. (1)

Why make this public announcement? I believe that Damascus wants to stimulate support for the deal, both inside Israel and in the US, so that it cannot be withdrawn before Syria accepts it. The only obstacle to a deal in the recent past has been Israel's insistence on retaining a small strip of land near the Sea of Galilee. I think a compromise on this point is possible now, because the Syrians are anxious to settle the dispute with Israel.

Peace with Syria, the only country that fought Israel in 1967 and has not yet made a peace treaty, is in Israel's interest, provided that:
1. The Golan Heights are de-militarized, with neutral (perhaps American) troops stationed there to monitor compliance.
2. Syria blocks all supplies to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon.
Unfortunately, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have a record of "giving away the store" in negotiating with Arabs, so they might not hold out for these important provisions.

This latest development comes at a time of great embarrassment to Syria. The US has a video provided by Israel taken inside the Syrian reactor before it was destroyed September 6, 2007, by the Israeli Air Force.

If Israeli intelligence was able to penetrate such a high-security installation as the North Korean-built Al Kibar reactor, Syrian security is not worth camel-dung. Moreover, Israeli bombers encountered no resistance whatsoever in their mission, either from anti-craft fire or Syrian MIG fighter planes. It is significant that Syria did not retaliate in any way, even though the bombing was a blatant act of war and violation of the Cease-Fire Agreement between the two nations. Syria even attended the December peace conference in Annapolis, in defiance of Iranian objections.

My conclusion from all these developments is that Syria has made a major change of course: from alliance with Iran and North Korea to detente with the United States and Israel. Why switch sides? One obvious reason is that Syria is surrounded by countries allied with the US: Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Iraq.(2) Another is that President Bashar Assad, who honed his strategic skills practicing ophthalmology in London, realizes that Syria lacks a military force strong enough to confront Israel, let alone the United States.

Syria's erstwhile allies, North Korea and Iran, would not be much help in case of trouble. North Korea, which has no strategic or ideological interests in the Middle East, is now seeking rapprochement with the US. Iran, on the other hand, seems intent on provoking the US and Israel, even though it cannot defeat either one. Since most Syrians are Sunni, the alliance with Shiite Iran could pose internal problems for the regime, should major conflict erupt in the region. There is a real possibility that fighting in northwestern Iraq could spill across the border into Syria, which could destabilize the country. Once American forces leave, Iraq will be "up for grabs."

It is incontrovertible that Syria needs peace; the real question now is whether the Assad regime is willing to make the concessions necessary to achieve it.

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(1) Washington Post, April 24, 2008.

(2) While Syria maintains cordial relations with the US-backed government of Iraq, Damascus does nothing to prevent the transit of insurgents and weapons through Syria into Iraq. Go figure.

The View From Damascus

"Syria will join Mideast talks in Washington"
Associated Press, Nov. 26, 2007

By sending an envoy (although not a top-ranking figure) to the current peace conference in Washington and Annapolis, Syria has broken ranks with the Rejection Front of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. While acting as a major conduit of arms between Tehran and the latter two terrorist groups, Damascus is now pursuing a distinctly more pacific policy than they are. Why the change? Let's look at the world from Damascus:

Israel: In September Israeli jets bombed a building in Syria, said to be a North Korean nuclear reactor under construction. This attack and the low-keyed reaction from Syria point to two important facts:
1. Syria's air defenses are worthless. Israeli warplanes encountered no anti-aircraft fire or Syrian fighters while striking the target, deep in Syrian airspace.
2. Syria avoids confrontation. When Israel bombed the Iraqi reactor at Osirak in 1981, the UN Security Council condemned Israel for an act of aggression. This time, not only did Syria not retaliate, but Damascus did not even file a complaint with the UN, even though the bombing was a clear violation of the 1973 cease-fire and disengagement agreement.
Just imagine the outcry if during the ColdWar Soviet bombers would have destroyed a vacant cabin at Cedar Lake during the off-season!
Conclusions: Syria is trying to conceal whatever was destroyed by the Israelis, and is carefully avoiding a confrontation with the Jewish state.
Instead, Syria is seeking a US-brokered deal to regain the Golan Heights, lost to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. If offered iron-clad security guarantees, such as American troops on the Golan cease-fire line, Israel may take the deal. But can the Syrian regime survive a peace-treaty with Israel? Anwar Sadat could not.

Lebanon: Two years after Syria was forced to withdraw its army from Lebanon, the pro-Syrian President Emile LaHoud has left office. So far, no successor has been elected by the Parliament; the Syrian-backed Shiite Hezbollah militia may be making a bid for power right now. Civil war is a serious possibility. If the US or Israel intervenes, can Syria sit it out?

