Fan Letter
The Washington Post publishes what I can only call a fan letter from an American academic who has written a book about Syrian president Bashar Assad. It includes a "suggestion" that the US has to talk to Assad to bring about peace in the Middle East.
(Is it just me or is this attempt to use the WaPo as a negotiating tool just getting out of hand)?
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been a lonely man in international circles of late. Indeed, one of the few Americans with whom he has had contact in the past few years has been a professor (me) who wrote a book about him — not exactly high-powered diplomacy.
Assad was a tremendous disappointment to many U.S. officials after a promising beginning when he came to power in 2000. Considering the dilapidated, broken-down country he inherited, however, the expectations were misplaced. And because they were so high, so was the level of disappointment.
Along with accusations of Syrian support for the insurgency in Iraq, Washington began to view Assad as being on the wrong side of the war on terrorism. Indeed, with Syria's neo-patrimonial structure staring down the Bush administration's attempt to spread democracy in the region, the regime was seen as being on the wrong side of history.
Thus the long-held disdain among American neoconservatives for the Assads (Bashar and his late father, Hafez) became Bush administration policy, along with the strategic goal of weakening Syria. The young Syrian leader was dismissed as an inept buffoon who wasn't really in control. Regime change in Damascus became U.S. policy in all but name, especially after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri in early 2005, in which Syria was seen as the culprit. The Syrian president couldn't even obtain a visa to attend a U.N. General Assembly summit meeting.
Assad is (I suspect) trying to play well above his weight class here, and he's getting David Lesch to carry water for him to make it happen. And it won't work out any time soon.
From Syria's perspective, the crisis is seen as a search for relevance. Damascus needs at least a few arrows in what has been an empty quiver of diplomatic leverage. Assad wants to be taken seriously. He believes the sincere overtures he made to the United States and even Israel in his first few years in power were categorically rebuffed — and in fact they were. After all, he was seen as being on the wrong side of history.
Once before, an Arab leader felt rebuffed in much the same way. That was in 1973, and the leader was Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. He launched an Arab-Israeli war to reactivate diplomacy and improve his bargaining position with regard to return of the Sinai Peninsula. The United States was smart enough to recognize these motives at the time, and it engaged in a diplomatic process that led to the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.
Leaders reach out in interesting, and occasionally lethal, ways. The Bush administration should not, however, react to the current situation by continuing to isolate and threaten Syria. Recognize the situation for what it is, because, like it or not, Bashar al-Assad is sticking around. Just because diplomacy is what he is ultimately searching for should not obviate the possibility of diplomacy.
In coming weeks, one hopes, the Syrian president will be talking with someone from the United States other than a professor who wrote a book about him.
I suspect Syria's quiver will remain empty for the foreseeable future. Despite the best efforts of folks like Mr. Lesch.
The Ivory Tower, War, World news | Gaius Wednesday, 26 July , 2006
By crosspatch, Wednesday, 26 July , 2006 @ 11:35 pm
The first step would be for Syria to recognize Lebanon as a soverign state. Syria still officially claims Lebanon as Syrian territory that was “stolen” by the French when they created the current Lebanese border in 1920. The Lebanon originally given to French mandate was much smaller and mostly Christian. It was the French who decided to make the Bekaa valley part of Lebanon and that changed the ethnic makeup from mostly Christian to about evenly divided between Christians and Muslims. According to the Wikipedia entry on Lebanon history, the Bekaa valley was always more culturally tied to Damascus than to Beirut. Syria has never recognized Lebanon as a soverign state.