Syria and the United States are like two exhausted, ageing boxers who have little energy left in them and are preoccupied by dozens of other priorities, but they cannot resist a good punch-up when they see the ideological fire in each other’s eye. This is partly history (this is essentially the last political frontier of the Cold War) and partly ideology and personality, with frenzied neocons in Washington and true-believer Arab Nationalist Baathists in Damascus biologically unable to pass up an eyeball-to-eyeball showdown.
The Syrian-American relationship is worth monitoring closely as it moves into dynamic mode, as it has this month. The American romantics in Washington pressure Syria to change as part of their desire to reform, modernize, democratize and save the Arab world, and Syria resists American pressure in order to wear the mantle of Middle Eastern defiance of the imperial West and defender of Arab dignity and rights. This is a terrain that lends itself to war — or, preferably, to a good old fashioned deal.
So we should perk our ears and scratch our heads in a serious attempt to figure out what is going on when the Syrian ambassador in Washington announces, as he did Monday, that Syrian troops in Lebanon this week will begin a redeployment and partial pullback towards the Syrian border. The Bush administration has eyed Syria suspiciously for years, accusing it of denying Lebanese sovereignty, assisting “terrorist” groups like Hamas and Hizbullah, developing weapons of mass destruction, and, most recently, allowing arms and militants to cross its border with Iraq. A U.S. Congressional bill threatened and then imposed some mild sanctions on Syria earlier this year. The confrontation intensified earlier this month when Syria used its dominance of Lebanese politics to push through a three-year extension of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud’s term, against the wishes of most Lebanese.
The U.S. and France replied by teaming up to sponsor and pass UN Security Council Resolution 1559 demanding that Syria respect Lebanon’s sovereignty and withdraw its troops from Lebanon. An American official delegation that visited Syria last week made it clear that Damascus had to comply with the UN resolution or else face escalating U.S. and international pressure. The UN secretary general will report back to the Security Council next month on Syrian compliance with the resolution, thus formally placing the Syrian leadership in the crosshairs of international monitoring. Even many Arab countries, including the powerful Gulf Cooperation Council oil producers, advised Syria to respect Lebanese sovereignty more diligently. An American technical team in Damascus this week is working with Syria on some of the issues the U.S. has raised, including alleged laundering of money through Syrian banks for _terrorist_ activities.
Why would Syria blatantly force an extension of the Lebanese presidential term, and bring upon itself the formal international censure and ongoing scrutiny of the UN Security Council, when it could have enjoyed a newly elected Lebanese president who was perfectly acceptable to it? Did Syria panic, act clumsily, and misread Lebanese, Mideast and world opinion?
I suspect that Syria’s recent actions and the global response they generated may have left the Syrian leadership in a stronger rather than a weaker position. In the past decade since the end of the Cold War, and the effective end of the military dimension of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Syria has steadily lost much of the regional and international clout it had enjoyed during the previous three decades. Its direct impact had gradually become restricted to its own soil, Lebanon, and some lingering linkages with Palestinian resistance groups, Hizbullah and Iran.
At the same time, the dynamics among every major aspect of Syrian national life point to an urgent need for change and modernization. The economy, the demographics of a young population, technology, relations with Europe and the U.S., domestic politics, relations with neighbors Turkey and Iraq, the stalled peace process with Israel, and even hydrology and the environment all demand significant, rapid change in present policies. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, like other young Arab leaders who assumed power in recent years, quickly grasped the urgency of change and modernization, but has acted only in some sectors. He initiated some sound changes in the economy and in key regional ties (especially with Turkey), expressed his willingness to resume legitimate peace talks with Israel, but done little in terms of domestic political reform or relations with the U.S. and Europe.
Since the post-Sept. 11 American diplomatic and military onslaught against the Middle East, in the past two years Damascus has faced the most brutal fate that could be inflicted upon such an ideological regime — quasi-isolation and marginalization. Recent events, though, have dramatically changed Syria’s regional and global posture and its diplomatic positioning. American and European delegations visit Damascus regularly to talk and deal. The Syrian leadership is back in the position where it has always been most comfortable: it sits at the pivot of several simultaneous, interlinked, and often tense diplomatic dynamics with multiple interlocutors that matter(the U.S., EU, Turkey) on issues such as Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Hizbullah, Hamas, Iraq, the war on terror, economic and political reform, the UN Security Council_s role, and allegations of seeking weapons of mass destruction.
The road is open for Damascus to translate its more favorable new diplomatic positioning into policies that could generate real benefits for all concerned, starting with Syria and Lebanon, but extending to Iraq, the U.S., Israel, Palestine, and the Europeans. Syria has always been a dynamic negotiator and deal-maker, not an intransigent or hesitant bluffer. It makes deals, though, based on win-win arrangements, in which typically it secures the strengthening and perpetuation of its domestic political system — one of the last Soviet-style centralized states in the world — in return for offering something meaningful and reasonable in return. In the past decade or so, Syria has had little to trade diplomatically, because it did not adjust quickly enough to the post-Cold War era.
Today, it sits in the middle of a veritable diplomatic bazaar, flush with commodities to give and take, and interested buyers and sellers with whom to deal honorably. This is an important opportunity for Syria, the entire region, and the U.S. to leave behind the rigid, reactionary, militant policies of the past, and instead to forge into new terrain where legitimate diplomatic agreements could benefit all parties equally. If the Damascus leadership gauges this opportunity correctly, and responds appropriately, it can launch a new era of democratic domestic change and growth, combined with regional peace and stability, that would quickly see Syria regain its traditional historical role as a central economic actor, political player, and cultural pace-setter for the entire Middle East.
All those who deal with Damascus today should also grasp that many more mutual benefits emanate from an honorable win-win agreement made in a bazaar than from a unilateral war or regime change policy cooked up in the confused minds of faraway American ideologues who still do not understand the critical diplomatic concepts of honor, history or mutually beneficial transactional politics.
Rami G. Khouri is executive editor of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune.
Copyright © 2004 Rami G. Khouri
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Released: 21 September 2004
Word Count: 1171 words
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