Syria Clenches Its Fist

Early last week, nearly seven months to the day after the Barack Obama administration took office and began its careful, critical engagement with the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, rumors swirled in Washington and the Middle East that the White House was preparing to turn a new page with Damascus. The first test of this new relationship would be over the issue that caused the breakdown in U.S.-Syrian relations more than six years ago: the flow of jihadi militants from Syria to Iraq.

The Obama administration's outreach to Syria had been clear and forthright. It included six high-level visits by U.S. officials to Syria, Washington's announcement that it would return an ambassador to Damascus, a reported letter from President Obama to President Assad, and the facilitation of export licenses for aircraft parts waived under U.S. sanctions against Syria. A Centcom-led delegation visited Damascus two weeks ago and concluded a tentative agreement with Syria on a technical assessment of Iraqi-Syrian border posts. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, miffed at being left out of these promising talks, visited Damascus last week to seal the tripartite deal. The string of blasts that greeted him upon his return on Aug. 19 -- the bloodiest in more than 18 months and now claimed by an al Qaeda affiliate -- has led Baghdad to demand that Syria expel Iraqi Baathists and jihadi militants from its soil and recall its ambassador. Damascus responded in kind, effectively blowing up Washington's initiative on the launchpad.

Until last week, talks over Iraq-related regional security issues appeared to be a glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak U.S.-Syrian engagement process. Washington has quietly asked Damascus over the last seven months to use its influence to promote reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. Following the most recent visit to Damascus by U.S. Mideast envoy George Mitchell, Syria, along with Turkey and Egypt, pressed Hamas to allow Fatah members in Gaza to attend their party's conference earlier this month -- an important first step in forming a united Palestinian position. It didn't happen.

Damascus instead took credit for an alternative "breakthrough" -- Hamas' recent announcement that it would accept and respect the 1967 border between Israel and the Palestinians in return for Israel's conceding Palestinians the right of return and allowing the establishment of a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem. Unfortunately, this position falls dramatically short of the conditions of the "quartet" (comprising the United States, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations): that parties to the peace process recognize Israel without preconditions, abide by previous agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and renounce violence as a means of achieving goals. On peace talks with Israel, Damascus continues to demand that Israel commit to withdrawing from the Golan Heights to the line of June 4, 1967, and resume Turkish-sponsored indirect talks from where they left off last December. Israel, which favors direct negotiations without preconditions under U.S. auspices, has refused.

French efforts last year to coax Damascus to open an embassy in Beirut and appoint an ambassador there led many to speculate that Damascus was willing to turn a new page with its western neighbor, Lebanon. But Syria's ambassador to Beirut spends most of his time in Damascus, and statements on Lebanon are put forward by pro-Syrian Lebanese politicians such as Wiam Wahhab who, due to his role in helping Damascus call the shots in Lebanon prior to Syria's 2005 withdrawal, has earned a reputation as one of Syria's last unquestioning proxies in Lebanon. Following the defeat of Syria's allies in Lebanon's June 7 elections (despite intensive Syrian efforts to swing the poll Syria's way), Damascus and its allies have stymied the formation of a government by the pro-independence March 14 block. Meanwhile, an interview Aug. 25 in the Lebanese daily An-Nahar with a senior U.S. official made apparent Washington's frustration with Syria, most notably its smuggling to Hezbollah of increasingly advanced weaponry across the Lebanese-Syrian border, which Damascus still refuses to demarcate despite promising to do so.

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ARIAS

6:30 PM ET

August 28, 2009

Contradictory claims ...

On one hand, Tabler wants to have it both ways claiming Assad is unwilling to exert control over his borders and export of foreign fighters because he fears domestic attacks, in effect tying his hands on this issue. He then proceeds to claim Assad is able to use this issue as leverage in negotiations with the US in his ability to "keep its hand on the foreign-fighter tap".

Yet how is Assad able to keep its hands on the tap when in fact the fighters are anti-Assad Alawite dominated that consider him an apostate?

So which is it Mr Tabler? How are you to reconcile such contradictory assertions?

I think you give far too much credit to Assad's fear of domestic attacks. Assad has been in power 10 years and over that time has consolidated his grip of Syria, a leadership role he never even expected to inherit and has shaken from initial questions over his suitability for the role. He is very clearly now in control and enjoys the exercise of his power, and if negotiations for the Golan began afresh tomorrow arbitrated by the US I don't have any doubt that he'd be capable of securing the border at the bat of an eye.

