June 26, 2008
Does Bashar al-Assad really want peace with Israel or is he interested only in going through the motions?
So far it’s clear he does not know what he wants. Yes, he’d like to regain the Golan Heights his father lost twice. But the minimum down payment is direct talks with Israel and providing evidence he is breaking his ties with terrorists, a price he is so far unwilling to pay. Instead he is using the Turks as intermediaries while continuing to give sanctuary to terror groups.
Even his father held face-to-face talks with Israel. Most recently, in 2000, his foreign minister, Farouk al-Shara (who still holds the job), and then Prime Minister Ehud Barak met in West Virginia. (Of course, that ended abruptly when both men got cold feet.)
The younger Assad’s ambivalence is his defining characteristic; he often speaks of waging war and peace in the same sentence — while failing to make a convincing case for either.
One prominent American-Jewish leader who has been talking to the Syrians recently said Assad’s real interest is in moving into the Mideast’s moderate camp and improving relations with the United States.
He knows what Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat demonstrated when he swapped superpower patrons, switching from the Soviet Union to the United States; he knew the road to Washington goes through Jerusalem. But Assad seems not to know the route.
While Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is only too happy to oblige, Washington — at least the present administration — continues to discourage Israel from opening talks.
So Olmert, perhaps President Bush’s only remaining admirer among foreign leaders and certainly the most obsequious, felt he had to go behind America’s back and look to the Turks to help broker a peace with Syria. And now the French are stepping in, filling the leadership vacuum left by Washington. Assad says he wants U.S. involvement, but not until there is a new president.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has significantly improved relations between his country and Israel and is repairing strained ties with Syria, is trying to arrange a meeting between Olmert and Assad in Paris next month.
Looking for protection
That will be a big test for the Syrian leader, who has never been accused of having courage or vision, notwithstanding his training as an ophthalmologist.
Assad seems to be moving in opposite directions simultaneously; he says he is serious about peace, but he won’t meet the Israelis face to face, continues to play host to Hamas and other anti-Israel terror groups, signed a new friendship treaty with Iran, is working closely with Hizbullah, and continues aiding foreign fighters in Iraq who are killing Americans.
He demands that Israel meet his terms of full withdrawal from the Golan to lines he determines in exchange for a “normalization” that he refuses to define clearly.
If Assad appears reluctant, Olmert seems overeager, even though a recent poll showed two thirds of Israelis are satisfied with the status quo and want to retain the Golan.
Olmert has said he would never negotiate away the Golan, never accept preconditions, and never talk to Syria unless it breaks with Iran and Hizbullah and expels the terror groups. Syria rejected all that, yet the scandal-plagued Olmert, desperately trying to keep his job, said he’s ready to fly to Paris to meet Assad anyway.
Assad has much to gain from peace. If he opts for war, he and his Alawite regime are unlikely to survive. He not only wants the Golan but wants to block the World Court from convening to determine his role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. He would also like to see U.S. sanctions lifted so he can improve relations with Europe and gain access to Western aid, investment, trade, and technology.
Despite his pledges of loyalty to his Iranian allies he is said to be fearful that his fundamentalist friends may try to replace his secular regime with one more in their mold.
United Nations nuclear inspectors went to Syria this week to check out the alleged nuclear weapons site bombed by Israel last September. Assad claims it was a benign military facility but the site has been sanitized since then and any investigation is expected to be inconclusive; meanwhile, Assad refuses to let the UN check out other suspected sites.
Germany’s Der Spiegel reported recently that the facility was used by North Korean scientists to train Iranians and Syrians in the production of weapons-grade plutonium.
Assad may be looking not for peace but for protection — from American retaliation for his role in promoting terror and meddling in Iraq, from the International Court of Justice, from sanctions, and from a return visit by the Israeli Air Force. Engaging in prolonged peace talks could provide that protection.
That may be why all the evidence suggests Assad wants just the peace process, not peace.
Douglas M. Bloomfield is a political analyst based in Washington, DC.
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