Category: Syria
My Moualem interview on ForeignPolicy.com
… is here.
I will just add to everything else I’ve written about Syria-Israel in recent days that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was in Washington last week, where he conveyed the message that Turkey is very willing to support Syria’s suggestion that any new Syria-Israel talks resume as proximity talks in Turkey, taking up where the talks broken off by Olmert left off in late December.
Davutoğlu has only recently been named FM. Prior to that he was a special adviser to PM Erdoğan. In that capacity, it was he who orchestrated the whole proximity talks project between Israel and Syria last year.
He also seems to be a man of considerable strategic vision: a foreign-policy intellectual who then gets a chance to influence real power. Sort of Kissinger without the bullying and arrogance, you might say.
He was the author of the AKP’s policy of “zero problems with the neighbors.”
My book on Syria-Israel talks, being reprinted
I just heard from the good folks at the US Institute of Peace Press that they will be reprinting my 2000 book The Israeli-Syrian Peace Talks: 1991-96 and Beyond.
The book had fallen out of print a couple of years ago, which I thought was a real pity. But one phone call to a friend at USIP and it seems they’re now planning to print up a bunch more copies. (My thanks to that friend!)
This is very timely, given Mitchell’s imminent arrival in Damascus.
Continue reading “My book on Syria-Israel talks, being reprinted”
Highlights from my interview with Syrian Foreign Minister Moualem, June 4
On his impressions of
Pres. Obama, his hopes from Obama’s
[at that moment underway] Cairo speech, and Sen. George Mitchell’s peace
mission:
We think Pres. Barack Obama seems very sincere. But can he deliver? There is
always Congress and the pro-Israeli lobby to take into account.
With the speech, we hope Obama can
deliver everybody’s dreams! Including his own dream, and that of the
Palestinians—to see the occupied territories freed from occupation and
all Israelis to be able to live in peace.
… I don’t know
Sen. Mitchell, but I have worked closely in the past with Fred Hof, who is one
of his assistants. What we’ve heard about Mitchell’s work in Northern Ireland
and on the Mitchell Commission on the Palestinian issue is encouraging to
us. We are very ready to work with
him.
We approve of Barack Obama a lot. The man put a comprehensive peace back on the
agenda. He also intends to pull out of Iraq completely. We are ready to help
with that, but we need our conditions in the matter addressed, too.
On the May 31st
phone call he had with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
I think Hillary Clinton is a good and effective Secretary of
State. We agreed on a Road Map to normalize US-Syrian relations in all
fields—political, security, and cultural. We agreed we have a mutual, shared vision that centers around these three points: to stabilize Iraq; to work for a
comprehensive peace in the Middle East; and to cooperate on combating
terrorism.
We realize none of these depend on Syria and the US alone;
but they also involve other players.
On the way the Obama administration has been implementing sanctions
against Syria:
I am very eager to see a real improvement in our relations
with Washington. But nothing has happened yet. Even on the question of the
parts for our civilian air fleet [whose shipment has been blocked under the
US’s sanctions legislation], we have seen no movement. They haven’t informed
the Europeans yet that it’s okay to ship those parts. I think your Commerce
Secretary could authorize this whenever he wants, as it’s a matter of aviation
safety.
… It seems anachronistic to us that Obama
recently renewed the Syrian Accountability and Restoration of Lebanese
Sovereignty Act. The issue has been resolved! We withdrew our troops from
Lebanon, and have exchanged ambassadors with Beirut.
On Syria’s continued
presence on the State Department’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism”:
We know that our position on the list is not even really in
regard to Syria and the United States as such, but more related to Hizbullah and Hamas and their fight against Israel. But
it’s very strange that you condemn me as a “terrorist” at the same time as you
call on me to help you combat terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere. It doesn’t make
sense!
On Sen. Kerry, who
visited Damascus recently and held a number of meetings with Pres. Bashar al-Asad:
Sen. Kerry’s role is essential. He enjoys the trust of my
president. They have had good meetings and several good telephone calls. There
is chemistry between the two men, you could say.
On prospects for
dealing with Israel’s Likud government:
The most important thing is that there should be a political
decision for peace. It is not important to us whether the government is Likud
or Labour.
