Syria and Israel: tactical advantage
May 21st, 2008 by MESH
From Jon Alterman
It would be nice to think that Israeli-Syrian negotiations represent a key strategic advance. While I wouldn’t rule out such an advance in the future, this all has the whiff of tactical advantage to me.
On the one hand, the talks don’t represent a change in the Syrian position. I’ve met Bashar al-Asad twice, and both times he’s talked about his keen desire to negotiate with Israel. And he kept saying “Israel,” not “enemy forces” or the “Zionist entity” or any such circumlocution. Further, he didn’t wince and have a hitch in his voice, the way American politicians often do when they talk about Palestine. On this (and perhaps many other matters), he’s a realist. There are any number of reasons he has wanted such negotiations, the most obvious being that he’s not going to be able to re-conquer the Golan with troops. If he wants it back, it will be at the negotiating table.
But there are other, less noble reasons for wanting to open an Israel channel now. He is in a position of some strength, as he looks to consolidate his allies’ gains in Lebanon. He is also quite eager to ease his isolation—life is tough when your greatest friend in the world is Iran—and engaging with Israel presumably renders kosher a whole range of countries’ dealings with Syria. Not least, I think Syrians believe that such negotiations will protect them from attack by both Americans and Israelis, which are the two countries they fear most.
Ehud Olmert’s political troubles give him every reason to negotiate with Syria, because it makes him look like a statesman. Further, the Syrian track is less emotional and less morally difficult for Israelis than his indirect talks with Hamas, and it helps deflect attention from the very difficult choices Israel will have to make in Gaza. Also, such talks serve to light a fire under the Palestinians, who fear that the Prime Minister will lose interest in their track to concentrate on Syrian negotiations.
While each side has powerful reasons to negotiate, however, there are equally powerful reasons not to conclude a deal. Such reasons start with the political weakness of each leader, who would be hard pressed to make monumental concessions to a longstanding enemy whose ultimate intentions are disputed. The Bush Administration’s keen disinterest in engaging Syria also dims hopes, as one of the prizes the Syrians seek is U.S. acceptance. A year from now, with a new U.S. president and likely a new Israeli Prime Minister, the situation might be different, and in the interim, there are certainly common understandings that can be reached.
I wish I could say this was the beginning of the end of the Syrian-Israeli conflict, and I certainly can’t say it’s the end of the beginning. Unfortunately, it seems to me we’re still right in the middle, and I fear we’re going to stay in the middle for some time.
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It is no coincidence, comrades, that Hezbollah’s victory in Lebanon came at the same time as confirmation of Israeli-Syrian peace talks in Turkey. Israel has been preoccupied with a bilateral relationship; the price paid includes a serious blow to an American strategic interest—our efforts to form a regional strategy against Iran with the Gulf Arabs, who have correctly seen Hezbollah’s challenge in Lebanon as an Iranian strategic threat.
Let’s start with Lebanon. The only way to head off the Hezbollah breakthrough in Lebanon would have been to squeeze Syria. Syria is the weak link in the Iran-Hezbollah-Syria axis. Israel could have warned Syria that upsetting the status quo in Lebanon would be regarded as a threat to Israel and posed risk of Syrian-Israeli conflict. Obviously Israel was not interested in any such posture toward Syria—hence the outcome yesterday in Beirut.
It is easy to see how Syria gains strategically from a “peace breakthrough” with Israel. It gains in Lebanon; it breaks out of the isolation that the Gulf Arabs (and the United States) had sought to impose on it because of its unholy alliance with Iran.
The Israeli strategic analysis is harder to discern. Ehud Barak speaks of gaining leverage over the Palestinians. There is abstract talk of the great benefit of splitting Syria from Iran. The problem is, there is no sign that any of this will materialize. Indeed, what assurance will Israel get that Syria won’t continue to use Hezbollah as a proxy weapon of pressure against it even after a Golan deal? Could Syria make a credible promise not to—or deliver on it?
The bottom line is that the Israelis are short-sightedly playing here with American strategic chips, undercutting an American regional strategy toward Iran—which one would have thought they had an interest in.
Peter W. Rodman is a member of MESH.
The newly announced Israel-Syria indirect talks, in preparation for a year, should be seen in the perspective not only of the parties themselves but also the role of the intermediary. Despite occasional calls for imposed settlements, the Arab-Israeli “peace process” only works when two leaders convince each other that they want a deal and then turn to other powers to reduce their risks in making one. Chief among those other powers has been the United States. In this case, the intermediary turns out to be the only Muslim member of NATO, Turkey.
