No rush to Damascus until Syria has proved a change of heart

Emile Hokayem

• Last Updated: March 04. 2009 9:30AM UAE / March 4. 2009 5:30AM GMT

These days, nothing beats a combination of the words “Syria”, “engagement”, and “opportunity”, to land prime real estate in the comment pages of the western press. With nothing more in vogue than recommending an “immediate” overture to Damascus, well meaning western luminaries have embarked on a campaign to turn Damascus into the ultimate key to Middle East peace.

While this rush often smells of primal ABB (Anything But Bush) sentiment, there are certainly merits to exploring options that the Bush administration had so blatantly discarded. But can Damascus possibly be the long ignored answer to all the troubles in the Levant? This is certainly what the gloating messages from the Syrian capital suggest. Suddenly, it seems, Syria can stabilise Iraq, save Lebanon, moderate Iran, tame Hamas and make peace with Israel. Whether Syria can deliver such marvels at all or can redeem itself from the mischief it has caused over the years, however, seems to be absent from the consideration in the West and elsewhere.

Syria has reason for glee. It has survived an extended period of isolation and with George Bush and Jacques Chirac gone, Iran’s continued defiance, the glowing stars of Hizbollah and Hamas and the rapprochement with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, it has reaped benefits from its intransigence.

Indeed, ever since the French opening to Syria in July 2008, a reward for helping to solve a crisis that its Lebanese allies engineered, the once deserted road to Damascus has been travelled by many senior European and Arab officials, and more recently, by American congressional delegations in search of concessions and hints of a geopolitical shift.

Recent experience should however temper such enthusiasm. Despite the well-meaning protestations of French diplomats and others, the generous French overture to Syria has generated embarrassingly low returns so far: the Syrian embassy in Beirut is still waiting for an ambassador, the Syrians are not yet delineating their borders with Lebanon, arms from Syria continue to flood into Lebanon where Syrian interference persists.

As expected, eyeing the bigger prize of a US overture, the Syrian government pocketed the French gesture, and waited until Hillary Clinton decided yesterday to send envoys to Damascus after four years of icy relations with the United States.

Ironically, infatuation with Syria comes as the IAEA has found graphite and uranium in the Syrian soil, further evidence of a Syrian nuclear reactor and as the international tribunal in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri begins. This has given birth to wild speculation that the world is about to conveniently whitewash Syrian mischief in both cases. Why jeopardise potential peace for the sake of a few Lebanese politicians, some ask? And if Kibar ever was a reactor, now it is destroyed, so why demand an investigation that could complicate a peace process?

Thankfully, the danger is not that the US, France or some other country will deliberately choose to sideline or sabotage the tribunal or ignore the IAEA findings. Rather the fear of many is that by the time the prosecution makes its case or the IAEA concludes its investigation, engagement will become too costly and too embarrassing to reverse.

This is why so much depends on how engagement with Syria is conducted and what is on the agenda. Syria has certainly a habit of overselling its power.

Some countries may fall for this, but the Obama administration has so far shown no sign of naivety or weakness. For one, the US approaches Syria with lessons of the failed engagement of the 1990s, including regret over its acquiescence of Syria’s occupation of Lebanon. Moreover, with the situation in Iraq improving, Syrian offers of help there have a depreciating value. As a senior US official once aptly confided: “Syria is trying to sell us the water to extinguish fires that it has lit but that we already put down.” The US also understands well that in the great game in the Gulf, Syria is a bit player in no position to mediate with Iran. And the resolve to have Syria break ties with Hamas and Hizbollah has not weakened.

Moreover, Syrian gloating reveals a fundamental misreading of US intentions. A few weeks ago, Imad Shueibi, an analyst close to the ruling circles, published an article in Al Hayat that raised eyebrows in Washington. “The new administration,” he wrote, “knows that the plans of the previous US administration have been defeated and that Syria played the primary role in ensuring that defeat. Syria is not in a hurry to pick the fruits of its policies. It is up to the defeated to present his menu and up to the victor to present his demands.”

But the two envoys Clinton is dispatching to Damascus are certainly carrying no white flag: one is the diplomat who aptly oversaw Syria and Lebanon policy during the Bush years and the other, now a White House official, was once a driving force behind the Syria Accountability Act that is hurting the Syrian economy so much.

The only real concern is elsewhere: if there is no progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front, perhaps with some Syrian encouragement, then the “Syria First” option will become unduly palatable for a US administration in search of a breakthrough at all cost.

The fundamental question that visitors and envoys to Damascus should ask is how Syria defines its relevance. They may realise that a peaceful, inward-looking Syria could have the regional importance of Mauritania while it transforms into a responsible actor. The region and Syria’s people will be better served by this, but not necessarily its regime that has tied its legitimacy and fortunes to a rejectionist front with grandiose ambitions.

If offered the moon (the Golan Heights, its only legitimate claim, Lebanon and a privileged status incommensurate with its real power), Syria may deliver marvels. But this offer is not forthcoming, and Syria may well take everyone for a ride.



ehokayem@thenational.ae