Love of the Land: Missionary man in Damascus

Missionary man in Damascus

Tony Badran
NOW Lebanon
23 March '10

Last week, the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on the nomination of Robert Ford as the new ambassador to Syria. While Ford’s confirmation still awaits a full Senate hearing, which has yet to be scheduled, the nominee’s statements painted a problematic picture of what the Obama administration’s Syria policy is premised on.

Despite repetition by administration officials that they are “under no illusions” when approaching Syria, comments made at the hearing betrayed a line of thinking focused on what the administration believes Syria’s “real interests” to be, rather than what Syria sees them to be. This was evident in the discussion of Syria’s relationship with Iran and Iraq.

The tone was set by committee chairman Senator John Kerry, a leading advocate for a new Syria policy: “I believe [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] understands that his country’s long-term interests... are not well served by aligning Syria with a revolutionary Shiite [sic] regime in Iran and its terrorist clients.” This is the driving logic behind Obama’s Syria policy: the old – and repeatedly failed – objective of prying Syria away from Iran.

Ford echoed this line in his prepared testimony: “[W]e must persuade Syria that neither Iran nor Hezbollah shares Syria’s long-term strategic interest in… peace.” Paradoxically, Ford followed this assertion by expressing uncertainty as to “whether the Syrians are truly interested in negotiating that peace agreement with Israel.”

Such reasoning betrays an inability, or an unwillingness, to understand Syrian behavior spanning over 30 years; it also misconstrues the nature of the Syrian-Iranian alliance. Tehran and Damascus’ relationship was never reactive and defensive, as is commonly held – a tactical convergence against common enemies such as Iraq. It was always based on the two states’ conception of their role in the region and their shared desire to shape events in the Middle East to their advantage.

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Love of the Land: Missionary man in Damascus

Love of the Land: Dithering on Damascus

Dithering on Damascus

Matthew RJ Brodsky
Op-Ed/JPost
22 February '10

President Barack Obama's recent decision to name a new ambassador to Syria is puzzling. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs explained, "Ambassador Ford will engage the Syrian government on how we can enhance relations, while addressing areas of ongoing concern." But the areas of "concern" with the Assad regime are deep and will not be improved or resolved by the return of an American ambassador.

There were many compelling reasons why the Bush administration withdrew its ambassador to Syria in 2005. The straw that broke the proverbial camel's back was the brazen murder in Beirut of the pro-West Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri in an operation that bore all the hallmarks of a politically connected, well-funded, Syrian state-sponsored assassination.

But Hariri's assassination was just the tip of the iceberg. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, Syria has financed, trained, armed, encouraged, and transported foreign jihadists to fight against both coalition forces in Iraq and the fledgling army of the new Iraqi government. The Assad regime has pursued nuclear weapons and continues to support terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hizbullah in Israel and Lebanon, and remains tactically and strategically wedded to Iran.

While the White House says that appointing a new ambassador "represents President Obama's commitment to use engagement to advance US interests by improving communication with the Syrian government and people," nothing indicates that this form of engagement will yield positive results. In fact, a year into the Obama administration, it is becoming increasingly clear that the "direct engagement" he envisioned during his presidential campaign with regimes such as Syria and Iran has produced nothing more than an increase in Syrian support for terrorism and the ongoing spinning of centrifuges in Iran.

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Love of the Land: Dithering on Damascus

Love of the Land: An American Ambassador in Syria

An American Ambassador in Syria

JINSA Report #962
09 February '10

Middle East envoy George Mitchell announced on a recent visit to Syria that the United States would be returning an ambassador to Damascus. A U.S. official in Damascus told a German press agency that the ambassador, "will help change Syria's attitude in the region in order to ensure stability and security. Washington hopes that Syria will play an essential role in eliminating U.S. concerns regarding its attitude in the region."

Mr. Mitchell, according to the BBC, did not appear to expect a breakthrough with Syria (that is a relief!), but does seem to have encouraged Syria to believe the United States is willing to listen to its concerns (that is NOT a relief!).

But why? Mitchell said he had told Bashar Assad that President Obama was "determined to facilitate a truly comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace... If we are to succeed, we will need Arabs and Israelis alike to work with us... We will welcome the full co-operation of the government of the Syrian Arab Republic in this historic endeavor."

The Obama Administration, often accused of having plans too far-reaching to be realistic, is quite short-sighted when it comes to the Middle East. While peace between Arabs and Israelis alike is to be ardently wished for (and if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, but that's another story) the region is much larger than Syria's interest in regaining the Golan Heights and an illegal toehold on the Sea of Galilee. Syria is fully an Iranian proxy and a fulcrum of anti-Western disturbance across the entire region.

This is, after all, the Syria that recently completed the humbling of pro-Western Lebanese president Saad Hariri, who now has Hezbollah in his cabinet and an independent Hezbollah army-supplied increasingly openly by Syria-in the south of his erstwhile country. And this is the Syria that appears to have transferred mobile surface-to-surface missiles to Hezbollah under the nose of UNIFIL. [That would be the UNIFIL whose outgoing commander told Ha'aretz that he was not empowered to talk to Hezbollah or patrol the Syria-Lebanon border to stop smuggling and didn't solve the problem of Hezbollah rockets aimed at Israel, but otherwise thought he did a great job.] This is the Syria that American military sources say still harbors al Qaeda, and the Syria that supports Hamas in Gaza. This is the Syria that has improved ties with an increasingly Islamist and Iran-oriented Turkey. And the Syria that was described by a senior American official in December as having traces of highly processed Iranian plutonium at the Syrian-North Korean facility bombed by Israel two years ago.

There are two ways to look at it. Because of all that Syria does out of the conviction that its alliance with Iran (and North Korea) makes it more important in the region than would otherwise be the case, the United States should send an ambassador back to show that we take its concerns seriously. Or, conversely, the United States could support those countries who find themselves under threat from an irredentist Syria; namely Iraq, Jordan, Israel and what remains of democratic Lebanon.

The Obama Administration has chosen the former. We ask again, why?

Archive of past JINSA Reports

Love of the Land: An American Ambassador in Syria