If Hariri and his March 14 coalition suddenly found themselves friendless, what does that say about Washington's role? The Bush administration had taken the Cedar Revolution, the spontaneous public uprising in the aftermath of the Hariri assassination, as supreme confirmation of its policy of promoting democracy in the Middle East. Bush gave Lebanon's democratic forces unequivocal support, while treating Syria as an adjunct of the axis of evil. The policy, however, began to wane as the White House's own enthusiasm for the Freedom Agenda diminished after 2006; the war between Israel and Hezbollah that year further diminished the administration's influence in the region. Barack Obama's administration has given its full support to Lebanon's democratically elected government, but has also ended Syria's isolation. The administration has renewed diplomatic relations, while both special envoy George Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have met with senior Syrian officials. Just as Lebanon was an emblem of the Freedom Agenda, so Syria is a leading instance of Obama's "engagement" policy.
Is there a zero-sum relation between the two approaches? Schenker insists that there is, arguing that Obama has failed to put pressure on Syria to respect Lebanon's sovereignty, done little to halt the deterioration of the Hariri government, and allowed Syria to drift away from its commitments to the country. A State Department official who works on the region sharply disputes that view, arguing that the administration has in fact followed Bush policy quite closely in Lebanon and adding, "We have used our dialogue with Syria to impress upon them our concerns regionwide, and that includes Lebanon, and the Lebanese government is aware of that." Speaking fluent engagement-ese, this official observes that "having a conversation with a country is not a concession; it's a way of advancing our interests."
I'm not convinced that either policy has proved very effective. The Bush administration's diplomatic support in Lebanon meant little in the face of Hezbollah's growing strength, thanks to weapons, funds, and training from Iran as well as Syria. In any case support from a remote and loathed superpower is a coin of questionable value.
On the other hand, engagement only makes sense when it advances U.S. interests enough to justify possible unintended consequences -- not a clear balance in Syria. The Syrians are slippery customers who love to be courted, whether by Saudi Arabia, France, or America. "The Syrians like to make us believe they are winnable," says Martin Indyk, former ambassador to Israel and head of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. But in the end, he says, "Syrians don't deliver." There is a kind of symmetry between the naiveté of the Bush administration's controlling belief that it could sow the flowers of democracy in rocky Arab fields and the naiveté of Obama's belief that a new posture of respect and understanding could win over recalcitrant states and publics in the Middle East.
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