Love of the Land: Iran, Hezbollah, and the Bomb

Iran, Hezbollah, and the Bomb

William Harris
The Weekly Standard
07 May '10

When Iran gets the bomb, the nuclear club will have a crucial new feature. Without an Iranian bomb and barring regime change in Pakistan, we know that no nuclear power will transfer a device to a private army of the religious elect like Hezbollah in Lebanon. With an Iranian bomb, such assurance instantly ends. This is a looming, tangible state of affairs--in contrast to the hype about loose nuclear materials at the April 2010 Washington nuclear security summit.

Proponents of containing a nuclear Iran in and around the Obama administration conceive of deterring Iran in standard realist style. The Islamic Republic of Iran, however, has become a hybrid of the government of God and ruthless militarized mafias. It is well practiced in long-range subversion, intimidation, and weapons smuggling. It may be confidently expected to shred so-called containment, especially when equipped with a nuclear aura and facing the quivering potentates of Arabia.

In any case, Iran has a strategic extension across the Middle East to the Mediterranean that puts it beyond containment. On February 25, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah met in Damascus to celebrate their alignment and its achievements. The Syrian-Iranian partnership has enabled the Syrian ruling clique to go from strength to strength in dealing with the West and the Arabs. Syria only looks forward to more gains from the partnership as Iran moves toward the bomb. At the tripartite summit, Assad mocked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's call for Syria to steer away from Iran.

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Love of the Land: Iran, Hezbollah, and the Bomb

Love of the Land: The myth of the Arab triangle

The myth of the Arab triangle

Tony Badran
NOW Lebanon
04 May '10

The last couple of weeks have shed the spotlight again on the tensions between Egypt and the regional Iranian axis, which includes Syria. The tensions surged with the conviction of Hezbollah cell members by the Egyptian judiciary, as well as with Cairo’s friction with Hamas and the persistence of its strained relations with Syria. Despite talk of reconciliation between Cairo and Damascus, the gap dividing the two states remains wide, as they have conflicting objectives and opposing strategic alignments.

The possibility of Egyptian-Syrian reconciliation had received ample airtime ahead of the Arab Summit in late March, but it amounted to very little. During the summit, the political differences dividing the two states were on display, pitting Egypt and Syria in opposing camps on key issues such as Palestinian politics, the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, their respective positions on “resistance,” and, in general, Syria’s strategic position within the Iranian camp.

In the end, the Egyptians and Syrians only agreed to stop media campaigns against each other, which had reached a fevered pitch. It was speculated that the freeze in media wars was to pave the way for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to visit his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak, who had undergone surgery.

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Love of the Land: The myth of the Arab triangle

Love of the Land: Syria's record intact

Syria's record intact

James H. Anderson
Washington Times
06 May '10

Syria has an unmatched streak as a state sponsor of international terrorism, as documented by the State Department's annual Country Reports on Terrorism, expected to be released soon. The United States has designated Syria a sponsor of state terrorism for 30 straight years, ever since Congress first required that such offenders be listed, beginning in 1979.

No other state shares this serial distinction. To put this odious streak in perspective, President Carter was in the Oval Office and eight-track tapes were still in vogue when Syria debuted as a charter member of the terrorist list.

The State Department list is not chiseled in stone. Other states have fallen off the list after changing their behavior. For example, Libya had its sponsorship-of-terrorism designation rescinded in 2006. But Syria has never shown a willingness to relinquish terrorism as a core element of its statecraft, whether it is used to suppress political dissidents at home or further its regional ambitions.

In addition to supplying Hezbollah with sophisticated weapons in Lebanon, Syria continues to permit Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups to maintain offices in Damascus. The regime has a lengthy track record of allowing jihadists to transit Syrian territory en route to unleashing suicide attacks against American soldiers in Iraq. In recent years, Syria also increasingly has aligned itself with Iran, itself another longtime sponsor of state terrorism.