Iran: Although the vast majority of Syrians are Sunni Muslims, Syria is aligned with militantly Shiite Iran. Mutual hostility toward Israel is cementing the alliance----so far. But there are two flies in this ointment:
1. Religious war among Muslims: A major confrontation looms between Iran and the Sunni Arab powers----if fighting erupts between them, can Syria afford to be allied with Iran? This could pose a big problem for President Assad since he is not Sunni, but Alawi, which is closer to Shia Islam.
2. Ahmadinejad: Although the borderline crackpot President of Iran does not command its armed forces (1), his bellicose threats, coupled with uranium-enrichment activities, could provoke a war between Iran and the US or Israel, or both, which Iran would certainly lose.

United States: Syria is surrounded by countries either allied with the US (Turkey, Israel, and Jordan) or partially-occupied by US armed forces (Iraq). Despite its support for Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah, Syria has been aligned with the US against Al Qaida, especially its forces in Iraq. Given the level of mutual hostility between Tehran and Washington, Syria's role is akin to riding two horses headed in opposite directions.
The fact that Syria has chosen to attend the Washington Peace Conference against the warnings of the Rejection Front is a sign that Damascus has chosen the American horse.
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(1) All Iranian military and security forces report to Grand Ayatollah Ali Khameini, Supreme Leader of the Guardian Council.

Is Peace At Hand?

"(President George W) Bush called Monday (July 16) for an international conference in the Fall aimed at restarting peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians............
( President Beshir) Assad said Syria was ready for peace talks with Israel, but only in the presence of.....an honest broker." (1)

The only thing more dangerous than Syrians talking war is Syrians talking peace. But is Bush right in believing that times are propitious for a peace settlement in the Middle East, and is Syria really ready to play a constructive role in achieving it?

Here are some of the key players in the drama:

Hezbollah. Nearly a year has passed since the Shiiite militia killed and captured Israeli soldiers near the Lebanese border, and responded to the Israeli invasion that followed by lobbing rockets into Israeli cities. Although Hezbollah achieved a propaganda victory by avoiding total defeat in over a month of fighting with Israel, the militia is now sharing southern Lebanon with UN and Lebanese government forces. Syria has acted as a conduit for money and weapons between Iran and Hezbollah for years, and the "Party of Allah" is Syria's "cat's paw" in Beirut politics.
If Israel withdraws from the Golan Heights without foreign peacekeeping troops replacing the Israelis, what is to stop Hezbollah from moving rockets into Golan and firing them into Israel?
Given Syria's alliance with Iran, which supports Hezbollah's jihad against Israel, can Syria be trusted to safeguard this frontier?

Hamas: Syria permits Hamas leader Khaled Meshal to speak from Damascus. Although Hamas has denounced the very idea of peace talks with Israel, it is likely that Syria will run interference for the Islamic movement at the conference.
Thanks to the efforts of President Bush, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has an elective government, but that did not stop Hamas from seizing control of Gaza by brute force anyway. It is possible that before too long, Hamas might win control of the West Bank as well, either by the ballot or the bullet.

Fatah: When Fatah is described as "corrupt", one might think that its cops are fixing speeding tickets or its building inspectors are taking bribes from slum landlords to ignore code violations. What is meant by Fatah corruption is theft of hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, of dollars meant for the Palestinian people by a few insiders. For example, Yassir Arafat, a man from modest circumstances who worked full-time for Fatah, PLO and the PA nearly all his adult life, left an estate of several billion dollars. Interior Minister Dahlan is suspected of embezzling over $100 million. The mass misery in the PA is largely due to this thievery, which has been a major factor in the rise of Hamas.
If you were a Palestinian Muslim, who would you like better?

Israel: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, like a drunken gambler, has bet all his chips, his house, his garage, and his sukah on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah. Not only has he agreed to release 250 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, he dropped charges against another 178 wanted terrorists based only on their promise to abandon terrorism and join Fatah.
Now, that's amnesty!
President Bush is probably unhappy with his 29% approval rating in recent polls, but Olmert would be ecstatic with anywhere near 29% support from Israelis. I think his approval rating is higher in Ramallah than in Tel Aviv right now.Olmert remains in office only because most members of Knesset are too chicken to face parliamentary elections before they have to.
The trouble with the Olmert strategy in backing Fatah is that the more Abbas is seen as a tool of Israel, the less credibility he has with his own people, and the more chance Hamas has to replace him.

