Middle East Intelligence Bulletin
Jointly published by the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon and the Middle East Forum
  Vol. 5   No. 10 Table of Contents
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October 2003 


The US-Syrian Crisis: Why Diplomacy Failed
by Ziad K. Abdelnour

Bashar Assad

In the span of just a few days in early October, the Bush administration dramatically shifted its policy toward Syria by openly supporting Israel's first air strike on Syrian soil in three decades and dropping its long-standing objection to congressional sanctions on Damascus. Both decisions came in the wake of a vigorous, but failed, effort to prod Syrian President Bashar Assad into voluntarily reducing his regime's sponsorship of terrorist groups opposed to the Middle East peace process and ending its support for insurgents fighting American forces in Iraq.

This diplomatic failure was less a reflection of irreconcilable differences between Syria and the United States than an outgrowth of unresolved conflict within the administration between neoconservatives and career diplomats. Their failure to coordinate policy sent conflicting signals to Damascus at a time when American national interests demanded utmost clarity. The new Syria initiative launched by the White House is an indication that this conflict has been resolved for the time being by executive fiat.

Syrian Noncompliance

After the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the White House clearly demarcated implementation of the Palestinian-Israeli "road map" and the reconstruction of Iraq as its two highest foreign policy priorities in the region and set a goal of ending Syrian intervention in both arenas, while preserving Syria's intelligence cooperation in the war against al-Qaeda. Six months later, Syrian sponsorship of armed Palestinian and Iraqi militants has not been reduced decisively, while its cooperation against al-Qaeda has proven to be highly duplicitous.

Syrian Sponsorship of Terrorist Organizations

US officials say that Assad pledged to close the facilities of terrorist groups in Syria during Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to Damascus in May. While the Assad regime forced terrorist groups in the capital to suspend public activities and keep a low profile, there was little substantial reduction in Syrian terrorist sponsorship. US Ambassador to the United Nations John D. Negroponte charged earlier this month that "specific directions for terrorist attacks continue to be issued from terrorist groups based in Syria." State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said that Syria has taken only "very, very, very small steps" to rectify the situation.[1]

Syrian Intervention in Iraq

US officials say that Syria has not stopped infiltrating anti-American militants into Iraq. On September 26, the American administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, revealed that 123 of the 248 foreign combatants held by US forces were Syrian.[2]

According to American officials, Syrian banks still hold around $2.5 billion deposited by the former Iraqi regime - funds that Saddam�s loyalists may be using to finance attacks on US forces. The Assad regime has been unwilling to hand over these funds, or even reveal who has access to them. Banks in Syrian-controlled Lebanon hold another $495 million deposited by the former Iraqi regime.[3] The refusal of Syrian and Lebanese officials to cooperate recently with a visiting US Treasury Department team probably a driving factor in the Bush administration's suddent policy reversal.

Syrian Cooperation against Al-Qaeda

Syria's record of cooperation in the war against Al-Qaeda, which had repeatedly drawn praise from US officials over the past two years, has become sullied. A Syrian-American translator working at Guantanamo Bay, US Air Force Senior Airman Ahmad al-Halabi, was arrested on July 23 on charges of espionage and aiding the enemy after he allegedly attempted to send information about the prisoners and the facility to Syria. Although Syrian officials strenuously denied any involvement, investigators said that Halabi had made unauthorized contacts with the Syrian embassy.[4] In September, a Muslim Army chaplain who had studied Islam and Arabic in Syria for four years, Captain James Yee, was arrested in possession of documents with information about the detainees and their interrogations, as well as sketches of the prison. Halabi and Yee reportedly knew each other.

In August, prominent American Muslim activist Abdurahman Alamoudi was caught by British authorities trying to smuggle $340,000 on board a flight to Syria. Why Alamoudi was attempting to bring the money, received from Libya, into Syria is unclear, but the most plausible explanation is that he planned to deposit the funds and feed them back into the United States little by little. Alamoudi is a founder of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veteran Affairs Council, which recommended Yee for his job as army chaplain.

While CIA officers have worked closely at times with their Syrian counterparts, analyzing al-Qaeda documents and debriefings in a "joint exploitation" center," Assad has ridiculed the American war on al-Qaeda in public. In a May interview, he mused:

All major powers headed by the United States are against [Osama] bin Laden, who cannot talk on the telephone or use the Internet. Yet, he is purported to address messages to all four corners of the world. This does not make any sense. How can he plan and move around? As for Al-Qaeda, is there really an organization called Al-Qaeda? It existed once in Afghanistan. But, does is still exist today?"[5]
Even if official statements like this are not indicative of the quality of Syrian intelligence assistance, they undermine American efforts to legitimize security cooperation against al-Qaeda in the region.

