WASHINGTON - A series of meetings between United States and Syrian diplomats,
including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her counterpart, Foreign
Minister Walid Moallem, at the United Nations over the past week are stirring
speculation that Washington may at last be moving toward engaging Damascus.
Instead of focusing on specific issues of special interest to the US - mainly
Washington's demands that Syria crack down hard against the infiltration of
Sunni extremists into Iraq and stop supplying Hezbollah in Lebanon - the
discussions also reportedly covered other topics as well, notably Damascus's
appeals for Washington to involve directly itself in a burgeoning peace process
between Syria and Israel.
Both Damascus and Tel Aviv have called for US engagement as a
way of furthering year-old indirect talks that have been mediated by the
Turkish government. While Rice has publicly blessed the process, hawks within
the administration of US President George W Bush, particularly Vice President
Dick Cheney's office and a deputy national security adviser in charge of the
Middle East, Elliott Abrams, have opposed any additional involvement.
"Nothing is a breakthrough, and I'm not sure that there will be," Rice, who met
with Moallem on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York Friday,
told Bloomberg TV Monday. "But it's time to talk about some of the changes that
are taking place in the Middle East."
While the Rice-Moallem contact reportedly lasted only 10 minutes, her chief
regional deputy, Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch, met
with the Syrian official in a longer meeting Monday, according to the Wall
Street Journal, which suggested that the talks portended a "potential thaw"
between Washington and Damascus.
''I consider this a good progress in the American position," Moallem told the
Journal in a reference to his meeting with Rice. "The atmosphere was positive.
We decided to continue this dialogue."
Still, some observers voiced skepticism that the meetings signaled a major
shift in Washington's willingness to seriously engage Damascus in the nearly
four months before Bush leaves office.
"It's clearly time for a rethink of [Syria] policy, and I think Rice and others
in the administration are trying to shepherd it forward," said Joshua Landis, a
Syria specialist at the University of Oklahoma who publishes the widely read
blog ww.syriacomment.com. "Rice is definitely open to it - and the whole
Department of Defense has been kicking for this for a long time - but she can't
get it past the White House."
He noted that Bush himself had referred to Syria as a ''sponsor of terrorism''
in his speech to the General Assembly just last week.
As with Iran and North Korea, the split between administration hawks and
realists over Syria is a familiar one. While Rice's predecessor, former
secretary of state Colin Powell, argued for engaging with Damascus both before
and after the March 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the hawks - then led by Cheney
and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld - favored a policy of ''regime change''
against the government President Bashir al-Assad.
Amid charges that Syria was facilitating the smuggling of Sunni extremists into
Iraq, Washington's hostility toward Damascus grew steadily after the invasion
and climaxed after the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri which the US blamed on Syria.
The administration, which offered strong support to the subsequent "Cedar
Revolution" in Lebanon, withdrew its ambassador from Damascus as part of a much
more comprehensive effort to weaken and isolate Assad. During the month-long
war between Israel and Hezbollah the following year, Abrams, presumably with
Cheney's backing, reportedly assured Israeli policymakers that Washington would
have no objection to their expanding hostilities into Syrian territory.
Rumsfeld's resignation in November 2006 and his replacement by the more realist
Robert Gates - not to mention the stunning deterioration in Washington's
regional position resulting from the war's outcome, the routing of Fatah by
Syria-backed Hamas in Gaza, and the growing sectarian violence In Iraq - tilted
the balance of power within the administration.
Over the strenuous objections of neo-conservatives and other hawks, Rice
invited Syria to take part in last November's Annapolis Summit that launched
the formal resumption of direct talks between Israel and the Palestine
Authority (PA).
It was shortly after the meeting that Turkey began mediating indirect peace
talks between Damascus and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert, reportedly centered around the return of the Israeli-occupied Golan
Heights in exchange for Syria's agreement to normalize ties and cut its links
to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran.
While, according to virtually all accounts, those talks made major progress,
they have been suspended since early September pending the formation or
election of a new Israeli government. Olmert, who last week resigned as head of
the ruling Kadima Party due to a corruption scandal, is currently serving as a
caretaker.
In addition, Damascus has long insisted that a final peace accord could be
reached only if Washington strongly endorsed the deal and normalized ties,
something that the White House, despite the urging from the State Department
and several former senior US diplomats - including the ex-head of the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) - has so far ruled out.
Meanwhile, however, Washington's efforts to isolate Syria have eroded
significantly in recent months. Hezbollah's victory over pro-Western forces in
Beirut last spring followed by the Doha Accord that gave pro-Syrian forces
there a virtual veto over major policy decisions marked a major political
defeat for Washington's Lebanon policy.
At the same time, the replacement of French President Jacques Chirac,
Washington's closest ally in isolating Assad, with Nicolas Sarkozy dealt
another major blow.
In July, Sarkozy became the first West European leader to host Assad - at the
annual Bastille Day celebration, no less - since Hariri's death. Sarkozy
followed that up with a visit to Damascus earlier this month where he offered
to co-sponsor Israeli-Syrian peace talks when they resume. At the same time,
Assad announced several moves seemingly designed to appease Washington; among
them, sending ambassadors to both Lebanon and Iraq.
Whether the past week's meetings suggest that the balance of power within the
administration has shifted should become clearer in the coming weeks,
particularly if Washington sends an ambassador or senior-ranking official to
Damascus, as has long been urged by Syria.
According to Landis, the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, pressed
the White House last December to go there himself but was rebuffed. Now head of
US Central Command and a White House favorite, Petraeus could decide to renew
his request which, if granted, would likely be seen as evidence of serious
shift.
Saturday's car-bombing that killed some 17 people in Damascus itself could
bolster the Pentagon's longstanding case that greater intelligence cooperation
with Syria could serve the interests of both countries. Most analysts have
pointed to Sunni extremists, possibly tied to al-Qaeda, as the most likely
perpetrators.
"With its Lebanon policy a shambles and its efforts to isolate Syria defied by
France, Turkey, and Israel itself, it really doesn't make sense for the White
House to continue stiffing the Syrians," said Landis. "It's really just pure
stubbornness at this point."
Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy, and particularly the
neo-conservative influence in the Bush administration, can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