In response, the Obama administration has sought to drive a wedge between Syria and Iran. On paper, this policy approach appears tempting, especially because the theocratic regime in Tehran and the secular Ba'athist regime in Damascus appear to make strange bedfellows. But Tehran and Damascus share similar regional aims that underlie their ideological marriage of convenience, especially with respect to menacing Israel and interfering in Lebanon. With Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad beside him at a February news conference, President Bashar Assad openly mocked U.S. efforts to split the two allies.

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Love of the Land: Syria's record intact

Love of the Land: So Much for Syrian Engagement

So Much for Syrian Engagement

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
04 May '10

Obama is batting .000 in the engagement-of-despotic-regimes department. Iran, China, Sudan, and Burma have not responded to kind words, bows, or promises of future good relations with the U.S. And now Syria has officially — according to Obama — rebuffed us as well. This report explains:

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Monday he would extend a national state of emergency over Syria for another year, citing the Arab state’s continuing support for terrorists and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.

Obama’s decision means that despite Washington’s recent attempts to ease tensions with Damascus, United States economic sanctions against Syria, introduced in May 2004, will remain in force.

“While the Syrian government has made some progress in suppressing networks of foreign fighters bound for Iraq, its actions and policies, including continuing support for terrorist organizations and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and missile programs, continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” Obama said in a statement.

So the administration has now admitted failure — really, how could the Obami do otherwise?

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Love of the Land: So Much for Syrian Engagement

Love of the Land: Hope over experience with Syria

Hope over experience with Syria

Matthew RJ Brodsky
inFocus
Volume IV: Number 1
Spring 2010

Barack Obama's victory in America's presidential election was greeted with more than a little relief in Damascus. This victory was seen as an affirmation that staying the course and remaining true to the policy of resistance – muqawama – was the correct decision. Syria's ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, extolled the virtues of his nation's steadfastness in Al-Watan on February 24, 2009: "Syria's winning card is [the fact that] it has not moved from its positions despite all the pressures it has been facing… The [fundamental] principles of [its] policy towards Washington have never changed, [even] in the most difficult circumstances." Moustapha stressed that, despite the attempts of the Bush administration to bring about a change in its policy, Syria never "submitted to this blackmail."

With renewed hope for a change in American behavior, Bashar al-Asad reached out with a telegram to then President-elect Obama on November 7, 2008. In the message, the Syrian president "expressed hope for constructive dialogue so that the difficulties can be overcome which have hampered the advance of peace, stability and progress in the Middle East." And true to his campaign pledge, Barack Obama charted a new course based on diplomatic engagement in the Middle East. It was therefore not surprising when on February 16, 2010, Obama named a new ambassador to Syria. However, the timing of the decision is puzzling and the assumption that it will lead to a behavior change in Damascus is wishful thinking.

Many Carrots and Few Sticks

It did not take long for the Obama administration to ease pressure on Damascus. In early 2009, the White House and the 111th Congress increased calls for greater U.S. engagement with Syria. Several congressional delegations visited Damascus, and administration officials held talks with their Syrian counterparts. In February 2009, the U.S. Department of Commerce approved an export license of Boeing 747 spare parts to Syria's national air carrier. A month later, Jeffery D. Feltman was dispatched to meet with Syria's foreign minister. As the assistant secretary of state, Feltman was the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Damascus in over four years.

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Love of the Land: Hope over experience with Syria

Love of the Land: SCUDs and Syria

SCUDs and Syria

Elliot Abrams
National Review Online
19 April '10

According to recent news stories, Israel believes that Syria is supplying SCUD missiles to Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon. Should Israel bomb Syria to stop them? As the charges and threats from both sides multiply, the story of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 is worth recalling.