On the Arab Peace
Initiative:
Yes, there is Arab consensus on the Arab Peace Initiative,
which was reaffirmed at the Arab summit in Doha [in late March]. This mandates
the implementation of all the Security Council’s resolutions about the
Arab-Israeli issue and lays out commitments for what will happen after that.
On the proximity talks
that the Turkish government hosted throughout several months of 2008 between
Syria and Israel:
We were very happy with the Turkish role. The Turks were
completely professional, trustworthy, and helpful as mediators. We think that
was a good approach: to start with the indirect talks in that way. And then, if
we had gotten over the preliminaries with the Turks the plan was to hand the
task of completing the peace agreement over to the Americans.
The best way would be to try to repeat this approach now. If
this should succeed, the success would belong to Barack
Obama—and if we fail, the failure would be ours
alone!
Why do we need the US in this? Firstly, because of the
unique nature of the relationship they have with Israel, and secondly because
of their command of certain technical capabilities—for monitoring and
verification of a peace agreement—that only the United States has.
On Syria’s previous
peace efforts with Israel—in nearly all of which he was a direct
participant:
We got closest to bridging our differences under Rabin. He
was the only Israeli leader we have dealt with who had a real strategic vision
for this region. We were able to engage on every single issue with him. We
differed only on some details regarding the timetable for implementation.
The effort that [US-Israeli businessman] Ron Lauder
launched, trying to mediate between us and Netanyahu’s first
government in the 1990s also seemed very serious. But it ended
prematurely. Lauder told us that Ariel Sharon had interfered, leaking news of
the initiative to Daniel Pipes and thereby aborting it.
We were ready to sign an agreement with Israel even if the
Palestinians didn’t conclude their agreement. But this has to be a genuine
peace agreement for us.
On Iran, US-Iranian
and Syrian-Iranian relations:
We are ready to help. We want to help inform both sides
about their real importance—about the United States’ true importance in
the world, and Iran’s true importance in the region.
Can the relationship we have with Iran help us to resolve
the Arab-Israeli conflict—or, will solving the Arab-Israeli conflict
actually help to reduce the importance of Iran in regional affairs? These are
important questions to discuss.
Why would the US want to persist in trying to mobilize an
Arab-Israeli coalition against Iran? We are talking about peace in the
whole region!
What would happen if we managed to achieve that? Iran would
then have to choose to go with the peace, or against it.
If a close ally of Iran like Syria went to Iran and said
‘This peace is in our interest’, what do you think would they do? I can tell
you they have never opposed any of our peace moves since 1991. Even with
the Turkish mediation last year, they told us they supported it.
On whether Syria could
mediate between Fateh and Hamas:
This mediation effort needs an Egyptian direct role, as at
present; and that role should be supported by the Arabs.
But the mediator should be neutral between Fateh
and Hamas. Ultimately, the two Palestinian parties must come together to reach
common ground between them without pressure.
They need to see that they are both losing from the present
stalemate—both of them!
Gaza is in a terrible humanitarian situation, and has to be
a priority.
Now we have a new U.S. president with a different approach,
so we hope there can be speedy progress.
He should realize, though, that Hamas has already taken two
important steps: Khaled Meshaal
announced his support for a Palestinian state with its border at the pre-1967
line—he did this at a press conference two years ago, and has restated
that position many times since. He
has also said that Hamas will accept a political solution to the conflict if
the majority of Palestinians accept it. That means he accepts the political
solution.
The Palestinians will have to have an election in January,
anyway. But meanwhile, their split need not be, and indeed is not, an obstacle
to progress in peacemaking.
On whether and how he
sees the issue of the Three Preconditions the US and its Quartet allies defined
for any Hamas participation in peacemaking getting resolved:
First of all, this is a matter for the Palestinian parties
to resolve, not Syria.
Secondly, this idea of “recognizing Israel” as a
pre-condition to the Quartet even talking with Hamas has no basis in the
international terms of reference for the diplomacy. Look at us: We have
negotiated with Israel since 1991, sometimes very productively indeed, and we
have never given, or been required to give, formal recognition to Israel.
