The failure of last month's Geneva summit between U.S. President Bill Clinton and Syrian President Hafez Assad appears to have definitively ended the latest round of Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations and may signal the high-water mark of the Clinton administration's willingness to appease the Syrian dictator.
While the Geneva debacle highlights Assad's unwillingness to compromise with the Israelis, this is nothing new. No one in the Clinton administration seriously believed that peace between Israel and Syria could be brought about with anything less than a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Indeed, this principle has been an underlying cornerstone of the Syrian-Israeli negotiations for several years. However, both American and Israeli officials had been operating under the erroneous assumption that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak would be able to forge a domestic consensus in support of ceding the entire Golan to Syria. Over the last few months it became increasingly clear not only that Barak had failed to do so, but that no conceivable political developments in Israel can bridge this polarization in the near future.
The Clinton-Assad meeting was likely intended by American officials not to reinvigorate the peace process, but to give Barak a dignified exit from the Syrian track of the peace process. Assad was explicitly told that Clinton would bring a new, though unspecified, "firm commitment" from Barak. Assad certainly interpreted this as meaning that Clinton would deliver a promise from Barak to withdraw to the line of confrontation Israeli and Syrian forces on the eve of the June 1967 war. It appears that Israeli and American officials deliberately sought to give Assad this false impression by dropping hints through various back channels, such as Egyptian ambassador to Israel Mohammad Bassiouny, who has had close ties with the Syrians (dating back to his position as Egyptian liaison officer with the Syrian army during the 1973 October war). On the eve of the summit, Bassiouny confidently told the daily Al-Hayat that "no Israeli prime minister will go further than Barak on the Syrian track."1
Indeed, prior to the summit, most press reports in the Arab world suggested that a proposal from Clinton outlining Barak's commitment to the June 1967 line was essentially a forgone conclusion. Even though American and Israeli officials appeared to downplay expectations prior to the summit, "no one believed them," wrote Joseph Samaha in al-Hayatshortly after the summit. "The prevalent theory was that something would result from the Geneva summit--otherwise it would not have been held." 2 Another commentator expected the talks in Geneva to focus primarily on Syrian-American relations, with Assad pressing Clinton on issues such as the perpetuation of Syrian influence in Lebanon, American recognition of Bashar Assad's succession as Syrian president, the removal of Syria from Washington's list of state sponsors of terrorism, and American pressure on Turkey to increase Syria's share of water from the Euphrates river.3
Needless to say, the Syrian dictator was mortified when Clinton presented him with an Israeli proposal outlining its willingness to retain only a few hundred meters of the Golan Heights--a concession that Barak had previously made through American intermediaries. In light of Assad's deteriorating health, the Syrians had assumed that he would not be asked to travel abroad for anything less than a complete capitulation by Barak to Syrian demands. The Syrians categorically rejected the proposal, as well as a suggestion by Clinton that Syria and Israel refer the dispute over border demarcation to the Ineternational Court of Justice.4
After the summit, Clinton proclaimed that the "ball is in Assad's court," while White House spokesman Joe Lockhart announced that "it would not be productive for them to resume talks now"--the implication being that it is Assad's unwillingness to play ball that has doomed the peace process. US Middle East envoy Dennis Ross later added that the differences between Syria and Israel are more "psychological" than objective--the implication being that psychological barriers can only be surmounted by the parties themselves.
According to most indications, a resumption of face-to-face talks between Israel and Syria is extremely unlikely in the near future. Earlier this month, Israel announced the resumption of housing construction in the Golan Heights--a move that Barak would not have contemplated unless the prospects of renewed negotiations were dim. Another clear sign that the peace talks are over for the time being is the State Department's recent decision to include Syria on this year's list of states sponsoring terrorism--Syria's removal from the list had been among the "sweeteners" offered by the Americans to coax Assad into compromising with Israel. Most importantly, the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon this summer will remove Syria's primary instrument of pressure on Israel to accept Syrian conditions for a peace treaty.
In any case, the American "window of opportunity" for a peace settlement favorable to Assad is now closing. The approach of the U.S. presidential elections means that appeasement of Syrian territorial claims will carry much higher domestic political costs for the White House. Moreover, Clinton's primary motivation for pushing Barak to make concessions is now evaporating--no amount of fast-track diplomacy can yield a Syrian-Israeli final settlement on his watch and gratify his obsessive desire for a Nobel Peace Prize to cap his political legacy.
How Damascus will react to these political realities is anyone's guess. The possibility that Syria will pressure Hezbollah and other pro-Syrian paramilitary groups in Lebanon to escalate hostilities in south Lebanon prior to the planned Israeli withdrawal is taken very seriously in Israeli and U.S. government circles. Syria's state-run daily newspaper al-Ba'ath recently warned the Israelis that there will be dire consequences for their refusal to fully abandon the Golan Heights. "The few meters of Syrian soil that the Barak government refuses to give back will cost it dearly," said the statement. It also lashed out at the Clinton administration for "abandoning the peace process" and "adopting the stance of the Barak government."5
1Al-Hayat (London), 21 March 2000. 2Al-Hayat (London), 28 March 2000. 3Al-Quds al-Arabi, 21 March 2000. 4Al-sharq al-Awsat, 29 March 2000. 5Al-Ba'ath (Damascus), 13 April 2000. � 2000 Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. All rights reserved. MEIB Main Page
