DAMASCUS - The Arabs first heard of Jimmy
Carter when he was elected president of the United
States in November 1976. They were skeptical at
first, thinking he would pursue Middle East
policies no different from those of former
secretary of state Henry Kissinger, which were
very sympathetic to Israel.
Making things
more worrying was that Carter confessed that prior
to his election, he had never met an Arab. The new
president, however, promised to be different from
previous American leaders. From day one, he made
it loud and clear that he did not see the world
through the narrow alliances of the Cold War; the
world was not "you are either with us or with the
Soviet Union".
That is why he invited
Crown Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia, Israeli
prime minister Yitzhak
Rabin, King Hussein of Jordan, Hafez al-Assad of
Syria and Anwar Sadat of Egypt to visit him in
Washington.
All of them - with the
exception of Syria's Assad - responded promptly.
Rabin, himself a Washington insider for nine
years, was furious at the new US president. Carter
was taking Middle East initiatives without
clearing them first with Israel. Even worse, he
was promising statehood to the Palestinians and
calling for an end to Syrian-US tension.
Unlike what many Arabs believed, he was
never anti-Israeli but believed that just like the
Israelis, the Arabs had the right to live and
hope. They too suffered. They too existed and
feared. They had legitimate interests, he claimed,
that needed to be respected to bring peace to the
Holy Land. These views were shared by his new
secretary of state, Cyrus Vance, and national
security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski.
This
year, Brzezinski (who is now a foreign policy
advisor to Democratic presidential challenger
Barack Obama) visited Damascus and met Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad. He then visited one of
the private universities in Syria and spoke to
students of the Faculty of International
Relations. Most of them asked questions about the
Carter era. They wanted to know why was it that
America's number one ally in the region, Shah Reza
Pahlavi of Iran, had been toppled by the Islamic
revolution of 1979, despite assurances of support
from the Carter White House?
They asked
him about the arming and training of jihadis to
fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in December 1979.
They asked him what could be expected in Syrian-US
relations if Obama made it to the White House?
That visit was frowned on by decision-makers in
Washington, who accused Brzezinski of visiting a
nation "that disrupts regional peace and supports
international terrorism".
The
psychological shock of seeing Brzezinski in
Damascus was nothing, however, compared with what
happened when Carter landed in the Syrian capital
on April 18 to meet not only Assad but also Khaled
Meshaal, the head of the political bureau of
Hamas, a Palestinian military group that the US
brands a "terrorist organization".
The
Carter Center explained the trip, saying it aimed
to "support and provide momentum for current
efforts to secure peace in the Middle East".
Carter said, "I feel quiet at ease in doing this.
I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that if
Israel is ever going to find peace with justice
concerning the relationship with their next door
neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have
to be included in the process."
Carter's
Middle East tour had three main objectives: 1)
Ending hostilities between Hamas and Israel,
either through a peace deal or a truce. This would
build on an earlier offer made by Hamas founder
Ahmad Yassin for a truce (hudna in Arabic)
with the Israelis. 2) The release of Corporal
Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held in Hamas
captivity since 2006. 3) The release of
Palestinians from Israeli jails. On another level,
the trip aims at finding common ground, and
improving relations, between Syria and the United
States.
It has been over 15 years since
Carter last visited Damascus as a private citizen,
during the era of former president Hafez al-Assad.
Before that, when Assad turned down the Washington
invitation, the two men had met in neutral Geneva
at the Intercontinental Hotel on May 9, 1977. That
seven-hour meeting was opened with a one-hour
speech by the Syrian president, on reaching peace
in the Middle East, to which Carter nodded and
attentively took notes. At the press conference,
Carter reaffirmed his support for a Palestinian
homeland, and praised cooperation with Syria.
In his book Peace Not Apartheid,
Carter wrote:
When I became president, one of my
primary roles was to persuade Syrian President
Hafez al-Assad to ... cooperate with me on a
comprehensive peace effort. Former secretary of
state Henry Kissinger and others who knew Assad
had described him to me as very intelligent,
eloquent and frank in discussing the most
sensitive issues. I invited the Syrian leader to
come and visit me in Washington, but he replied
that he had no desire ever to visit the United
States. Despite this firm but polite rebuff, I
learned what I could about him and his nation
before meeting him.
The two men last
met at the funeral of King Hussein of Jordan in
1999.
Generations of Syrians grew up
hearing good things about Carter; they remembered
him as an honest US president - although his
signature graced the much-loathed Camp David
accords between Egypt's Sadat and Israel, in 1978.
Needless to say, they were thrilled that
he decided to visit Syria in 2008, despite all the
high-alert warnings he received from both the
White House and the US Department of State. Carter
had tried to visit Syria in 2005, but relations
had soured between Syria and Washington, and he
was advised not to but then-national security
advisor Condoleezza Rice. He explained, "I made a
visit to the Middle East early in 2005 and planned
to visit the young Syrian president in Damascus.
As usual, I notified the White House well in
advance of my itinerary and immediately received a
call from the national security advisor, who
informed me that I would not receive approval for
this portion of my trip.
"I tried to
explain that I would be glad to use my influence
to resolve any outstanding problems. In a somewhat
heated conversation, I also expressed my view that
refusing to communicate with leaders with whom we
disagreed was counterproductive. Despite this
effort to embarrass and weaken Bashar al-Assad, he
has survived ... When an international effort is
launched to end the current conflict between
Israel and Lebanon, Syria may once again play a
major role."
Carter believes the time has
come to re-engage the Syrians and to talk to
Hamas. Speaking from Jerusalem on April 21, he
said Hamas was willing to accept Israel and live
as a neighbor "next door in peace". After meeting
with Meshaal, he also heard that Hamas was no
longer going to try to undermine current
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and his efforts
to reach peace with Israel.