On Aug. 11, 2006, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1701 as part of an effort to end the war then raging in Lebanon between Israeli and Hezbollah forces. The resolution was the product of long negotiations involving primarily the United States, France, and the governments of Israel and Lebanon. The final text made crystal clear — over and over — that supply of weaponry by Syria to Hezbollah was prohibited. Relevant provisions of the text read as follows:

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Love of the Land: SCUDs and Syria

Love of the Land: Syria seeks a military return to Lebanon

Syria seeks a military return to Lebanon

Michael Young
Daily Star (Beirut)
15 April '10

Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR

When Syria’s President Bashar Assad withdrew his army from Lebanon in 2005, there was a naive belief he had accepted the new situation and would be satisfied merely with reasserting Syrian political influence in Beirut. In fact, his ambition always was, and remains, to return Syria militarily to Lebanon.

In recent weeks, the US has accused Syria of transferring advanced weaponry to Hizbullah. Kuwait’s Al-Rai al-Aam newspaper and Israeli media have suggested this may include Scud-D missiles. There have also been reports, including statements by Israeli officials, that Syria has sent the party anti-aircraft missiles, including possibly the advanced SA-24 Igla. Damascus has denied this, but in 2007, when Hizbullah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, said the party had acquired a new “surprise” weapon against Israel, many believed that he meant an advanced anti-aircraft capability.

It is hard to accept as credible Syria’s denials that it has sent improved weapons to Hizbullah when Assad has repeatedly stated that he would not allow the “resistance” to be defeated. Senator John Kerry, a prominent defender of American engagement of Damascus, is said to have raised concerns about the weapons when he last visited with the Syrian president. Why is Damascus upping the ante in Lebanon today?

Let’s go back to April 2007 to understand Assad’s frame of mind. At the time, the Syrian president received UN chief Ban Ki-moon, in Damascus. The two men discussed several issues, then Assad made this comment: “In Lebanon, divisions and confessionalism have been deeply anchored for more than 300 years. Lebanese society is very fragile. [The country’s] most peaceful years were when Syrian forces were present. From 1976 to 2005 Lebanon was stable, whereas now there is great instability.”

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Love of the Land: Syria seeks a military return to Lebanon

Love of the Land: Syrian Scuds to Hezbollah? Obama is on the case!

Syrian Scuds to Hezbollah? Obama is on the case!

Elder of Ziyon
14 April '10

In response to reports from various quarters that Syria has been transferring Scud missiles to Hezbollah, which would be able to hit virtually any target in Israel, the Obama administration showed what it's made of. Here is what White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had to say on the matter:

Q Robert, let me ask you a foreign policy question because the Israeli government yesterday contended that Syria is sending long-range Scud missiles into Lebanon into the hands of Hezbollah, a game-changing -- in their words -- military maneuver that they’ve found extremely destabilizing to the region. U.S. officials expressed some other similar concern. Give me the administration’s evaluation of that. And in the context of what some have described as a rough patch in U.S.-Israeli relations, how does this fit?
MR. GIBBS: Well, as I have said many times up here, we are -- we have an unbreakable bond with the Israeli people --

Q Even when they’re wrong?

MR. GIBBS: -- and in ensuring their security. We are obviously increasingly concerned about the sophisticated weaponry that is allegedly being transferred. We have expressed our concerns to those governments and believe that steps should be taken to reduce any risk and any danger of anything from happening.

Q How has that message been sent and what does this do to the administration’s attempt to engage the Syrians in this more complex discussion about Middle East peace?

MR. GIBBS: Well, again, we have relayed our concerns.

Q At the highest level?

MR. GIBBS: We have.

Q At the highest level?

MR. GIBBS: Yes. And again, obviously this is a -- you heard the President speak yesterday about Middle East peace, his desire to have this nation remain focused on that goal. The potential destabilizing effect, the alarming effect that this has, we’ve expressed our great concern about that.

Love of the Land: Syrian Scuds to Hezbollah? Obama is on the case!