Why have the parties used Turkey rather than the United States? It is surely not because the Turks can reduce Olmert’s or Asad’s risks but because the differences between the United States and Syria over Lebanon and Iran are so severe that, in Washington’s view, American participation might give everyone in the region the wrong signal, namely, that the United States was accommodating Syria’s demands, especially its campaign to dominate Lebanon once more. The Israelis, who are the direct victims of Syrian support for Hezbollah and Hamas, have proven less squeamish, perhaps because they have less faith in the U.S.-backed Lebanese March 14 coalition to prevail.
Curiously, the announcement of resumed “indirect talks” came on the same day as the Lebanese factions, negotiating in Qatar, ended their most recent fight with an agreement that fulfills Syria’s ambition to wield a veto over Lebanon’s government through Hezbollah. So, score two for Asad, zero for Hariri, and double zero for President Bush, fresh from a valedictory tour of the region.
But do not count Washington out. The Israelis may be prepared to enter indirect talks over the Golan but that comes well short of an agreement itself. And there will be no agreement unless the Americans underwrite it for both parties.
The reason has to do with the terrain, physical and political. Who will observe and certify demilitarization arrangements on the Golan? Who can bring Syria in from the cold thereby acquiring a stake in the survival of the Asad regime? This may very well be, as Asad remarked recently, for the next American president. But it will surely not be without the American president.
Syria’s evident desire to pry the Israelis away from the United States. if only in a preliminary move, may signal an attempt to extract itself from the frontline of the Sunni-Shiite, Arab-Persian conflict, which also affects Syria’s domestic balance. Asad the son has apparently after all inherited a diplomatic gene from Asad the father, who escaped the dying Soviet embrace for a new semi-alliance with Bush’s father through Saddam’s overreach in 1991. In Tehran, the perspective ought to be that Syria can be rented, subject to lease change without notice, not bought. Hence, the deal may be a zero score for Iran as well, and a harbinger of a much bigger zero later on. A Syrian defection from the Iranian ambitions would deal a fatal blow to their pretensions along the Mediterranean.
Still, we should not feast on this prospect prematurely. It has not yet been cooked, much less served. Not to be forgotten is the basic conundrum: Israel wants what Sadat gave and is willing to give what Sadat got, namely, a return to the international line; father Assad wanted more than Sadat got, namely, a riparian right on the Sea of Galilee, without giving Sadat’s normalization. Israel’s interest in such normalization has grown to include the end of Syria’s alliance with the bloodthirsty Iranians and Hamas, and the severing of Syria’s contribution to Hezbollah’s anti-Israel arsenal. These are very large issues, and while the Turks can ease the water problem, a deal, as both sides agree, may take a long time subject to political change. In that respect, Asad’s tenure seems secure; Olmert’s much less so.
For his part, the Israeli Prime Minister now finds himself in a Barak-like position circa 2000: well short of the political and personal leverage necessary for the “difficult concessions” inherent in a Syrian or Palestinian deal, much less the two together. But Olmert has been working successfully for some time on the strength of his weakness. His government, like so many before it, has reached that wonderful terminal stage: too weak to fall because the coalition partners fear elections, but not strong enough to do much either. Thus, the Prime Minister, like Bush, Abbas, and now Asad, has acquired a profound stake in a negotiating process so long as it does not reach conclusions too soon. Hence, we score one for Israel, at least for now.
That leaves the Palestinians. Conceivably, Abbas might benefit from Syrian “advice” to Hamas to restrain itself and perhaps the organization’s desire for a cease-fire already reflects such pressure. A period of calm, an emphasis on diplomacy, aids Abbas’ case that he can be the effective partner even though he lacks the strength to deliver. Will the two tracks compete or complement? Experience since Madrid suggests both can be true. The score here then is deferred until the next quarter.
Last and not least, Turkey’s willingness to facilitate things indicates a newfound interest in affairs of the Arab Middle East, something the Erdogan government’s opponents fear as a harbinger of a turn away from Europe. That remains to be seen. But Turkey’s intervention in this matter suggests that Ankara no longer prefers passivity as the best way to stay clear of regional troubles. One up for Turks, if—alas, always the if—things go well.
Harvey Sicherman is a member of MESH.