A road to peace through Syria?

BY MICHAEL ROTHFELD | Newsday Staff Correspondent

August 18, 2006

JERUSALEM - On the day after a cease-fire with Hezbollah, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz turned to Syria, another longtime enemy, and held out the prospect of negotiating for peace.

"Every war creates an opportunity for a new political process, and I am sure that our enemies understand today they cannot defeat us by force," he said Tuesday. "We must hold a dialogue with Lebanon, and we should create the conditions for dialogue also with Syria."

It was a somewhat surprising declaration, given that Israeli and American officials had just spent a month blaming Syria and Iran for supplying sophisticated weaponry to the Lebanese militia. The United States cut off relations with Syria last year.

Immediately, conventional Mideast politics took over. Right-wing Israeli politicians attacked Peretz as soft. Later that day, Syrian President Bashar Assad spoke in Damascus, strongly criticizing Israel and the United States for fomenting unrest.

"We don't like to use the word 'hatred,' but Israel has left no option for itself but to be hated," Assad said. "The Israeli leadership needs to save itself from its own stupidity."

But if Israel and the United States draw lessons from the war against Hezbollah, some experts and analysts believe they most certainly will take a long look at new talks with Syria.

Syria has made overtures to Israel, Assad's comments notwithstanding, and a resolution of decades of conflict there is seen as Israel's greatest chance of long-lasting peace on its northern border, including in Lebanon.

"The government in Lebanon is not going to take on Hezbollah - the government is much too frail, much too weak," said Galia Golan, a professor emeritus of international politics at Hebrew University and a founder of the left-wing Israeli group Peace Now. "If we hope to really prevent a repeat of Hezbollah actions, at some point we have to speak with Syria."

The Bush administration has classified Syria as in an axis of states sponsoring terrorism, including Iran, and recalled the American ambassador after Syria was suspected of playing a role in last year's assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Mark Rosenblum, a professor of Mideast history at Queens College who talks with Israeli and American policymakers, said he believed the war in Lebanon and American problems in Iraq have both proven the difficulties of imposing democracy militarily, and in turn have strengthened Arab support for popular Islamist leaders in Iran and elsewhere.

Now, with Hezbollah still in place and questions about whether it can be disarmed as required by last week's United Nations cease-fire resolution, the Lebanon conflict still threatens to re-ignite into a wider war pitting the United States and Israel against Iran - an aspiring nuclear power - and Syria.

That, Rosenblum said, makes it likely that Israel and the United States, led by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will weigh diplomatic approaches to Syria, and elements in Hamas, the militant group controlling most of the Palestinian government.

"I think the [Bush] administration in the twilight of their regime is going to find themselves having to face the Arab-Israeli conflict," he said.

Previous negotiations between Israel and Syria broke down, such as the Shepherdstown talks in West Virginia in 2000. But Syria, which is struggling economically and wants to recover the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in 1967, certainly has reasons for wanting to deal. Assad, whose family is Alewite, an Islamic sect that represents about 15 percent of the Syrian population, does not have ethnic ties to the Shia Muslims in Iran, and is seen as having made an alliance of convenience to protect himself from U.S. attempts at regime change.

One problem for Israel would be a perception among Arabs that it was negotiating with Syria because it could not destroy Hezbollah. Except for Peretz, Israelis and Americans talk tough publicly about Syria and its relationship with Iran.

"Syria has made a choice," said Mark Regev, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman. "They have made a strategic decision to align themselves with the most extreme jihadist state in the region."

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