Earlier, they
had seized power from Abbas in Gaza and harangued
the Palestinian leader for taking part in the
Annapolis peace conference in the US last year.
This stance - delivered to the US leader from
Damascus - had Syria's fingerprints all over it.
These were important extractions from the Islamic
group, which earlier refused to negotiate any
peace with Israel or recognize its right to exist.
The charter of Hamas calls for the
destruction of the state of Israel, something that
it refused to amend when elected to power in 2006.
While Hamas was saying all that to the aged US
president, Israel launched a series of attacks
over the weekend, killing seven Hamas guerillas,
after two jeeps packed with explosives were
detonated at a border crossing in Gaza.
Why now? Why has Carter decided
to brush aside all official warnings and go to
Damascus, whereas he had received similar requests
to refrain from making the trip in 2005? A logical
answer would be that Carter went to Syria to
listen, take notes and convey his findings (as a
private citizen) to think-tanks and
decision-makers in Washington.
Nobody
asked him to do so; he is doing it at his own
will, hoping it might bring about a breakthrough
in Palestinian-Israeli talks. Carter realizes this
is close to impossible in what remains of
President George W Bush's term at the White House.
This tour is aimed at whomever comes next, Obama,
Hillary Clinton or John McCain.
Additionally, Carter is also worried about
the prospects of a new war in the region, either
between Syria and Israel, Hamas and Israel
(already taking place), or Israel and Hezbollah in
Lebanon. Tension is rising on the Syrian-Israeli
border after the Israelis carried out their
largest military maneuver since 1948 on their
border with Syria in April.
Many in
Washington and Tel Aviv are convinced the only way
to get Syria to change course and distance itself
from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas is to bomb it.
While it prepares on the border with Syria,
Israeli officials come out with assuring
statements, saying that they don't want war with
the Syrians.
This was repeated by
President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert, who went further in July 2007 and
addressed the Syrian leader in an interview on the
Saudi channel al-Arabiyya, saying: "You know that
I am ready for direct talks with you ... I am
ready to sit and talk about peace, not war."
Other Israelis, such as then-deputy chief
of staff Major-General Moshe Kaplinsky, sent other
signals, saying provocations could lead to
"miscalculations on the border". Foreign Minister
Tzipi Livni in July 2007 responded to a question
about peace with Syria with the blunt, "Absolutely
not!"
For its part, Syria says it remains
committed to peace, by abiding to United Nations
Security Council Resolution 242 (land-for-peace)
and returning to the June 4, 1967, line with
Israel. The September 2007 Israeli air intrusion
into Syria and the latest maneuvers of the Israeli
Defense Force have alarmed the Syrians. This week,
while speaking to a gathering of Arab
intellectuals, Assad said, "While war is not a
preferable option, if Israel declares war on Syria
and Lebanon or if America declares war on Iran,
Syria would be prepared."
Each side
accuses the other side of not being interested in
peace. This is what Carter heard both from Assad
and Olmert. But both sides are prepared should
something go wrong or a "miscalculation" take
place on the border.
Will Carter's
diplomacy result in any breakthrough? Apart from
symbolic moral lifting to the Syrians and Hamas -
and headache for Carter himself - the visit will
not produce any tangible results, neither on the
Syrian nor on the Palestinian track, because at
this stage neither the Americans nor the Israelis
are ready. Carter is yet to write or convey his
impressions of the Middle East, over 30 years
after his election as president of the United
States.
Not much has changed. Syria was at
odds with Egypt in 1976. It still is. Then, it was
over Egypt's walkout on the Syrians in the October
war of 1973 and its attendance of Kissinger's
famed Geneva conference. Now its over Lebanon and
Egypt's no-show at the latest Arab conference in
Damascus.
Lebanon was in the early months
of its civil war. It looks dangerously close to
another today, with no president and a sharp
divide between political parties. The Syrians
don't trust the Americans for what they did to the
Arab world after 1973. Kissinger had distanced
Syria from both Iraq and Egypt. The honeymoon with
Cairo was disrupted when Kissinger got Sadat to go
to Geneva without the Syrians. He then turned to
Iraq and encouraged the Kurds to riot against the
central government to divert its attention and
drain its strength, so that it did not venture
into any new Middle East adventure, such as coming
to the aid of Syria.
Whereas today, the
Bush White House has distanced Syria from Iraq,
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. In 1976, there was
still a Soviet Union to keep relative control on
US actions in the Arab world. The US is now free
to act as it pleases. Back then, the US had a
friendly neighbor in Tehran. It now has President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Then, the US was not occupying
Iraq and sharing a 605-kilometer border with
Syria. More importantly, then Carter had power to
make things happen.
He was the sitting
39th president; a man with vision, authority and
character. He is now a private citizen, old and
ailing, whose views are not so well received at
the White House. And unless a Democrat makes it in
the US elections, Carter will remain persona non
grata both at the White House and State Department
from 2009 onwards. By the next time elections come
around and possibly bring about a Democratic
president, it would be 2013. Carter would be 89.
So if the current visit were to result in
any breakthrough, it needs to be done in the next
administration, not this one. In 1980, the
ex-president issued his famous Carter Doctrine, in
response to the December 1979 Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. He stated the US would use military
force if needed to defend its national interests
in the Persian Gulf. This was after the Truman
Doctrine, saying the US would send aid to
countries threatened by communism. Then came the
Eisenhower Doctrine for the containment of
communism in the Arab world. Finally there was the
Nixon Doctrine, providing military aid to Iran and
Saudi Arabia. Carter no longer has the
authority to issue doctrines. But regardless, his
breath is one of fresh air for the Syrians.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian
political analyst.
(Copyright 2008
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