Syria still waits for a seat at negotiating table

DAMASCUS -- As the war in Lebanon dragged on, Syrian analysts say, government officials here hoped Syria's isolation would finally end. They thought that Western diplomats would come calling, to ask Syria to rein in Hezbollah -- and that in return Syria could eventually get back the Golan Heights, the strategic border region that Israel has occupied since 1967.

It didn't happen.

In the short term, these political analysts say, the Bush administration's policy of ignoring and isolating Syria worked: After a month of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, the United States and France brokered a cease-fire without Syria's involvement, leaving it out in the diplomatic cold along with its ally, Iran.

But in the long term, analysts and government officials say, Syria still holds out hope.

Syria is betting that the cease-fire will be fragile, that violence in south Lebanon will continue or even flare into another war -- and that Syrians then will get a seat at the negotiating table.

The cease-fire that halted the war on Monday leaves Israeli troops in southern Lebanon alongside Hezbollah fighters as the Lebanese Army gradually deploys in the south and an international force is deployed. The fragile Lebanese government -- faced with a battle-hardened Hezbollah militia that gained in stature by withstanding the Israelis for a month -- has said its army will not disarm or pursue the Shi'ite guerrilla fighters. And Hezbollah says it has the right to attack Israelis as long as they're in Lebanon, while Israel says its troops will defend themselves.

``You can't have a cease-fire this way," said Marwan al-Kabalan, a professor of international relations at Damascus University and a sometime critic of the Syrian government. ``It's like putting a cat and a dog in a room together."

Some Israelis agree that lasting peace can't be established without engaging Syria, although the government has expressed no interest in talks. Left-leaning Israeli analysts have argued since the war began that the crisis was an opportunity of sorts to solve the fundamental problem with Syria -- by handing back the Golan in order to get Syria to stop its longstanding patronage of Hezbollah and at the same time to weaken Syria's alliance with Iran.

``The settlement must be worthwhile for [Syria] too, otherwise it will not last," said Uri Avnery, a veteran commentator who was one of the first Israelis to meet Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. ``The price is the return of the Golan Heights."

Nezar Mihoub, director for foreign media in Syria's Ministry of Information, said the country is open to good relations with anyone who aids Syria's interests. ``We don't oppose America `just because,' " he said. ``We have a real problem -- the occupation of the Golan. It's embarrassing for us in front of our people."

Syria's close ties to Iran come not from any natural affinity but from having common enemies in the United States and Israel, said Ayman Abdel Nour, a political analyst and occasional adviser to the Syrian Foreign Ministry, who shortly before the war argued in his online bulletin that Syria should distance itself from Iran. But now, he said, Syria is more firmly than ever in the camp of Iran.

``Syria has no other option," he said.

Iran and Syria are seen as Hezbollah's main backers, with Iran providing funding and weapons and Syria mainly acting as a conduit. Each hopes to demonstrate its strength through Hezbollah -- showing that they can make trouble for Israel if threatened by the United States, which has expressed a desire for ``regime change" in both countries.

Syria has tried to take credit for Hezbollah's strength while denying responsibility for its attacks, saying it gives Hezbollah only nonmilitary aid and denying it knew in advance of the Hezbollah attack into Israel on July 12 that ignited the conflict.

President Bashar Assad of Syria made a triumphal speech Tuesday, declaring that Hezbollah had won the war and that Syria would lead a strengthened Arab resistance to win back the Golan and eventually defeat Israel.

But his speech masked a more complicated reality.

Assad's regime gained a public relations boost from its association with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who is suddenly an Arab hero. Damascus streets are full of banners and stickers displaying a triptych of Assad, his father and predecessor Hafez Assad, and Nasrallah.

Syrians joke that Nasrallah seems for now to have taken the place of the president's hard-partying older brother Basel, who died in a car crash, in ubiquitous posters of what they teasingly call the Holy Trinity.

Assad can now paint himself as an alternative to the pro-US Arab governments like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt, which criticized Hezbollah for the raid that triggered the war.

But the tough image only goes so far: Syria was careful not to get sucked into war with Israel, ignoring missile strikes at Lebanese border crossing points within sight of Syria. State television downplayed the deaths of Syrian workers killed in a bombing in the Bekaa valley.

And strategically, Syria suffered a blow, Kabalan said. Its ally Hezbollah lost some of its military strength. And bringing international troops into southern Lebanon closes the window for Syria to go back into Lebanon. Syria was pressured into ending its 29-year occupation of Lebanon last year after it was accused of staging the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Kabalan added that ``if the Americans are smart enough, which I doubt," the right incentives could bring Hezbollah -- politically strengthened but militarily weakened -- closer to the Lebanese government and shut out Syria and Iran.

Syria has also found itself ``stuck with Iran," an alliance that under the surface makes some Syrians nervous, Abdel Nour said. He says Syria should distance itself from Tehran's embrace and play more of a mediating role between Persians and Arabs and between Sunnis and Shi'ites.

Syria still fears that its association with Iran will provide Israel or the United States with a reason to attack it, the analysts said. And while Iran and Syria both fear US pressure, their specific interests diverge: Iran fears international action against its alleged nuclear program; Syria wants the Golan.

But the greatest disappointment, the analysts said, is that no one came hat in hand to ask for help with the war.

Syria had bet on three things, Abdel Nour said: Israeli support for the war would crumble early, Shi'ite populations across the Arab world rise up in support of Hezbollah, and Lebanese civilian casualties would spark world condemnation of Israel, all of which would help bring diplomats to Damascus.

``Nothing happened," he said.