The U.S. and Syria Try to Settle Their Disputes

The end of ostracism for Syria. On March 11th, President Bashar Al-Assad met in Riyadh with the two main Arab leaders in the region: his host, King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who had snubbed the 2008 Arab League Summit held in Damascus.

On March 7th, the visit of two senior U.S. officials to the Syrian capital (sans U.S. ambassador since 2005) showed a similar willingness to settle U.S. litigation by choosing to side with a Syrian front led by Iran and opposed to the camp of Arab allies in the West, the accusations of Syrian support to the Iraqi guerrillas, and interference of Damascus in Lebanese affairs.

Nine months after the Franco-Syrian normalization, the reopening of a dialogue between the United States and the regime of Bashar Al-Assad (which was cheered up as of 2006 by the Baker-Hamilton bipartisan report on Iraq) returns to the framework of the official discourse that, in the region, nothing can be achieved without the cooperation of Syria. Damascus, under the rule of Hafez Al-Assad, had always been able to profit from its interests, according to its opponents. Even today, the Syrian regime has important playing cards: the relationship with Iran, the connection with Hezbollah, and a relationship with Hamas.

Part of the Syrian-American disagreement now belongs to history. Fashion is no longer in Washington – Cairo and Riyadh have every reason to be happy – to a Middle East free from its authoritarian regimes. The beginning of normality emerging in Iraq has pushed to second place the porosity issue of the Syrian border to Mujahideens of every hue willing to do battle with the American occupation army. Until December 2008, the indirect Syrian-Israeli dialogue, through Turkey, has also introduced a new element, even if this could be challenged in Israel with a new government intransigent on the central question of the Golan annexed after the 1967 war.

Normalization would suppose, however, that Syrians on the one hand and Americans and their Arab allies on the other hand share the same goal. Is this the case? In the American, Egyptian, and Saudi hierarchy of near-Middle Eastern issues (even if they are all nested inside one another), the axis between Damascus and Tehran is undoubtedly now the main objective. Disturbing this relationship would be an asset to the U.S. dialogue with the Iranian regime to divert its nuclear ambitions.

Indeed, Tehran has one single Arab ally to be reckoned with, which gives it at the same time an invaluable and real strategic depth. But in Damascus, the regime of Bashar Al-Assad may not be willing to rearrange cards, starting with Iran, which will provide a status of quasi-regional heavyweight.

While King Abdullah and President Mubarak keep in their memories the “half men” insult sent by Mr. Al-Assad to those who criticized Hezbollah during the war between the Shiite militia and Israel in 2006, in Washington, men who have led the policy of isolating Syria are still holding the decision-making positions.

One of the U.S. envoys dispatched to Damascus, Jeffrey Feltman, under-secretary of the Department of State for the Near East, was the former U.S. ambassador in Beirut during the U.S.-Syrian “Cold War.” Another envoy, Daniel Shapiro, who was recently appointed to the National Security Council, in November 2003 had actively contributed to the adoption of sanctions against Syria in the Syrian Accountability and Lebanon Sovereignty Restoration Act, which, in view of the ratchet effect playing in the field, will be difficult to reverse. It will be the same for the presence of the Syrian regime on lists of the State Department of countries supporting terrorism. Finally, the United States is still not willing to follow the United Kingdom, which, like France, decided to establish a dialogue with the Lebanese Hezbollah.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was cautious on the outlook of the U.S. initiative when she announced a visit to Damascus by the two U.S. officials. Syria is certainly not ready to move without first obtaining assurances on the sustainability of its regime and financial assistance to fill the gaps in an economy still lacking reform.

Unlike France, which is sometimes accused of having uselessly re-established relations with Syria (like in the election of a President of the Republic and the diplomatic normalization between Beirut and Damascus), the United States and its Arab allies would undoubtedly prefer that the Syrian regime be the first to react in order to “earn” this normalization. Considering these calculations and those left unsaid, the reunion of March 7th and 11th are not yet guaranteed.