United States: The US is so desperate for help in stabilizing Iraq that we are now making diplomatic overtures to Iran and Syria. The Syrians may have concluded that the US is willing to lean hard on Israel to withdraw from the Golan Heights if Syria will co-operate on Iraq. This might explain Syria's interest in seeking a settlement with Israel now, while American troops are still in Iraq. The Syrians, along with everyone else, know that the US presence in Iraq will be over within about the next two years, so the leverage Damascus has with Washington now will not last long.
Now in his last 18 months as President, George W Bush would like to solve the Middle East conflict before leaving office. To do so would enhance his legacy, so deeply marred by the mess in nearby Iraq. The trouble is that his clout with Israel (bolstered by nearly $2 billion of aid per year) is not matched by any sort of influence with the parties that oppose peace: Hamas, Hezbolah, or Iran. Even those who may make a peace settlement, namely Syria and Fatah, may be unable or unwilling to impose peace upon the jihadists in their midst.

The worst-case scenario is that a peace settlement results in Hezbollah on the Golan and Hamas (or Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade) in power on the West Bank. I yearn for a negotiated settlement, but unlike Mr Bush, I am not so confident that peace is at hand.
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(1) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 18, page 12A.

Landslide for Assad

Syrian voters have re-elected President Bashar Assad with an astounding 97.62 percent of the vote. No "hanging-chad" recount needed in Damascus! Since Assad was unopposed, voters could only vote Yes or No on retaining the former ophthalmologist for another seven-year term. Even without a contest, Syria reported a 95% turnout in the May 27 election, compared to about 50% in the typical US presidential balloting. Assad's approval rating easily beats that of George W Bush (about 30%) and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (about 3%).

Despite lack of any military or administrative experience, Bashar Assad was chosen President of Syria in 2000 upon the death of his father, Hafez Assad, who seized power in a military coup in 1968. Like North Korea, Syria maintains the trappings of a republic, but when the ruler dies, power passes to his son, as in a monarchy. The Assad family belongs to the minority Alawite sect, which dominates Syrian military and internal security forces. On the surface, support for the Assads appears virtually unanimous, but I suspect that below this calm surface lies a seething cauldron of dissatisfaction suppressed by fear of the state security forces.

President Assad has kept his country independent and at peace since taking office, but he faces an unfriendly international environment. Here is the rundown:

Lebanon: The Syrian army withdrew from Lebanon in 2005 under heavy international pressure after the assassination of former Lebanese Primier Rafik Harriri. The UN is continuing to investigate charges of Syrian responsibility for the murder, and Assad has refused to co-operate. Syria continues to arm and support the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon and is believed to have numerous civilian spies and operatives in the country.

Israel: The loss of the Golan Heights (about one percent of Syria's land) to Israel in the 1967 Six Day War is an ongoing humiliation to Damascus. Syria fought to regain the territory in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, but lost again. Of the countries that fought Israel in 1967, Syria is the only one that maintains a state of belligerency toward the Jewish state. Despite reports of informal talks between Syrian and Israeli officials early this year, no public negotiations have taken place.
Some Israelis have claimed that Syria's acquisition of new long-range missiles is a sign that Damascus is planning another war, but I doubt that Bashar Assad is that stupid or reckless. Hafez Assad avoided war with Israeli forces in Lebanon in the early 1980's, even when the Israelis were only a few kilometers from Syrian positions in the Bekaa Valley. My prediction is that Assad II will follow his father's cautious policy, even while fomenting a proxy war via Hezbollah.

United States: Although Syria is properly included on the US list of countries that support terrorism, Damascus is helping US efforts against Al Qaida. (1) In fact, the US has extradited some suspected terrorists to Syria, where they have been tortured into co-operating. Terrorists and insurgents have been entering western Iraq from Syria, but Syria denies allowing them to do so. Assad must be concerned that factional fighting in Iraq could spill over the border into his country, possibly destabilizing his regime.
A few years ago it seemed likely that President Bush would target Syria for regime-change, perhaps using Iraq as a base. The ongoing debacle in Iraq, increasingly unpopular in Congress, makes this very, very improbable today.
Meanwhile, President Assad has been a charming host to visiting Americans, such as Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Darrel Issa (R-CA). He also gave NBC News reporter Diane Sawyer an hour-long exclusive interview. Diplomatic contacts between Damascus and Washington about Iraq have been reported .
It appears that Assad is trying hard to keep the US happy, while maintaining his standing among Arab hard-liners by supporting Hezbollah against Israel. So far, it seems to be working.

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(1) Al Qaida in Iraq has been involved in massacres of Shiites. Since Iran is a Shiite state, it is presumably pressuring Syria into taking action against Al Qaida, which has been infiltrating Iraq from Syria. Since Iran is Syria's only ally, Damascus will listen to Tehran on this.
So the US, Iran and Syria are all united against Al Qaida. The Middle East produces strange alliances.