Bringing Syria in from the cold
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THE OBAMA administration’s decision to send a US ambassador to Syria after an absence of four years rectifies an obvious vacancy. But the potential value of this gesture goes well beyond a circumscribed revival of US-Syrian diplomatic relations. This is one of several shrewd moves President Obama has initiated in the larger Middle East.
The administration carefully prepared its June 23 announcement that a US ambassador, yet to be named, would be returning to Syria. This delicate process telegraphed some of Obama’s aims in offering Syrian President Bashar Assad the possibility of a transformed relationship with America.
A visit to Damascus by top US military commanders was centered on getting Syria to prevent foreign fighters from crossing into Iraq from Syria. With US combat forces withdrawn from Iraqi cities, cooperation in this area has become indispensable. Both sides now share an interest in avoiding a flare-up of sectarian warfare in Iraq that could set off a regional conflagration.
Trips to Syria by Jeffrey Feltman, acting assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, and Daniel Shapiro, the top National Security Council officer for the Mideast, were to explore the chances for understandings on several intertwined issues. Among these are negotiations toward a formal peace treaty between Syria and Israel; Syrian help in reconciling Fatah and Hamas, the two main Palestinian movements; a Syrian commitment to respect Lebanese independence; and, perhaps most important of all, the prospects that a Syria at peace with Israel and reintegrated into the Arab fold would abandon its tactical alliance with Iran.
Syria signaled that it was responding positively to at least some of those inquiries in mid-June, when former senator George Mitchell, Obama’s special envoy for the Mideast, met with Assad in Damascus. Mitchell has been pushing hard for Israel to stop expanding settlements in the West Bank and for the Palestinians to get their house in order - prerequisites for negotiations aimed at a two-state resolution of their conflict.
Assad, who hosts the Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Damascus, can help in that process. And if Assad does agree to drop his alliance with Iran in exchange for regaining the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and receiving Western trade and investment, the Mideast chessboard could be reconfigured in favor of rationality.
The region’s tragic propensities may defeat Obama’s strategic vision. But his attempt to deploy America’s diplomatic smart power in the service of peace deserves support from Congress and the public.
