DAMASCUS - A variety of signals have been
coming out of the international community proving
that the nearly three-year embargo on Syria has
finally started to crumble and come to an end.
In 2005, many thought that the days of the
Syrian regime were numbered. The Americans were
accusing Syria of conducting a weapons of mass
destruction program and harboring Saddam Hussein's
henchmen. They were saying that the Syrians were lax
about border security and
were helping jihadis cross into Iraq to fight the
Americans. They were accusing the Syrians of
assassinations in Lebanon. They lobbied the United
Nations to pass UN resolution 1559, calling on the
Syrians to withdraw from Lebanon.
The US
State Department created a "Syria De-stabilization
Unit" (according to US Undersecretary of State for
Political Affairs R Nicolas Burns), charged with
weakening the Syrian currency, "whispering" to
international banks that they should not do
business with Syria, blocking Syrian attempts to
promote trade and economic relations with foreign
parties, bolstering opposition groups, dissuading
tourists from going to Syria, orchestrating
propaganda warfare, and preventing Syria from
acquiring spare parts for its Boeing fleet.
But all the talk about regime collapse has
proved to be way off the mark.
Instead,
the US is now supporting army commander Michel
Suleiman's bid for the Lebanese presidency -
something that pleases the Syrians. Equally
important is Syria's invitation to the Annapolis
Middle East peace conference. When Syria insisted
that the occupied Golan Heights be included on the
conference agenda, the Americans agreed. So much
for George W Bush's December 2003 statement that
Syria was "a very weak country".
When
Faysal Miqdad, Syria's deputy foreign minister,
went to Annapolis to attend the conference he was
the first Syrian official to go to the United
States since 2003. And a Syrian official will also
be arriving in Saudi Arabia "soon", says the
London-based Saudi daily al-Hayat, signaling that
relations are improving between Damascus and
Riyadh as a result of improved Syrian-American
relations. Bilateral relations between the Syrians
and Saudis have been strained since the
assassination of Lebanon’s prime minister Rafiq
al-Harriri in February 2005.
Meanwhile,
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called his
Syrian counterpart twice over the past 10 days to
discuss the situation in Lebanon. The French have
been "satisfied" with Syria's cooperation in
Lebanon, by proxy through the Speaker of the
Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Berri. That is also a
novelty - relations had hit rock bottom during the
last two years of Jacques Chirac's presidency.
The French Foreign Ministry has invited
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem to an
international donors' conference for the
Palestinians, to be held in Paris on December 17.
The report of UN prosecutor Serge
Brammertz on the Harriri assassination came out
last week. Not only did it fail to name any Syrian
suspects (contrary to original reports in 2005)
but also praised Syria’s cooperation in the UN
probe. Simultaneously, the US Department of State
did not veto a United Nations technological grant
to Syria, to be used for sophisticated
surveillance by the Customs Department, knowing
that the equipment will be coming from Cisco
Systems. Cisco received a special export license
from the US Department of Commerce to ship
routers, switches, and high-tech equipment to
Syria.
The US has been accusing Syria of
supporting the insurgency in Iraq, destabilizing
Lebanon, and honeymooning with Iran. Why the
sudden change?
In fact, the thaw has been
under way for some time. It started with a
Syrian-US meeting at a regional conference on Iraq
back in March 2006. The Americans reasoned that in
order to achieve stability in Iraq, they had to
deal with either Syria or Iran.
Dealing
with both was too difficult for the Bush White
House, and continuing to sideline both was equally
destructive. It was easier to talk to Syria than
Iran, the Americans reasoned, since Syria was
reasonable and did not have a history of
anti-Americanism. This new perception led to a
groundbreaking encounter between Foreign Minister
Moualem and his US counterpart Condoleezza Rice.
The stances of Rice and Moualem over Iraq
seemed strikingly similar at another conference,
at Sharm al-Sheikh. Both wanted to disarm the
militias. Both were not in favor of partitioning
the country. Both wanted to modify the
de-Ba'athification laws of 2003, and both wanted
the Maliki government to reconcile with the
Sunnis.