Recognition is something that will be part of the outcome of a successful peace
negotiation, and should not be considered a precondition!
Thirdly, these preconditions have become an obstacle in
intra-Palestinian reconciliation, so everyone needs to find a way to remove that
obstacle.
His hopes regarding
the Lebanese elections of June 7th:
I hope they happen peacefully, and that the Lebanese people
choose people who will represent their interests well. And I wish the Lebanese people well!
On the potential role
in the peacemaking of Quartet member Russia:
The diplomatic initiative the Russians are now undertaking
is serious. We told [Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov
when he was here that the peacemaking effort needs to be prepared well; it
needs to have a clear aim; it needs to be conducted on the basis of clear
understandings; and it needs to build on what’s been achieved already. We
believe Russia can help in all these parts of the effort.
Mitchell includes Syria, Lebanon
It’s now confirmed. US peace envoy George Mitchell, now on his fourth trip to the Middle East, will travel to both Syria and Lebanon this week.
He met this morning in Tel Aviv with Ehud Barak, and is meeting– possibly as I write– with Avigdor Lieberman and PM Netanyahu. Tomorrow, Mahmoud Abbas, in Ramallah. So Damascus maybe Thursday?
This is excellent news. Mitchell certainly shouldn’t have delayed so long in going to Syria, a country that is a necessary and pivotal part of any comprehensive peace between Israel and all of its neighbors.
The type of peace, that is, that will end the state of war that Israelis have lived in, with their neighbors, throughout all the 61 years since the establishment of their state in 1948.
(How will Jewish Israelis– whose national culture, mindset, and economy have all been built importantly, though not wholly, around their sense of of being surrounded by hostile others– deal with the prospect of such a ground-shifting transformation in their situation? This is a non-trivial question that too few Israelis have ever studied in much depth… )
When I was interviewing Syrian foreign minister Walid Moualem and other high Syrian officials in Damascus on Tuesday-Thursday of last week, they expressed eagerness to receive Mitchell and to be fully included in the peace-making venture that he leads.
Syrian officials are also very eager to have a serious discussion with the Obama administration on issues of joint concern regarding Iraq.
They told me they have a strong interest– in common with the Obama administration– in seeing the Maliki government in Baghdad increase its effectiveness and strength: something that will both prevent the whole region from collapsing into a chaos that would be very harmful for Syria, and will allow US troops the smooth exit from Iraq that Obama is now committed to.
(In discussions with a few Syrian private citizens, I heard a little speculation that if the situation in the Gulf area is for whatever reason too chaotic to allow US troops to exit Iraq through that route, they might even be allowed to exit through Syria…. Interesting!)
More, obviously, from my important Moualem interview later– here and elsewhere.
One of my main observations, after 35 years of reporting on and studying the dynamics of various Israeli-Arab peace-making efforts, is that US peace brokers have a number of different ways of approaching the Syrian (and Lebanese) tracks, and their relationship with the Palestinian track.
Here, in capsule form, are my further thoughts on this subject:
- 1. Washington ‘peace’ brokers have very frequently tried to play the Syrians off against the Palestinians.
2. They do this either over a longer or shorter time frame. That is, sometimes they have both these tracks “in play” at the same time, and there is a literal use of pressure as when Dennis Ross or whoever conveys a message like this: “We’ve got the other track just about ready to reach completion but we wouldn’t have any more energy then to deal with your track– so give me an even better offer!” Sometimes the manipulation occurs over a longer time-frame than that.
3. The success of that manipulative strategy depends crucially on the maximization of distrust between the Syrian and Palestinian leaderships, and the minimization (or absence) of direct communications between them.
4. Presidents Clinton and GWB both relied on this manipulation strategy very heavily. The whole Oslo phenomenon, of course, fed very strongly into it.
5. Neither Clinton nor GWB proved able to secure a final-status peace, on either of these crucial negotiating tracks!!!
6. So the ‘manipulation’ strategy really doesn’t have any credibility– unless the goal is to delay the conclusion of final peace agreements on these two tracks, which “by an amazing coincidence” gives Israel the opportunity to build more Jews-only colonies in both the occupied West Bank and the occupied Golan.