Love of the Land: Realpolitik in Our Time

Realpolitik in Our Time

J.E. Dyer
Contentions/Commentary
14 April '10

Jennifer’s dissection of the New York Times piece on the emerging Obama Doctrine is masterful. One thing I would observe about “realpolitik,” however, is that its self-conscious practitioners tend to leave big piles of unintended consequences in their wake. In that sense, Obama is indeed in the realpolitik mold. Invoking realpolitik has, moreover, become a form of shorthand for commentators who want to express approval of an essentially weak foreign policy without going to the trouble of explaining why weak is the new strong.

On the unintended-consequences front, Syria has now requited the Obama realpolitik approach with a transfer of Scud missiles to Hezbollah. Syria’s Scuds are old but retain the effectiveness to pose a serious threat to Israel’s population. They are, in fact, a population threat and not a military one: they aren’t accurate enough for precision targeting. They were originally designed to create havoc behind an enemy’s front lines in a theater-scale war. In the hands of a terrorist organization, they will be used to amplify the anti-population threat posed by shorter-range rockets. Scuds carry a significantly bigger payload than the Katyusha rockets frequently used by Hezbollah and can deliver chemical as well as conventional warheads. Syria is known to have a chemical weapons program, but I consider it unlikely that its leadership will supply chemical warheads to Hezbollah – at least for now.

News outlets are not overstating the matter in assessing that this move changes the military balance in the Middle East. It puts state-level military might in the hands of an unaccountable sub-national terrorist group. Israel is now faced with the dilemma of what and how much to do about it. The worst option is to do too little.

A quiescent geopolitical environment – one in which he doesn’t expect to face consequences – is what enables Bashar al-Assad to do this. The Scud transfer is the first of the threatening moves augured by the Arab League summit in March, where indignation over Israeli policy in Jerusalem was the unifying theme. And among Syria’s objectives with this weapons transfer is probing the U.S. reaction. American policy has set boundaries since 1945 on what other nations consider possible in the Middle East. Assad is calculating that the implications inherent in this weapons deployment do not exceed the tolerance limits of Obama’s America.

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Love of the Land: Realpolitik in Our Time

Love of the Land: Let Them Meet Steel

Let Them Meet Steel

Michael J. Totten
Contentions/Commentary
14 April '10

As Noah pointed out yesterday, Syria is now being credibly accused of shipping Scud missiles with a range of more than 430 miles to Hezbollah, placing Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and the Dimona nuclear power plant inside the kill zone. Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri has been forced under duress to visit Damascus and make amends with his father’s assassins, as has Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, effectively terminating whatever independence Lebanon scratched out for itself in 2005. At the same time, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad contemptuously taunts the president of the United States, whom he clearly perceives as a pushover. “American officials bigger than you,” he said of President Obama’s attempts to talk him out of developing nuclear weapons, “more bullying than you, couldn’t do a damn thing, let alone you.”

Yet the Obama administration still seems to think engagement with Syria and the suggestion of possible sanctions against Iran may keep the Middle East from boiling over.

President George W. Bush lost a lot of credibility when the civil war and insurgency in Iraq made a hash of his policy there. It was eventually obvious to just about everyone that something different needed to happen, and fast. Replacing the top brass in the field with General David Petraeus and his like-minded war critics just barely saved Iraq and American interests from total disaster. The president himself never fully recovered.

If Obama’s squishy policies are misguided, as I think they are, it’s less obvious. The Middle East isn’t on fire as it was circa 2005. But it should be apparent that, at some point, all the pressure that’s building up will have to go somewhere. When and how is anyone’s guess, but there’s little chance it’s just going to dissipate or be slowly released during peace talks.

The Iranian-led resistance bloc is becoming better armed and more belligerent by the month. And the next round of conflict could tear up as many as six regions at the same time if everyone pulls out the stops. A missile war sparked between Hezbollah and Israel, for instance, could easily spread to Gaza, Syria, Iran, and even Iraq.

