PRESIDENT BASHAR Assad of Syria received a splashy welcome in Paris last weekend at a meeting hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Assad gave interviews, received visits from notables, and was perched on the reviewing stand for a Bastille Day celebration. At a time when his regime is conducting talks with Israel through Turkish go-betweens, Assad was being shown that he has a chance to end Syria's isolation.
It was left to Sarkozy to bolster Israel's overture to Syria because President Bush refuses to engage with Assad's regime until it changes its behavior. Israeli leaders have no illusions about that regime, but they also see the benefits of peace with Damascus. Bush ought to grasp America's parallel interest in an Israeli-Syrian peace accord.
At stake is a chance to realize the promise of an Arab League offer of peace and normalized relations between Israel and all 22 Arab states once Israel returns land conquered in the 1967 war. An Israeli-Syrian peace could also lead to an Israeli peace accord with Lebanon, the neutralizing of Hezbollah, and the end of Syria's alliance of convenience with Iran.
That is why Israeli-Syrian negotiations frighten Iran. An adviser to Iran's supreme leader was quoted this week in a Saudi-owned daily saying, "Iran does not recognize a state called Israel in the region and would not be pleased for an Islamic country like Syria or Turkey to negotiate with her." The adviser also warned: "Deep changes will affect the nature of Iranian-Syrian relations if Damascus signs a peace agreement with and recognizes Israel."
Those changes are the prize Israeli negotiators are pursuing with Assad's envoys in Istanbul. The Israelis know what they are doing. Israel's major security threat today comes from Iran - from Iran's long reach, through Syria, to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon and to Hamas fighters in Gaza.
And Israeli leaders understand something Bush seems not to grasp: that Assad seeks two rewards from a peace treaty with Israel - return of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and new, friendly relations with the United States. Assad wants foreign investment, an end to US sanctions, and a powerful new patron to guarantee his security after he breaks with Tehran. He is probably right when he says he will have to wait for a new American president to make peace with Israel. It's too bad Bush wasted eight years weakening the peace camp in the Mideast and strengthening Iran.