I think the real culprit is the current Israeli administration and their parsimonious approach to the desire for peace. Assad is rightfully frustrated by Israeli incalcitrance after getting so close to a deal with Olmert in December only to have negotiations blow up by the attack on Gaza. Assad clearly has his eye on the Golan, and he has no reason to give the Americans what they want without getting anything in return. He's made his desire known for quite some time but with Obama's clear emphasis on the Palestinian peace track, the hawkish Israeli government have been able to conveniently ignore all the progress made on the Syrian track in the negotiations of the previous administration. Until Obama figures this out and can successfully put pressure on Bibi to get the Syrian track rolling again, he's going to get no headway with having Syria secure the borders for American benefit.

KFIRMENA

9:06 AM ET

August 29, 2009

you are right - andrew can t have it both ways, but dif reason

yes, you are right, andrew can't have it both ways, but his analysis can only yield that,because he just does take into consideration what syria can do. Truth is, Syria wants to be a player in the region, his minority government is not totally secured unless he makes deals with the devil, shiite iran and sunni al queda.

the only players in the region, are israel and iran.

the obama administration has it wrong in pressuring israel, when he should press an aliance between syria and israel of some sorts. israel should give up the golan, lebanon its claim to syria and support of the alqueda fighters, supporting baathist, not necesarily bad, as we need to keep the shiites in check in irak.

Obama is a neofite

ANDREWTABLER

10:35 AM ET

No tied hands

Arias:

Just to clarify, I don't think Damascus' hands are tied on this issue. I think they are just unwilling to risk it, which the fact that fighters continue to move across the border shows. By not clearing this up openly and publicly, this gives Syria the ability to keep his hand on the tap, be it directly or passively.

I agree with you that the slow pace of Syrian-Israeli negotiations has complicated this. But it takes two to tango, and both sides are still stuck in a sort of dialogue of the deaf. While we wait for that to change, problems in Lebanon are building.

Thanks for your comment

Andrew

11:40 PM ET

You're right it takes two to tango ...

and with Bibi having declared prior to election that there is no way he would give up the Golan he has no reason to want to engage the Syrian track, despite Assad's wish to engage. Rightfully frustrated, Assad only wishes to engage if there is strong American oversight of negotiations in order to hold Israel to any potential agreement and seeing how quickly Bibi and Lieberman were to discard the Annapolis road map to peace it's quite easy to sympathize with Syria.

If there are other issues that you think Assad is being unreasonable or "deaf" to, it would be interesting to know what they were.

Thank you.

AHMED SALKINI

9:35 AM ET

September 1, 2009

Syrian Embassy's response

This was sent as a letter to the editor of Foreign Policy Magazine:

At a time of resurging instability in Iraq, working by the recommendations of the article published on your pages entitled “Syria clenches its fist,” serves only to further destabilize Iraq. Holding Iraq’s security, and indeed the entire region, hostage to ideological positions, as was the case under the neoconservatives and as Mr. Tabler advocates, will only lead to further loss of American and Iraqi lives. Instability and lack of security in Iraq are real, not ideological. They needed to be treated as such.

Since the US invasion of Iraq, Syria maintained that US withdrawal is the only means for Iraq’s stability; thus, we supported President Obama’s efforts towards troop withdrawal and committed to provide whatever means necessary to achieve it. We have had fruitful discussions with the different military and political US delegations. In fact, undermining these joint bilateral efforts between the US and Syria was the true target of the most recent attacks in Baghdad. Shifting US-Syrian dialogue away from Iraq, as the article recommends, would achieve precisely what the perpetrators of these heinous acts hoped for. The territorial fragmentation of Iraq threatens the national security of Syria, as well as most regional countries. On the other hand, a unified, stable, and prosperous Iraq stands only to benefit us. We must not play into the hands of these perpetrators who aim to undermine US-Syrian efforts, and in turn hope to hold Iraq hostage to a whirlwind of instability and bloodshed.

Ahmed Salkini
Spokesman
Embassy of Syria, Washington

Foreign Policy Magazine

Syria Clenches Its Fist

Assad to Obama: Thanks but no thanks.

BY ANDREW J. TABLER | AUGUST 28, 2009

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