Love of the Land: Let Them Meet Steel

Love of the Land: Peace talks, Bashar’s war by other means

Peace talks, Bashar’s war by other means

Tony Badran
NOW Lebanon
13 April '10

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is known to have a penchant for brinksmanship. Calculating that he has nothing to fear from a timid Obama administration, he is upping the ante in his direct military support to Hezbollah in Lebanon. The latest brazen act may involve the shipment of Syrian Scud D missiles to his Shia allies.

Assad’s move appears to have followed his recent tripartite summit with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah. It also comes after numerous reports in recent months about a steady increase in the quantity and quality of Syrian-supplied weapons to Hezbollah – from anti-aircraft systems (outdated models, like the SA-2, but possibly also the man-portable SA-18 and SA-24 Igla) to longer-range, Syrian-made surface-to-surface missiles (the M-600/Fateh-110). It is unclear whether Israel views items on this list as strategic game changers.

This development has quietly set off a seemingly heated discussion in Washington. Capitol Hill is not amused, and according to two reports, the confirmation of Robert Ford as ambassador to Syria has been placed on hold. The incident reportedly has led to the State Department’s summoning of Syria’s ambassador, Imad Mustapha, to relay to him a message about the severity of the situation. Reportedly, the Israeli government warned the United States that the transfer of such weaponry could lead to conflict with Syria.

Through such behavior, Assad has confused those who had high hopes for “engagement” of Syria. The believers only have themselves to blame. Assad’s determination to increase the weapons supply to Hezbollah is a strategic decision. As one Syrian official put it to the Qatari daily Al-Watan, “a strategic decision has been taken not to allow Israel to defeat the resistance movements.” Assad himself affirmed this principle on Hezbollah’s Al-Manar TV a few weeks ago.

Assad has been doubling down on “resistance” both in his rhetoric and in Syrian material support – exceedingly so ever since the US voiced its desire to improve relations with Syria in the hope of prying it away from Iran and ending Syrian backing for Hezbollah and Hamas.

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Love of the Land: Peace talks, Bashar’s war by other means

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: Will Obama Reopen the U.S. Embassy in Damascus?

Will Obama Reopen the U.S. Embassy in Damascus?

Israel gets an ultimatum; Syria gets an ambassador.


John Noonan
The Weekly Standard
21 March '10

In 2005, Syria's Ba'athist dictatorship was accused of supporting the assainination of Rafik Hariri, who was then the prime minister of Lebanon. Hariri's death sparked an internal anti-Syrian uprising in Lebanon--the Cedar revolution--which was both supported vocally by the Bush administration and tangibly when the State Department yanked its ambassador from Damascus.

Now the Obama administration wants to send the State Department back, claiming that U.S. foreign policy objectives would be better served through a locally assigned embassy and ambassador. Both the White House and congressional allies are talking up the qualifications of Robert Ford, Obama's pick for a potential Syrian posting. Ford is a long time State Department veteran who served as ambassador to Algeria and more recently deputy chief of the U.S. mission in Iraq -- neither easy diplomatic postings.

But the debate isn't about Ford's qualifications. Syria's brutal Ba'athist regime is a habitual human rights offender with multiple priors -- and a fanatical enemy of the United States.

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Love of the Land: Will Obama Reopen the U.S. Embassy in Damascus?

Love of the Land: Obama Looks Weak in the Middle East

Obama Looks Weak in the Middle East

Why pick on our friends but not our enemies?


Lee Smith
Tabletmag.com
16 March '10

Foreign policy expert Walter Russell Mead has joined Thomas Friedman and others in congratulating the Obama administration for condemning Israel over the announcement it was building 1600 apartment units in East Jerusalem.

“The Obama administration had no choice but to respond strongly,” Mead writes. “Otherwise the administration would have looked weak and irresolute and the repercussions throughout the world could well have been grave.”

