Page 2 of 2 Syria exploits US loopholes
By Sami Moubayed
materialize they need the guarantees and sponsorship of the US. That is not
going to happen while Bush is in the White House.
What both parties fear is that the talks in Ankara are going well; too well, in
fact, so that a treaty is possible before the end of 2008. With no American
support, it would become a shelf agreement, set aside until after Bush leaves
at the beginning of next year.
Between now and then, anything can happen in the Middle East as non-state
players may work hard at changing the mood in either Israel or Syria to drown
the peace treaty. The process
might take a little longer even than January since any new president needs up
to 10 months to get his administration in order and fill all posts in the
executive branch. The Syrians aren't suffering if peace is not signed; it is
Israel that suffers.
The Israelis are eager to end the conflict, since they believe peace with the
Syrians also means peace with Lebanon, and a curbing of the power of Hamas.
Alon Ben Meir, a professor of international relations at New York University,
wrote, "Israel will have to return the Golan Heights [to Syria] whether it is
now or in five, 10 or even 100 years. The Golan will have to be returned if
Israel wants to live in peace. Why not negotiate now and appreciably reduce
Israel's security concerns with its two northern neighbors and free itself to
focus on the threat of Iran?"
Even if Olmert leaves office in September as he has promised, under charges of
corruption, his successors are hurrying to uphold the Syrian track, showing
just how strongly the mood has changed in Israel. Prime minister-hopeful Shaul
Mofaz (current deputy premier), said, "My opinion and my goal will be to
continue to speak to the Syrians without preconditions. The way is, peace for
peace."
The decision would need approval from the Knesset (parliament), however, and a
referendum. Mofaz, who while serving as head of the armed forces during the
Palestinian uprising of 2000, ruthlessly crushed the Palestinians, seemed to
soften last week, saying, "As a father who has three children in the military,
I want peace for them."
Loophole 4: Lebanon
At first glance, Syria's exodus from Lebanon in 2005 was a humiliation for
Damascus. A better look shows that it was a blessing in disguise for the
Syrians. Although corruption still exists, it helped end major corruption,
carried out for years by Syrians and Lebanese, thanks to Syria's position in
Beirut.
That is, the exodus helped accelerate Syrian reforms; if the Syrians no longer
had Lebanon, then the government had to provide domestic alternatives to
pleasure, business, banking, education, commerce and medication. Banks have
mushroomed all over Syria. So have private universities. Syrians fearing to
send their children to the US after September 11, 2001, and who saw Lebanon as
increasingly unstable and dangerous because of the anti-Syrian rhetoric of the
ruling March 14 coalition, sent their children to Syrian schools (a total of
eight have opened since 2005).
Nightclubs, insurance companies, shopping malls and hotels have all made Syria
an increasingly attractive market for investment and tourism, at the expense of
none other than Lebanon. These reforms created jobs, and circulated more money
in the Syrian market, thereby endearing Assad to a larger percentage of the
population, which is young and still searching for jobs and various ways to
improve professionally.
Harsh critics of Syria have just recently began to change course in their
rhetoric. They realize that nothing can be done in Lebanon without the help of
Syria. This was especially true when Syria's proxies in Lebanon scored a
thundering victory in May over the Saudi-backed pro-US March 14 coalition.
Although the price was 82 dead on the streets of Beirut - a high price indeed
for the Lebanese - it nevertheless produced the Doha agreement, which has
restored a certain degree of normalcy to Lebanon. But that agreement seemed to
be tailor-made for the Syrians. They got all that they had been asking for.
Hezbollah's arms were not discussed and the Hezbollah-led opposition got a
greater amount of seats - and veto power - in the new Lebanese cabinet.
Pro-Syrian figures were brought back to government and Michel Suleiman, a
pro-Syrian general, was made president, rather than the formerly anti-Syrian
Michel Aoun, or candidates from March 14. One of the Lebanese leaders who
realized that Syria was getting the upper hand after May was Walid Jumblatt.
In late July, he gave a interview to Lebanese TV, admitting, "We forgot Hariri
and focused on taking revenge under the slogan of justice, and this sequestered
the March 14 group into an isolationist position. That was a fatal mistake." He
added, "We fiercely attacked the Syrian regime and forgot our Arab discourse,"
claiming, "A divorce is impossible, and we met in Doha."
He also said he had gone to Washington and asked Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice to help topple the Syrian regime. When she said it was behavior change,
rather than regime change, that was on America's mind, he backed out, claiming
it became clear that a stand-off with Syria was not in Lebanon's best
interests, since the Assad administration in Damascus was not - as he had
wished for in 2005 - beginning its long march into history.
Jumblatt also reportedly met the recently liberated from Israel Druze leader
Samir Qantar and said, "There is no protection for us [the Druze], and neither
honor nor future, away from Damascus. Here you are and here is [my son]
Taymour. You both represent the future of the [Druze] mountain and that of the
Druze in the region. You both can mend what happened. All men make mistakes."
One of the finest comments about the new mood in Damascus - thanks to the
American loopholes - was made on Syriacomment, a website run by Syrian
specialist Joshua Landis of Oklahoma University. A Syrian reader who lived
abroad and had just returned for the summer holidays in Syria, wrote:
I
found people going about their daily lives as they did before, but this time
with a strong sense of Syrian pride of standing together and surviving the
storm that was hatched in the dark alleys of the White House. The feeling was
that the whole world conspired against them and the Syrians finally won; and
the lines at the foreign embassies for Syrian visa seekers have, all of the
sudden, disappeared. Syrians are now very happy to have their country still in
one piece, prosperous (in relative terms) dignified, and the envy of their
neighbors.
He then reported that his Syrian driver, a devote
Muslim, was naming his twin boys Ishak and Elias, a Jewish and a Christian
name, "I want to make sure that my children grow up in Syria with names that
keep reminding them of our diverse nation; this is Syria not Saudi Arabia."
That, he added, was how enthusiastic the Syrians were for peace and change.
So the US loopholes created many peace seekers among Syria's 18 million, led
Israeli radicals like Mofaz to insist on peace with Damascus, and positioned
Syria as a problem-solver in Iran, Lebanon and Iraq.
Yitzhak Rabin was right after all.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
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