7. Obama has committed himself to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state within a relatively short time frame– some say two years, some say four.
8. While he has publicly reiterated that commitment a large number of times, including in Cairo last Thursday, his references to the need for a comprehensive peace between Israel and all of its neighbors have been far fewer, and far less clear.
9. He has, however, made several approving references to the Arab Peace Initiative, which is based centrally on the concept of a ‘comprehensive’ peace between Israel and all neighbors, and which also stresses the need for Israel to evacuate all the Arab lands occupied in 1967.
10. In the context of an effort to build an fair, stable, and increasingly trust-imbued order in the Arab-Israeli region, the manipulative, “divide and rule” approach that has marked all US peace efforts since 1993– whose failure has now been amply documented– needs to be laid aside in favor of one that actively welcomes the building or rebuilding of good working relations among all the Arab parties as the Arab parties walk together along the path laid out by their peace initiative of 2002.
11. It was, remember, only a level of decent working relations among ideologically diverse Arab parties that in 1991 allowed the convening of the breakthrough Madrid Peace Conference. The same is true– but even more urgent!– today.
12. Decent working relations are therefore now needed both within national communities– as in, between Fateh and Hamas; and also amongst the different large parties in Lebanon– and among the Arab states themselves.
13. GWB’s malicious and divisive policy of stoking “moderates” versus “extremists” tensions at the regional level needs to be decisively cast aside. The languaging around that policy also needs to be jettisoned.
14. One big challenge, obviously, is for the Palestinians to find a workable amount of intra-party reconciliation. It is good news that Hamas head Khaled Meshaal traveled to Cairo yesterday– hopefully, to try to break the logjam in the Cairo-mediated talks with Fateh. (It is my hope that one of the big things Obama and Hillary did when they were in Cairo last week was to tell Mubarak and his man Omar Suleiman quite clearly that they want him to succeed in this mediation, regardless of what Mubarak’s own small sectional interests in the matter might be.)
15. Another challenge will be to build good relations between the Palestinian and Syrian leaderships as the negotiations gather steam. Having a national unity government for the Palestinians would most likely make that easier, as Hamas has had a long working relationship with Syria.
16. Good relations between these two important Arab parties, and between Syria and Lebanon, (and among all the Arab parties) should be seen at this point as potentially synergistic and very helpful for the peacemaking effort, rather than being feared as presaging the imminent creation of a strong anti-Israeli military alliance– which was always the old fear of Israel and its western backers.
17. We need to remember that these days, no Arab leaders have either the will or the capability to launch a military attack against Israel. They are all– including Hamas– focused on the peace arena. “Divide and rule” would be a completely counter-productive way for Washington to deal with this situation. Inclusion has to be the name of the game. Oh, and of course, real forward progress on securing the actual peace.
Anyway, as I say, I’m planning blog a lot more on all of this over the days ahead… For now, you’ll have to make do with my “17 points”.
Big days ahead for the Middle East…
Tomorrow, Pres. Obama will give his much-awaited address “to the Muslim world” in Cairo. On Sunday, Lebanon holds parliamentary elections– and Iran holds its elections June 12.
I’m in Damascus this week. Officials and non-officials here are very eager for improved relations with the US, and express some concern that despite all his rhetoric of “change”, Obama has so far done precious little to implement that promise.
The WaPo’s Glenn Kessler reported this morning that Sec. of State Clinton spoke with her Syrian counterpart by phone Sunday, and made plans for both Israeli-Arab peace envoy George Mitchell and a US military team to visit Syria later this month.
The military delegation will be discussing coordination in combatting insurgent forces in Iraq. That is something the Syrian government has an interest in. But it has an even stronger interest in not having this be the only level at which relations improve. Having a political delegation visit is seen as even more important here…
However, Obama still has not returned to Damascus the ambassador who was peevishly withdrawn by Bush some years ago. (A high-ranking official in the Bush White House recently told me that the US was in a state of “quasi-war” with Syria in those years. What the heck does that term mean? A state of war is a clear category in international relations, that imposes certain responsibilities on both sides. And often, indeed, even in a state of war, the sides still have ambassadorial-level representation in each other’s capitals… But ‘quasi-war’???)
