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2 Damascus moves to center
stage By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - Fifty years ago, alarmed that
Syria was becoming dangerously close to the Soviet
Union, US president Dwight Eisenhower authorized a
series of operations aimed at isolating, weakening
and eventually overthrowing the regime of
president Shukri al-Quwatli.
The Central
Intelligence Agency tried to pull off two coups in
Damascus. Both of them failed. The US then pursued
a policy of
funding the Syrian
opposition. US intelligence reports on Syria
during the years 1956-58 are hauntingly similar to
press reports coming out of Washington in 2005-07
- only the word "Soviet" is replaced by "Iranian".
When its efforts failed, the Eisenhower
administration called on Syria's neighbors to
isolate it and, if possible, change its
government, claiming that they would support any
anti-Syrian activity under the United Nations
umbrella of "self-defense". Syria, as far as the
US was concerned, was "threatening the stability"
of the Arab neighborhood.
At the time, the
man to obstruct the US campaign against Syria was
King Saud of Saudi Arabia. The monarch went to
Damascus, embraced president Quwatli (who was an
old family friend of the House of Saud) and said
that destabilizing Syria was an option that simply
did not exist.
Instead, said Saud, Syria
should be embraced and welcomed into the Arab
community. Only that, he said, would weaken its
reliance on the Soviet Union. When visiting the US
shortly afterward, many senior officials said they
refused to meet with Saud, shedding doubt on his
friendship with the United States. That scenario
looks strikingly similar to the one of today.
The administration US President George W
Bush has authorized a series of operations aimed
at weakening, and eventually toppling the Syrian
regime. The Soviet threat is now an Iranian
threat, with the US afraid that Syria is becoming
dangerously too close to the mullahs of Tehran.
This time another monarch - Saud's brother King
Abdullah - has stood up in favor of Syria. He too
has declared that isolating Damascus is no longer
an option, and welcomed President Bashar al-Assad
(also a family friend of the House of Saud) with
festivity at the latest Arab summit in Riyadh.
Only that, Abdullah believes, will
decrease Syria's dependence on the Iranians. This
time it was he who snubbed the Americans, refusing
to attend a reception in Washington and referring
to the occupation of Iraq as "illegal". Isolating
Syria, King Abdullah said, is no longer an option.
The Saudi king is at the apex of his
career, enjoying streetwide support in the Arab
world as in no time before. Time magazine recently
said he is one of the most influential people in
the world. Bringing the Palestinians together this
year in Mecca, challenging the Americans in Iraq
and embracing the Syrians in Riyadh, King Abdullah
certainly is using his political weight to get
things done in the Middle East. And it is working.
In 2006, veteran American journalist
Seymour Hersh wrote an article for The New Yorker
saying that Saudi Arabia was involved in secret
talks with Israel aimed at bringing down the
Iranian regime. The article, apparently, was not
100% correct. It was the Saudi national security
adviser, Bandar bin Sultan, and the not the
kingdom itself, who was involved in the new US
approach toward Tehran. Bandar, alarmed at Iran's
increased influence in the Arab world and its
support for Iraqi Shi'ites against their Sunni
counterparts, wanted to bring the threat to a halt
once and for all.
King Abdullah, who is a
traditional ally of the Americans, apparently
vetoed Bandar's proposal for a Saudi-Israeli
meeting to discuss Iran. Bandar promised the
Americans to open talks under the umbrella of the
Abdullah plan, which was adopted by the Arab
League twice, in 2002 and 2007, calling for
collective peace between Arabs and Israel.
Former US ambassador to Tel Aviv Martin
Indyk wrote an article for the Washington Post
saying that Bandar wanted a "peace conference at
which the Saudi foreign minister would announce
this plan, with Israeli Prime Minister Edud Olmert
in attendance. But Abdullah wasn't buying it." The
article added that the Saudi king, angered at an
attempt to dictate foreign policy on him through
Prince Bandar, "wouldn't be doing Washington any
more favors". It also said Washington made a big
mistake in relying on Bandar, who is a friend of
the Bush family, because it was Abdullah, rather
than the former ambassador, who was calling the
shots in Riyadh. And "the king's world view
differs from Bandar's".
Bandar and King
Abdullah are both alarmed by the so-called
"Shi'itification" in the Arab region and the
growing strength of Iran, especially in Iraq,
where Saudi Arabia has been the traditional patron
of the country's Sunnis. While Bandar prefers
confrontation with Iran, aimed at curbing its
power, King Abdullah favors engagement to get the
Iranian regime to change its behavior, with as
much silent diplomacy and minimal damage as
possible.
British journalist Patrick
Seale, in an article on May 3, said a security
deal should be made between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis would use their influence to prevent
any Persian Gulf state from letting the Americans
use their bases to attack Iran and, in return,
Iran would stop meddling in Iraqi politics and
supporting Shi'ite militias against the Sunni
community.
Here is where Syria comes into
play. The Syrians can be used to moderate Iranian
behavior. That's what King Saud thought in 1957
with regard to the radical pan-Arab policies of
Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser, who was a
Soviet ally in the Arab world. Damascus could
"moderate" Nasser, it was believed. King Abdullah
noted Syria's performance during the hostage
crisis of 15 British sailors and marines in Iran,
and the fact that Assad intervened with his
Iranian counterpart, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, to secure
their release.
This is how King Abdullah
thinks problems should be solved. He has also
realized that using Lebanon to isolate Syria was a
strategic mistake. While he remains committed to
the Hariri family and the international tribunal
investigating the assassination of former Lebanese
prime minister Rafik Hariri, he is becoming
increasingly critical of the March 14 Coalition in
Lebanon that is headed by Hariri's son Saad.
The March 14 Coalition recently called for
resorting to Chapter VII of the United Nations
Charter to impose the tribunal on Lebanon through
the Security Council. The Hezbollah-led
opposition, which is backed by Syria and Iran,
does not reject the tribunal in
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