Looking Down the Road to Damascus
New interest in–and some old doubts about–Syria
JERUSALEM–Could it be that Syria now offers a rare glimmer of hope amid the barren prospects for progress in the Middle East? That question, easily dismissed as wishful thinking, suddenly is a red-hot topic from Jerusalem to Washington.
The doubters have plenty of evidence on their side. A hard-line nationalist police state that prides itself on defiance of the United States and Israel, Syria helps America's enemies in Iraq, as well as Israel's enemies in Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza–and allies itself with the West's nemesis, Iran, its neighbor to the east. Yet in recent weeks, Syrian President Bashar Assad has been peppering the international media with expressions of eagerness to talk peace with Israel. "Make an attempt. Call our bluff," he challenged Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in a recent interview with the Italian daily La Repubblica.
Does he mean it? A succession of American politicians–Democratic Sens. John Kerry, Christopher Dodd, and Bill Nelson, as well as Republican Arlen Specter–have come away from recent meetings with Assad at least intrigued. Besides that, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group urged the Bush administration to try diplomatic means to persuade Syria to stop supporting Sunni insurgents in Iraq. None of this, however, appeals to President Bush, who considers Syria an auxiliary member of the "axis of evil." Or to Olmert, who insists that Assad validate any change of heart by first cutting off Iran and the terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.
Linchpin. The general assumption in Israel is that Olmert may be simply taking his cue from Bush. But that may not wash with many Israelis. Just as political pressure is building in Washington to force Bush to make an opening to Syria, political and military players in Israel are trying to do the same thing to Olmert. While the American sentiment grows out of Iraq-war frustration, Israeli sentiment is driven by the general bleakness of peace prospects in the region. The push for talks with Assad is coming from Olmert's main coalition partner, the Labor Party; the dovish Meretz party; the media; and, most critically, influential members of the military-intelligence establishment.
The idea is to flip Syria from being the linchpin that connects the Iran-terrorist axis to being a wedge that divides and isolates its component parts. The hope is that peace with Israel will bring Syria to break ties with Iran, stop being the middleman for Iranian arms transfers to Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, and expel the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad from Damascus.
History. If this all sounds too good to be true, it may well be. Assad's father, Hafez, negotiated via U.S. mediators throughout the 1990s with five consecutive Israeli prime ministers, and nothing came of it. While Bashar Assad would like some distance from Iran and wouldn't mind being delinked from the axis of evil, he's not about to enlist in the war on terrorism, says Tel Aviv University Prof. Eyal Zisser, a leading Israeli expert on Syria. "If Assad signs a peace treaty with Israel, that doesn't mean he's going to send the Iranian ambassador home the same day," says Zisser. Likewise, Assad might downgrade his relations with terrorist organizations but wouldn't end them, he says, noting: "I think these issues can be discussed in peace negotiations, but I really doubt whether anything dramatic can be achieved."
What Syria wants from Israel is the Golan Heights, the strategically important, water-rich land it lost in the 1967 Six-Day War. What Assad wants from the United States is a free hand to reassert Syrian authority in Lebanon and respite from the United Nations probe into the assassination of former Lebanese President Rafiq Hariri. The Bush administration–not to mention most Lebanese–is loath to concede either point.
In Israel, a polarized debate is on over whether Assad's peace offerings are sincere or not. Meir Dagan, chief of the Mossad intelligence agency, told the Knesset the Syrian gambit was merely a sleight–of-hand "white rabbit" to stave off international pressure. Army intelligence officials, however, tell the Knesset that not only is Assad serious; he may even be agreeable to letting Israel take 20 years to give back the Golan Heights.
A recent poll found that Israelis favor talks with Syria by a 2-to-1 margin. Yet the survey found that the same 2-to-1 margin opposes relinquishing the entire Golan, a nonnegotiable Syrian demand. On the second question, at least, Olmert stands with the majority, saying, "As long as I serve as prime minister, the Golan Heights will remain in our hands because it is an integral part of the State of Israel." Olmert, however, is known for softening his positions on disputed territory, and if he were to become less possessive toward the Golan, he wouldn't be the first Israeli prime minister to do so.
For all the uncertainty over Assad's intentions and the even greater uncertainty over whether peace talks could succeed, a key question is emerging: What's there to lose by trying? Miri Eisin, Olmert's foreign-media spokeswoman, replies that peace talks with Assad "could arrive at an impasse that could lead to war." But there's also a danger of war with Syria in the absence of peace talks, intelligence officials have been warning.
Olmert has not tried to hide his unwillingness to cross Bush, saying, "We must not respond to the Syrian initiative while President Bush, Israel's most important ally, opposes all negotiations with Syria." Fumes one prominent dove, Meretz leader Yossi Beilin: "This is the first time in history that an Arab leader says he wants to talk to Israel and an American president says no."
Until Bush says yes, neither Israel nor the United States will be talking with Syria. But as long as every other diplomatic avenue to peace in Iraq or anywhere else in the Middle East appears impassable, the road to Damascus is likely to continue to seem a tempting one.
This story appears in the January 8, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.