Obama has also done, or failed to do, a number of other things that could have started to improve relations with Syria.
One of my concerns is that unless he and his people (including Mitchell) pay serious and sustained attention to any issue– including Syria, but including other key issues in the region, too– then the bureaucrats in the State Department will just continue on the same kind of auto-pilot course they became habituated to adopting throughout eight years of GWB– and prior to that, eight years of the also strongly pro-Israel Pres. Clinton.
Remember that throughout those 16 years, any State Department employees who– like Ann Wright and a few brave others– strongly disagreed on grounds of principle with the course US policy was taking in the region resigned their posts. And those not courageous enough to resign who still dared to raise different views within the department rapidly found their careers sidelined.
Turning that great ship of the State Department’s bureaucracy around until it is seamlessly and effectively following the lead of the country’s recently elected new “Captain” will take some sustained attention and energy.
(Another question: Is Hillary Clinton the right person to actually do this inside the department that she heads?)
Anyway, what I’ve been hearing for many weeks now, in Washington DC and elsewhere, is that Washington has been waiting to adopt some kind of a new, more inclusive policy toward Syria after the Lebanese elections.
Okay, that’s next week.
George Mitchell will be in the region next week– he already has plans to visit Israel and Ramallah then.
It would make excellent sense if he also visits Damascus then, for the first time in his role as peace envoy.
He needs to hear the views and concerns of the government here, which has a lot to contribute to the peacemaking venture– especially if, as I strongly hope, Obama and Mitchell are aiming at securing a serious, sustainable, and comprehensive agreement that will end all outstanding portions of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
My judgment is that there is now very little likelihood at all that a viable peace agreement can be concluded only on the Palestinian track– which is all that Obama and Co. have talked about, as of yet.
We need to hear him say out loud that a “comprehensive” Arab-Israeli peace is in the US national interest– not just a “Palestinian-Israeli” peace.
… Anyway, I don’t have time to write much here. But regarding the prospects around the Lebanese elections, the best commentary so far is still this piece by the astute Lebanese blogger Qifa Nabki.
T. Strouse report from Damascus
- I am happy to publish here a report that Thomas Strouse penned from Damascus on March 31. I thought it gave some useful background flavor to recent developments in the Syrian capital, and at the Arab summit.
Strouse is working on his Masters degree in Middle East Studies at George Washington University and took the current semester off to study Arabic in Damascus for five months. He also works at Foreign Reports, an oil consulting firm in Washington that primarily reports on political developments in the Middle East relevant to oil markets. He has been writing weekly reports from Damascus. If you’d like to receive them, please drop him a line directly.
Report From Damascus (March 31, 2009)
The flurry of regional diplomatic movement over the past month finally culminated in the Arab Summit which opened in Doha, Qatar on Monday. Key Arab states have all been preparing and maneuvering for the summit for much of the past month. There were several tracks to this pre-summit diplomacy, but Syria was certainly at the center of one of them.
Syria has been receiving special attention from the U.S., as well as from some Arab states that it has not had the best of ties with over recent years. As many have put it, Syria is “coming in from the cold.”
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad made landmark visits to both Saudi Arabia and Jordan in March. In Riyadh, he met with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, and Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah. This meeting was dubbed an Arab “mini-summit.”
Syria, as the US pressure for regime change eases
The Syrian analyst, professor, publisher, and general man-about-town Sami Moubayed had a very informative article in Asia Times Online two days ago, assessing the generally very positive recent developments in the US-Syrian relationship.
After detailing several positive steps that each side has taken since January 20, he concludes thus:
- Syrians want to be seen as problem-solvers rather than problem-seekers. They want to show the world – mainly the US – that just as they can deliver on Palestine, they can deliver in Iraq and Lebanon. Syria has said these words in every possible language, and it will continue to show the West that it can deliver in the Middle East. For years the Syrians have been saying that reforms cannot be made unless there are no regional and international threats threatening Damascus.