But in the Middle East, nothing reeks of weakness more than lashing out publicly at an ally. The administration is well aware of this, because it has endured the insults of virtually every one of its Arab allies (all except for Egypt). Most recently, for example, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal criticized Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to her face, explaining that the United States’s proposed sanctions against Iran were too little, too late.

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Love of the Land: Obama Looks Weak in the Middle East

Love of the Land: A Weather Vane Shifts in Lebanon

A Weather Vane Shifts in Lebanon

Max Boot
Contentions/Commentary
15 March '10

Walid Jumblatt is one of the wiliest and least predictable politicians in the Middle East. A canny survivor, he has led the tiny Druze community in Lebanon since the late 1970s. He is usually described as a warlord, but he is also the leader of his own political party, the Progressive Socialists. Over the years, he has been aligned both with and against Syria and has taken aid from both the Soviet Union and the United States. He is a charming host and raconteur who, as I discovered during a visit to his Beirut home last year with a group of American journalists, is not afraid of offering outspoken opinions on most subjects under the sun.

In 2007, for example, he publicly referred to Bashar al-Assad — the Syrian dictator and son of the previous Syrian dictator, Hafez al-Assad, who was most likely responsible for the assassination of Walid’s father, Kamal, in 1977 — as a “monkey, snake and a butcher.” Now Jumblatt is saying, in effect, oops, I didn’t mean it:

“In a moment of anger I said inappropriate and illogical comments against him (Assad). Can Syria overcome this page and open a new page? I don’t know,” he told al-Jazeera television.

This is one of the more notable attempts at a retraction in recent history, but, aside from its comic value, it does have some geopolitical significance.

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Love of the Land: A Weather Vane Shifts in Lebanon

Love of the Land: Obama Talks, Syria Mocks

Obama Talks, Syria Mocks

Elliot Abrams
The Weekly Standard
06 March '10

The Obama administration has from the start seen Syria as a leading case for engagement. Barack Obama said so during his presidential campaign (announcing he would meet Bashar al Assad without preconditions) and repeated this policy view again last summer:

We’ve started to see some diplomatic contacts between the United States and Syria. There are aspects of Syrian behavior that trouble us, and we think that there is a way that Syria can be much more constructive on a whole host of these issues. But, as you know, I’m a believer in engagement and my hope is that we can continue to see progress on that front.

The engagement with Syria continues apace. Here are the key elements.

* High level envoys have been sent to Damascus: Under Secretary of State William Burns visited Syria in mid-February, the highest ranking U.S. official to set foot there in more than five years, and Middle East envoy George Mitchell has visited three times. High-ranking Central Command officers have been sent to Damascus to discuss cooperation against terrorism.

* President Obama has now nominated an ambassador to Damascus, the first since Margaret Scobey was withdrawn in 2005 after the murder of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in Lebanon (which was widely blamed on the Assad regime).

* The president has also removed the American block to Syria’s attempt to join the World Trade Organization.

* The United States has eased some export licenses for Syria, mostly in the area of aircraft.

* Syria’s deputy foreign minister was invited to Washington in October, the first such visit in several years.

So there is certainly “progress on that front,” to use the president’s words. But when does “engagement” become “appeasement”? The case of U.S. policy toward Syria suggests that, here at least, the two approaches may not be far apart.

Love of the Land: Obama Talks, Syria Mocks

Love of the Land: Syria Responds To Obama's Engagement, Publicly Mocks Clinton And Embraces Iran

Syria Responds To Obama's Engagement, Publicly Mocks Clinton And Embraces Iran

Omri
Mere Rhetoric
25 February '10

Which part of the new "positive, constructive U.S.-Syrian relationship" involves having the US Secretary of State getting publicly mocked by grinning totalitarian thugs?