Then came three important visits
to Syria. One was by Javier Solana, the EU chief
negotiator, who visited Syria in March 2007 and
called on the Syrians to cooperate on Lebanon in
exchange for jumpstarting talks on the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and signing a
long-pending partnership agreement between Syria
and the EU. He was followed in April by Nancy
Pelosi, the Speaker of the US House of
Representatives, and Ellen Sauerbrey, the
Assistant US Secretary of State for population,
refugees and migration.
In May, Moualem
met his British counterpart, Margaret Beckett, in
Brussels. She specifically requested that Syria
use its strong influence in Palestine to help
secure BBC reporter Alan Johnston's release.
Syria, after all, is well-connected to Hamas,
which in turn is connected to the Islamic Army
that kidnapped Johnston. Shortly afterwards,
Johnston was released, thanks to Syrian mediation.
The German Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who had canceled a trip
to Damascus minutes after a speech by President
Assad in August 2006, now showered Syria with
praise, saying that its cooperation was necessary
to resolve the numerous problems of the Middle
East. Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi also
telephoned Assad earlier this year, similarly
underlining the centrality of Syria’s role in the
region. American Colonel William Crowe, in charge
of the border area between Syria and Iraq, spoke
to reporters: "There is no large influx of foreign
fighters that come across the border."
The
Syrians made several "gestures" towards the
Americans through Iraq. They believed that
Washington was more interested in Syrian
cooperation on Baghdad than on Beirut. If they
were able to help the Americans in Iraq, then
Lebanon would be on the table for Syria.
The Syrians never imagined - at least not
since 2005 - that they would be asked to play a
military role in Lebanon. They were firmly
committed, however, to elevating their allies
(Hezbollah, Amal, and independent Sunni and
Christian politicians), at the expense of the
March 14 Coalition that is headed by Saad
al-Harriri and Prime Minister Fouad al-Siniora,
who are backed by Saudi Arabia, France, and the
United States. The Syrians were afraid that an
anti-Syrian regime in Lebanon would use its
influence in the West to promote anti-Syrian
activity. The alliance between March 14 and former
Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam was very
troubling for Damascus. The establishment of the
Harriri Tribunal under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter
- at the request of March 14 - was equally
distressing.
Thus Syria came to play ball
with the US in Iraq. The Syrians established an
embassy in Baghdad, helping to legitimize the
US-backed regime of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
in the eyes of hostile Iraqi Sunnis. By
maintaining ties to former Ba'athists and Iraqi
tribal leaders, and hosting up to 1.5 million
Iraqi refugees (mostly Sunnis), the Syrians
continued to be an influential player in Iraqi
politics, particularly in the Sunni community.
It was one thing to have pro-American
countries like Jordan and Egypt engaging
diplomatically with Maliki, but totally different
when this was done by Ba'athist Syria - a country
still committed to Arab nationalism. Syria, the
only country that has refused to bend to US
pressure and sign a flawed peace deal with Israel,
has credibility in the Arab street.
Syria
then went one step further by sending Moualem to
Baghdad and receiving Iraqi Interior Minister
Jawad al-Bulani in Damascus to discuss
Syrian-Iraqi cooperation along the 605 kilometer
border. As a result, talk about insurgents
crossing the border through Syria to fight in Iraq
has dropped dramatically in recent months.
The reasons why the dark clouds over
Damascus have lifted can be found in Lebanon and
Iran. The Syrians believe that the Americans are
interested in Iraq, the Europeans in Lebanon. By
marketing itself as a stabilizing force in both
countries, Syria got invited to Annapolis, and
positive things have been happening to Damascus
since then.
There are negative
ramifications in Lebanon, though. The March 14
Coalition feels betrayed by the US, with its
newfound policy toward Damascus. One March 14
figure has been quoted as saying: "No one is going
to remove the feeling from March 14 that we have
been dumped by the Americans." Everyone feels that
a grand under-the-table deal has been reached
between Syria and the US, which encompasses Iraq
and Lebanon.
Jeffrey Feltman, the US
Ambassador to Beirut, has refuted these claims,
saying: "There will be no US deal with the Syrians
regarding Lebanon's presidency. This is an issue
for the Lebanese alone to work out."
The
Lebanese, however, have heard that line before.
They remember only too well how the Americans went
for engagement with Syria after Operation Desert
Storm in 1991 - partly as a reward, but mainly
because they realized, after many years of tension
between Washington and Damascus, that regional
issues cannot be solved without Syria.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian
political analyst.
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