When regime-change was on the table in Washington back in 2005, reforms were slowed down on more than one level, politics included. The Syrians always said that reforms cannot be made only because they are a requirement of Europe or the US; they cannot be parachuted on the Syrians. If Syria feels comfortable, as it does now, then the reform process might be given a facelift.
Last week, speaking at the Arab Writers Union Congress in Damascus, Haitham Satayhi, member of the Regional Command of the ruling Ba’ath Party, announced that there were instructions to improve relations between the security services and Syrian citizens. There was a determination to combat corruption and “achieve more democracy in the political domain”.
Satayhi added that a special committee has been set up to study and prepare a political party law in Syria to allow for more political pluralism, as promised by the Ba’ath Party Congress of 2005. If anything, this shows that Syria feels very confident, and is not worried, as many in the Western press had speculated, about the international tribunal that will begin on March 1 for the murder of Lebanon’s former prime minister, Rafiq al-Harriri.
Back in 2005, the United Nations prosecutor Detlev Melhis had authored a fascinating report, highly dramatized as the Syrians saw it, to implicate senior Syrian officials in the murder of Syria’s former number one ally in Beirut. Back then the Syrians were worried that the probe was being politicized by the US and Europe, to break Syria. That fear has now become history.
When asked about the issue during his Guardian interview, Assad said that he was unconcerned with the tribunal, fully certain of Syria’s innocence. More reforms and a new relationship with the US mean that 2009 will finally be a year in Syria’s favor in the Middle East.
Well, I’m not sure a “facelift” is exactly what Syria’s reform process needs. Maybe something a bit more substantial and deep-rooted is needed and is, in fact, now tentatively getting underway?
But regardless of that possibly infelicitous choice of words, the argument Moubayed makes is an interesting and significant one. Namely, that when a powerful foreign government like the US is openly or covertly threatening regime change, that not surprisingly stimulates a circling of the wagons in the country targeted along with a rise in practices that are actually anti-democratic. And conversely, when those pressures for regime change are taken “off the table”, then normal political processes can start to resume.
Syria’s position strengthening internationally, regionally
Syria’s place in the world community– which the ideologues in the Bush White House did so much to attack and delegitimize– has been strengthening noticeably in the past few days/weeks.
Later this week, Sen. John Kerry, the new chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will visit Syria. Ahead of the visit, he said the Obama administration is eager to talk to Syria. The US has not had an ambassador there since 2005, though it does have an embassy.
From a domestic US perspective, it is extremely important that this rapprochement win solid support in both houses of Congress, since under pressure from the pro-Israel lobby– as well as the Bush administration– Congress has itself been another major driver of the “isolate and attack Syria” campaign.
At a regional level, Syria has won some new influence, too. Yesterday, the head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service, Prince Muqrin bin Abdul-Aziz, visited Syria where he met President Bashar al-Asad and conveyed from King Abdullah (his older half-brother), a message about “bilateral ties and the importance of consultation and coordination between the two sides”, according to the Syrian official news agency.
A rapprochement between Syria and Saudi Arabia– which have been at loggerheads since the assassination of former Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri in February 2005– would be extremely significant for the politics of the entire region.
Western spinmeisters and MSM have made a huge point about the depth and alleged intractability of the rift between the alleged “moderates” and “extremists” in the Arab world, a rift that seemed particularly evident during the most recent Gaza crisis.
But most western commentators often have little idea about the depth and complexity of the regional dynamics that continue to underlie regional– and in particular, inter-Arab– relations. I find it interesting that these two regimes, in particular, now apparently see it in their interest to move towards some degree of rapprochement.
The political fallout from the Gaza crisis continues. Egypt has been, I think, somewhat strengthened in its role in the region– as I wrote last week. But so, too, has Syria. So the whole regional system remains dynamic, and certainly not easily reducible to some form of a zero-sum “moderates versus extremists” template.
IPS articles from Syria and Washington, DC
I’ve been really busy these past couple of weeks– plus, figuring out too much new technology. So, to catch up a little, here are the last two pieces of News Analysis that I wrote for IPS:
- — from Damascus, datelined January 16 (written Jan. 15), and
— from Washington DC, datelined today.
Read and enjoy. Or not; it’s up to you.