President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signed a bilateral deal to remove travel visas and attended a Muslim ceremony in the Syrian capital... "We must have understood Clinton wrong because of bad translation or our limited understanding, so we signed the agreement to cancel the visas," Assad said. "I find it strange that they (Americans) talk about Middle East stability and peace and the other beautiful principles and call for two countries to move away from each other," he added. Ahmadinejad told a joint news conference: "Clinton said we should maintain a distance. I say there is no distance between Iran and Syria." He added: "We have the same goals, same interests and same enemies."

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Love of the Land: Syria Responds To Obama's Engagement, Publicly Mocks Clinton And Embraces Iran

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: Barack Obama can still avoid the Syria trap

Barack Obama can still avoid the Syria trap

Tony Badran
Now Lebanon
23 February '10

The Obama administration last week made a major diplomatic opening to Syria. It dispatched Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns to Damascus for talks, thereby elevating the level of diplomatic contact and further making good on a pledge to engage with countries that George W. Bush’s administration shunned.

Administration officials leaked to the media, on background, that the Burns visit was intended to “isolate Iran” by wooing Damascus away from Tehran and other allies, particularly Hezbollah and Hamas.

This strategy will not work. Indeed, it may be no strategy at all. Despite its eagerness to engage with Syria, the United States must avoid giving too much up until the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, makes verifiable and substantial concessions on key Washington demands, not least surrendering Syrian support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Otherwise, Assad may dictate the avenues, conditions and aims of the engagement process.

Why Syria, and why now? The Obama administration’s efforts to open a dialogue with Iran have been ineffective. To undermine Iran’s nuclear program, the administration must contemplate actions that will exacerbate relations with Tehran and might endanger the US withdrawal from Iraq and surge in Afghanistan. The administration has always regarded Arab-Israeli settlements as necessary to temper regional animosities. However, given its failure to restart Palestinian-Israeli talks, Washington believes the only alternative is to advance on the Syrian track.

Obama, as The New York Times has reported, also hopes to “benefit from a global perception” that he has “reached out to North Korea, Cuba and even Syria.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argues that the resumption of high-level contacts with Syria has proven the administration’s “willingness to engage.” But this begs the question: Which audience is Washington trying to impress? And how would these impressions actually further American interests in the Middle East?

Important actors in the region are unnerved by the fact that the administration appears incapable of hearing the most pressing concerns of its anxious allies.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: Barack Obama can still avoid the Syria trap

Love of the Land: How Naïve Westerners Exaggerate Middle Eastern Moderation: Today’s Example

How Naïve Westerners Exaggerate Middle Eastern Moderation: Today’s Example

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
18 February '10

How does a leading sponsor of terrorism cease being a sponsor of terrorism? By stopping the encouragement, organization, funding, logistical backing, and even ordering of terrorist attacks? No. By being given a free pass by its would-be victim who doesn’t see what is going on under its own nose—literally.

Consider U.S. Undersecretary of State Robert Burns. He was in Damascus to reestablish U.S. relations with Syria. Syria has paid nothing for its past involvement in terrorism. It is still backing terrorist attacks to kill Americans in Iraq. True, the U.S. government hopes that it will talk Syria out of this behavior. But that won’t happen, especially since it isn’t willing to threaten Syria when such attacks do occur.

Indeed, as Reuters reports, “Washington has muted its criticism of Syria's authoritarian system.” Needless to say, Damascus has not muted its criticism of the United States, and will never do so.

Burns gives a press conference in which he says that he “is under no illusions of the challenges ahead” but that his “meeting with President Assad has made me optimistic."

If you look at the video of the press conference you will see that one microphone on the right side is larger than the others and is placed by the Syrians above them, practically thrust into Burns’ face. It is the microphone of al-Manar, the Hizballah television station, famous for its anti-American diatribes and calls to kill Israelis.

As a close observer of Syria puts it: “I don't think that the al-Manar microphone was placed there by accident. It seems to me that there's a message being sent. The Middle East runs on metaphor, insinuation and symbols.”

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Love of the Land: How Naïve Westerners Exaggerate Middle Eastern Moderation: Today’s Example