Page 2 of 2 Damascus moves to
center
stage By Sami Moubayed
principle and nor does Syria, but
is opposed to the current draft of the tribunal,
based on the grounds that the text is ambiguous on
a time frame over which the tribunal will have
jurisdiction.
The cabinet of Lebanese
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and its international
backers in Washington and France want the tribunal
to have jurisdiction not only on the Hariri
affair, but also on other
political assassinations and
crimes (such as the bombing of the US marines in
Beirut in 1983). The opposition, however, want it
to include guarantees of non-politicization, and
to be limited to the 2005 murder of Hariri.
They claim that the current cabinet,
deprived of its opposition deputies, cannot sign
off on the current draft of the tribunal. If the
bid under Chapter VII passes, which King Abdullah
opposes, this would mean that the tribunal becomes
obligatory to states (such as Syria) and
individuals (such as senior members of Hezbollah).
By virtue of its obligatory nature under Article
VII, any non-compliance to the tribunal's verdicts
would invite compulsory enforcement - even
possibly by military means.
This explains
why at the Arab summit, King Abdullah stood at
arm's length from Siniora and invited Lebanese
President Emile Lahoud to attend. The Lebanese
issue received minimal attention in Riyadh. King
Abdullah was sending the Lebanese a message that
the anti-Syrian approach was no longer going to
work for Saudi Arabia - at least not in its
present form.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud
al-Faisal declared that the Lebanese had to solve
their problems among themselves, without expecting
help from anybody. The Saudis declared that Syria
would no longer be isolated from its Arab
neighborhood, agreeing to hold the next Arab
summit in Damascus, thereby giving much homage to
the Syrians.
King Abdullah realizes that
the March 14 Coalition has its own agenda, which
sometimes contradicts with the Saudi one, and
believes it is too pro-American. While the Saudis
would like to see their Lebanese friends in a
strong position with regard to Iran and Hezbollah,
they nevertheless do not wish to go full-board and
change the entire rules of the game in the Middle
East.
The March 14 Coalition has, contrary
to Saudi desires and stated wishes, escalated the
situation to reach a complete deadlock to justify
imposing the tribunal under Article VII. Siniora
has refused to step down, and refused to cooperate
with Hezbollah on an expanded government. Going by
Article VII means a de facto internationalization
of the Lebanese conflict at a time when King
Abdullah is trying to localize it.
When
violence erupted in Beirut, the Saudis were
furious that their allies emerged with arms and
used them against Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic
Movement of General Michel Aoun. They do not want
chaos in Beirut. Too much is at stake for the
Saudis, in terms of political and economic
investment, to accept that, and this explains why
they hurried to calm the situation with Iran.
The Saudis are also not pleased at March
14's attitude toward the upcoming Lebanese
president, who is expected to take office when
Lahoud's term expires in November. The Lebanese
constitution states that two-thirds are needed to
elect a new president, without specifying whether
this means two-thirds of the assembled deputies at
the voting session or two-thirds of the entire
128-seat Parliament.
March 14 claims that
it can vote for a new president with its 70
deputies. The Hezbollah-led opposition says 70
votes do not secure a two-thirds majority,
insisting that the constitution calls for
two-thirds of Parliament, and not of the voting
session. They are saying that if March 14 goes
ahead and votes for its own candidate with 70
deputies, then they can also vote for another
president with their 57 candidates, leaving
Lebanon with two presidents, something that could
further ignite sectarian violence and chaos.
The Saudis believe that along with Syria,
they can calm the situation not only in Lebanon
but in Iraq as well. The Sunni street in Baghdad
is divided between Syria and Saudi Arabia. As long
as the two countries remain divided over Lebanon,
then the problems in Iraq will continue, because
the Sunni community will also remain divided.
Now that the source of friction - Lebanon
- has been defused, Riyadh believes that much can
be done within Iraq to help stabilize the war-torn
country, especially with the Iraqi Sunnis leading
the insurgency and having no real leader to follow
or inspire them.
Saudi Arabia has control
of the tribes and Syria has control over former
Ba'athists and prominent Sunni community leaders.
Combined, they could produce results when it comes
to the insurgency, or the stability of Iraq.
Saudi Arabia realizes that Syria does not
have an identical agenda when it comes to Iran.
Syria is not in favor of creating a theocracy, nor
does it support an autonomous Shi'ite district in
southern Iraq, as called for by Iran's No 1 ally
in Baghdad, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
While Saudi Arabia abhors Shi'ite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr, Syria has relations with him and
can put them into use into moderating his
behavior, along with that of his patron and boss,
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. If the Syrians and
Saudis sit together and brainstorm, they can come
up with creative ways to change things in Iraq.
This naturally would please the United States,
which is becoming more and more in need of help in
Baghdad.
Sharm al-Sheikh Last
week's meeting at the Sharm al-Sheikh resort in
Egypt to discuss Iraq was a turning point in
Syrian-US relations, described by Saudi Foreign
Minister Saud al-Faisal as "a new thing that we
welcome".
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid
al-Moualem met with US Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice last Thursday. It was the first
encounter of a US and a Syrian foreign minister
since Colin Powell went to Damascus in 2003, and
Rice's first encounter with the Syrians since the
Bush team came into office in 2001.
Moualem said the 30-minute meeting was
"frank and constructive"; Rice proposed that the
Americans join the Syrian-Iraqi security
committees that have been at work on border
security since 2003. Moualem agreed, stressing,
however, the need to strengthen political and
diplomatic ties between Damascus and Washington,
and in restoring a US ambassador to Syria.
His tone echoed that of Rice on several
issues, mainly, implementing Maliki's Baghdad
security plan, disarming the militias, amending
the constitution, and revisiting the
de-Ba'athification laws.
Syria proposed a
timetable for withdrawal of US troops, but only
Iran supported this suggestion, and the final
resolution of the conference came out instead with
a vague statement saying that withdrawal is
conditional on the training of Iraqi troops.
At her press conference, Rice steered
clear of any anti-Syrian rhetoric, stressing that
the US still has diplomatic ties with Damascus.
All press reports confirm that the issue of
Lebanon, which aggravates Syrian-US relations at
this stage, was not raised by Moualem and Rice.
Last month, the Speaker of the US House of
Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, was in Damascus,
ostensibly enraging the Bush White House, which
insisted that her visit did not reflect the United
States' official stance toward Syria.
She
said that the "road to Damascus is the road of
peace". In March, European Union foreign-policy
chief Javier Solana went to Syria, embraced the
Syrians and offered a set of incentives to bring
Damascus back into the international community, on
the condition that it cooperates with Europe on
Lebanon. Many diplomats and people in the Arab
world laugh when the international tribunal is
mentioned, saying that it most certainly will -
when created - be hollowed out from any
anti-Syrian material.
Interestingly, there
is a lot of talk in Damascus that US presidential
candidate Senator Hillary Clinton will be stopping
by in Syria. This speculation was heightened when
Clinton defended Pelosi's visit to Syria in a
radio interview. Clinton said the Speaker had done
"the right thing", adding, "We have to engage
these countries."
Bush, however, said
meetings like those of Solana and Pelosi simply
"do not work" because they have been tried in the
past by US officials. Yet last week it was not the
Democrat Pelosi meeting with Assad, it was none
other than Rice meeting with Syria's minister of
foreign affairs.
And Rice means Bush.
Something must have changed in Damascus - and
Washington. The answers can be found in Baghdad,
and almost equally in Riyadh. The more Syria can
offer in Iraq - and cooperate with Saudi Arabia -
the more its isolation will come to a grinding
halt.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian
political analyst.
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