By Ted Belman
The key to solving American troubles in the ME is Syria, not Israel. You may recall that Saudi Arabia demanded that Syria be invited as the price for gaining its attendance and Syria was invited. There is no solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, or should I say the Israel/Arab conflict, unless and until the Arab countries are prepared to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and sign an end of conflict agreement. The former has been rejected and the latter is not even discussed.
America must stop and reverse the growing influence of Iran. The way to do this is to wean Syria away from Iran just as it weaned Egypt away from the USSR after the Yom Kippur War. Syria's ruling clique, the Alawites, above all, seek to perpetuate its regime. To this end, it manufactured an external enemy, Israel. Peace with Israel would threaten its regime. Better to keep them as an "enemy". Who cares about the Golan anyway. But Lebanon is another story. The Alawites would dearly love to have their way with Lebanon and the US would have no trouble with this if Syria was entrenched in the US camp.
Syria also needed a patron to support it financially and otherwise and turned to Iran. But Iran is no match for the US in this regard and Syria knows it.
Finally there is the natural affinity of the Syrians to the Arab camp and sooner or later Syria will return to that camp.
Barry Rubin, the author of The Truth about Syria, was interviewed by Michael Totten and said,
Syria is not a radical regime because it has been mistreated by the West or Israel but because the regime needs radicalism to survive. It is a minority dictatorship of a small non-Muslim minority and it offers neither freedoms nor material benefit. It needs demagoguery, the scapegoats of America and Israel, massive loot taken from Lebanon, an Iraq which is either destabilized or a satellite, and so on.
Take the simple issue of the Golan Heights. It is commonplace to say that Syria wants back the Golan Heights. But one need merely ask the simple question: what happens if Syria gets it back? If Syria’s regime made peace with Israel it has no excuse for having a big military, a dictatorship, and a terrible economy. The day after the deal the Syrian people will start demanding change. The regime knows that.
So the US must find a way to enable the Syrian Alawite regime to survive without radicalism.
As Rubin points out, this is no small matter,
While the Syrian regime poses as being desirous of peace and engagement with the West, in fact its institutions, ideology, propaganda, and activities go in the exact opposite direction. To survive, the minority-dominated, dictatorial, and economically incompetent government needs radicalism, control over Lebanon, regional instability, anti-Americanism, and using Israel as a scapegoat.
So here's the deal. Syria abandons Iran and embrace the US. In other words, become a US ally and beneficiary. In exchange the US could drop all investigations against its leaders for the assassinations in Lebanon and allow Syria to be the controlling power in Lebanon just as it did to end the civil war there in 1989 pursuant to the Taif Agreement. Thus Lebanon would become stable and remain in the US camp. To further strengthen this camp, Syria would have to abandon all rejectionist forces including Hezbollah, Hamas and the others.
As part of this deal, Lebanon and Syria would sign a peace agreement with Israel and Israel would give back the Golan and Sheba Farms. Israel would get a 100 year lease of the Golan and life would go on as it is now. Also Syria and Lebanon would have to agree to give citizenship to the Palestinian refugees in their countries thereby ending their refugee status.
Finally, the US would agree to protect the Alawite Regime just as it protects Mubarak and the House of Saud. Remember that Mubarak has an internal enemy, the Brotherhood and so does Syria. Recall that in 1982 Syria suppressed a Brotherhood uprising by killing 20,000 people at Hama.
So Syria is the key to containing Iran and ending the Israel/Arab conflict. If Syria can be bought off in this way, all else is possible.
See also Can Syrians, Saudis make summit work? by Ron Campeas
Barry Rubin just wrote an article today titled Inviting a Bull into the China Shop in which he categorically nixes my wishful thinking.
The radical alliance? Syria is a leading factor in the problem, a partner with Iran for 20 years. Anyone who believes that Damascus can be split from Teheran understands nothing about the mutual benefits Syria gets from the alliance - far greater than anything the West could possibly give to its dictator President Bashar Assad.
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