The Dud Behind Syria's Alleged Back-Channel Negotiations With Washington

Syria is among those last few remaining nations (North Korea and Iran are a couple of others) that still act as if the cold war never ended. It merely did a costume change, with the likes of Syria, Iran and North Korea picking up the mantle the Soviet Union so ingloriously shed in 1989. Those three countries like their enmities sharp and undiluted by the taint of compromise. And they like their enmity focused. The target is either the United States or Israel, or both.

There's a reason for the simplified belligerence. All three regimes are, like the Soviet Union of the 1970s and 1980s, bankrupt, illegitimate, regressive and, to the people under their boots, stupefying. (The same can be said, obviously, of almost every Arab and North African nation from Morocco to the shores of the Tigris, with all those nations being American allies, though the repression is slightly more subtle, and economic liberalism a bit more pronounced, thus giving the masses at least a chance to pretend that things may be getting better.) One of the only ways to keep up the pretense of power is to do so under the guise of nationalism, in Syria's case, theocratic purity, in Iran's case, or ideological purity in North Korea (keeping in mind that the purity at stake is about as pure as the ground beneath Love Canal in the late 1970s or, if you prefer, as pure as Leonid Brezhnev's arteries around the same time).

In sum, those three amigos of repression and regression need the United States and (or) Israel. If those two nations hadn't existed, Syria, North Korea and Iran would have had to invent them. It's not that without them the three nations themselves wouldn't exist. But it's just as certain that, in Syria's case, without Israel, the Syrian regime would certainly collapse, just as without the United States and Israel to divert masses of discontent toward, the Iranian regime would collapse. Making peace between Israel and Syria is not the issue. Making peace and staying in power is. On both sides, by the way: the Benjamin Netanyahu regime is just as dependent on belligerence toward Arabs and Iranians. But at least in Israel proper, the voting booth still works.

So it was surprising to read in a Kuwaiti newspaper today that Syria may be rethinking its trusty hatreds. "The United States has been in secret contact with Syrian officials in the hopes of realizing a comprehensive Israel-Syrian peace treaty, the Kuwaiti al-Rai newspaper reported Saturday." That's according to Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper. "The past few weeks had witnessed an 'unprecedented Syrian cooperation' in the peace process, prompting Washington to talk with Syrian officials to reach a peace agreement between Syria and Israel, informed sources told al-Rai."

But then there's this: "Sources said that Obama adviser Dennis Ross told the U.S. administration that he found 'Syria ready to move away from Iran and reduce relations with Hezbollah and Hamas, and work with the United States in the fight against terrorism.'"

I say but, because wherever Dennis Ross' voice prints are, so are red flags. At least when the possibility of peace is at stake. Dennis Ross is not a disinterested diplomat like, say, James Baker III. He's more of a Kissinger type, running everything by Israel first to see if the thinking fits, then presenting those moves to the Arab side. He's not the sort of diplomat Arabs instinctively trust, primarily because they know his frame of reference is Aipac, the Likudist pro-Israel lobby, His record is abysmal: he was the lead negotiator for both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations' efforts, if you can call them that, in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Yet Barack President Obama, in one of his many astoundingly obtuse appointments, chose Ross to do it all over again, as if the Clinton and Bush fiascos were mere mulligans.

What all this tells me is that it's more likely that Ross is firing up trial balloons and watching to see how the Syrians will react as opposed to this being a genuine Syrian overture for peace. Because in reality what has changed on the Syrian side in the last couple of years? Nothing. There's been no incentive to move away from Iran other than Obama's speeches. The only difference is Lebanon: just as James Baker gave Lebanon to Syria in 1991, in exchange for Syria joining forces on the American side in Operation Desert Storm, Ross may--just may--be borrowing a page from Baker's book in this case and letting Lebanon be the sacrificial lamb again, if Syria were to sign on the dotted line. Syria was forced to exit Lebanon in 2005, after a 29-year occupation, following its rather obvious complicity in the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

It would work like this: The United States would implicitly endorse a return of Syria's overt influence, if not quasi power grab, over Lebanon, in exchange for Syria abandoning its alliance with Iran (and therefore its protective and arms-supplying role with Hezbollah) and imposing its hegemony again over most or all of Lebanon. The Obama administration would un-turban two beards with one shot: Iran would be significantly more isolated, and Hezbollah would be emasculated. Plus, Syria would sign a peace treaty with Israel and get its Golan Heights back.

If it sounds too symmetrical, too calculated, that's because it is. It also sounds exactly like the sort of deal the State Department would work out, lost in Foggy Bottom's assumptions that all those neat tricks can be pulled off just by lining up toe dominoes the right way. It's also reflective of the old American attitude that the agenda can be set in Washington, and that smaller powers (Hezbollah, the Palestinians, the Lebanese) will simply walk in lockstep to whatever the greater powers impose. That hasn't been the case for almost a century of American involvement in the Middle East. It'[s not about to change. What's beyond belief is that the Obama administration would still be playing these games. Assuming, that is, that Ross is at the controls. But why wouldn't he be? No one else is from the American side. Hillary Clinton is MIA again, Obama appeears himself emasculated in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, poor Richard Holbrooke is dead, so by process of elimination, Dennis Ross has arisen again.

Lazarus, take cover.

See Also:

• Syria: Country Profile
• What Is Shebaa Farms?
• Israel and Syria Talk Peace for First Time Since 2000
• Syria Slams the Door