Saturday, December 22, 2007

Address roots of the conflict

Dec.22, 2007

Address roots of the conflict

It was never a secret that there was something fundamentally wrong in the successive US administrations' thinking about the Middle East and overall Arab-Israeli conflict. That was all the more pronounced every move that the administration of President George W Bush Jr took in the Middle East, starting with a pronounced disinterest in efforts to solve the Palestinian problem, the post-Sept.11 approach to the region, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the confrontation-oriented dealings with Iran and Syria and many other issues of concern to the Arab World.
Of course, the initiative that the US took in organising a confererence on Middle East peace in Annapolis last month was a break from the pattern, although scepticism is the key word when it comes assessing the chances of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement being worked out before the end of 2008 as leaders from the two sides promised at the forum.
In the meantime, the pattern has been restored to the US behaviour where the only constant is what would seem to be an unwillingness to deal with the region on the basis of realities that could not be changed or ignored.
It was with great relief that the Arab World saw the Syrian participation at the Annapolis conference since it was a signal that there was an opening between Washington and Damascus that could possibly lead to resumption of Syrian-Israeli peace talks where the Lebanon crisis would be resolved on its own. But the relief proved to be short-lived. It would appear that Bush was interested only in using the Syrian presence in Annapolis to trumphet his "diplomatic" success in having a large Arab participation in the meeting as well as towards weakening the Iranian-Syrian relationship.
Syria's value, if there was any at all in the US eye, was limited to the Annapolis gathering. And now that the conference is over, Washington is back to its platform and has renewed charges that Syria is a destabilsing factor in the region. In this context, the meaning of destabilising should be read as not conducive to serving US strategic interests that have more to do with Israeli objectives than US interests.
That is what we get in a between-the-line reading of Bush's declaration on Thursday that his patience with Syrian President Bashar Al Assad had run out long ago. Bush has dusted off the same reasons that he had been citing as the reason for the aggressive US approach to Syria.
Damascus has links with Palestinian groups that are waging armed resistance against Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands, supports Lebanon's Hizbollah — which is definitely more than a thorn on Israel's side — allows "suiciders to go ... to Iraq and destabilises Lebanon."
There are inherent contradictions in Bush's charges against Syria, including recent statements by senior US officials that the Damascus government has taken firm measures to check infiltration of militants into Iraq and Syria's affirmations that it is trying to help resolve Lebanon's presidential crisis by publicly supporting the compromise that Michel Suleiman, the army chief, be the next president.
The US should realise that Syria's links with Palestinian and other Arab groups are linked mainly to the country's national strategies that in turn are closely related to the unresolved conflict over Israel's occupation of Syria's Golan Heights.
There are no magical words that would prompt Damascus to call off or suspend such relationships that are bothering the US. Indeed, these botherations would cease to exist if and when Israel and Syria make peace, and that is a reality on the ground that Washington has opted to brush aside.
As such, the Bush administration should be more interested in looking deeper at the roots of its problem with Syria with a view to solving the Israeli-Syrian conflict rather than simply addressing the symptoms as seen in Syrian policies and actions.