The American Diplomatic Campaign

As American military forces mobilized in the months leading up to the war in Iraq, the US State Department worked behind the scenes to secure Syrian cooperation, or at least neutrality, in the conflict that lay ahead. Much as they had done twelve years earlier in persuading the late Hafez Assad to join the first Gulf War coalition, career diplomats with decades of experience living and working in the Arab world shuttled to and from Damascus in hopes of winning this diplomatic prize through quiet and polite diplomacy.

This time, however, the results were catastrophic. As US intelligence agencies monitored growing Syrian weapons shipments to Iraq, American diplomats confronted the Assad regime behind closed doors and demanded that they stop, but to no avail. Syrian officials simply claimed ignorance of the arms moving across the border into Iraq, even after being presented with detailed intelligence about the shipments. Once the war started, Syrian officials called upon the Arab-Islamic world to fight alongside "fraternal Iraq" in the face of "savage aggression" by coalition forces,[6] while the country's senior state-appointed religious authority issued a fatwa calling on Muslims everywhere to use all possible means, including suicide operations, against the "belligerent American, British and Zionist invaders."[7] Thousands of "volunteers" answered these calls and converged on Damascus, where bus convoys were organized to carry them overland to Iraq. As the war drug on, evidence mounted that senior Iraqi officials had taken shelter in Damascus.

This eruption of Syrian hostility caught the United States by surprise, prompting Pentagon officials to sidestep diplomatic niceties and demand a halt to Syrian actions posing "a direct threat to the lives of coalition forces." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sent the White House a "Road Map for Syria," listing over a dozen policy options aimed at pressuring Syria to close the border, such as deploying an aircraft carrier within Syrian territorial waters.[8] In mid-April, Secretary of State Colin Powell warned that the US "will examine possible measures of a diplomatic, economic or other nature" against Syria - an implied threat of military action. Only after the precipitous collapse of the Iraqi regime underscored the magnitude of Assad's miscalculation did the Syrians began to relent.

The crisis appeared to definitively discredit the State Department's long-standing policy of constructive engagement with Syria. Rule number one of this doctrine - avoid public threats in diplomacy with Syria - had some merit during the 30-year reign of the late Hafez Assad, who had an uncanny knack for assessing an opponent's "red lines" and therefore rarely misjudged American resolve. In dealing with his inexperienced son and successor, however, avoidance of coercive public diplomacy clearly undermined the credibility of American warnings.

In the aftermath of the war, the administration made numerous public statements pertaining to Syria's involvement in Iraq, sponsorship of terrorist organizations, occupation of Lebanon and development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but American demands on the latter two issues of contention were never explicitly stated for the public record. Asked in an October 2 interview if a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon was "important for the Americans," Assad replied:

We do not know because some Americans propose it and others do not. The same person may sometimes propose it and not at other times. We cannot determine its importance to the Americans and whether it is really a US demand.[9]

In light of the horrendous judgement shown by Assad during the Iraq war, some administration officials - most notably Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton (a State Department outsider) - felt that addressing Syria's WMDs should be a priority.[10] Although National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice went so far as to warn in May that Syrian "weapons of mass destruction programs have to be accounted for" and that the Syrians should "make it possible to verify that they've given up any aspirations to weapons of mass destruction,"[11] the administration soon put this demand on the backburner. Just days before Undersecretary of State John Bolton was scheduled to testify before a congressional subcommittee on Syrian development of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons, the White House declined to approve his 15-page prepared testimony. Although the administration officially attributed the postponement to a scheduling conflict (and unofficially attributed it to an inter-agency dispute over intelligence findings), congressional sources say they were told that Bolton's testimony would disrupt the administration's efforts to secure Syrian cooperation in the peace process and Iraq.

While the administration's demands concerning Syria's sponsorship of terrorist organizations and intervention in Iraq were made more explicit, it failed to clearly specify the prospective benefits of compliance and costs of noncompliance. The Bush administration repeatedly called for greater Syrian cooperation, but avoided suggestions that Damascus could pay a penalty for its behavior - most public statements by US officials indicated that Syrian noncompliance would merely preclude an improvement in US-Syrian relations. "We are not going to do anything that would improve the relationship right now," Powell said in a typical characterization of these costs in late July.[12]

Periodic hints that the administration would withdraw it opposition to congressional sanctions on Syria constituted the main exception to this rule. Shortly after meeting with Assad and senior Syrian officials in Damascus in May, Powell publicly warned them that the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act (SALSA) introduced in both houses of congress in April "will hurt them . . . in the absence of performance on their part."[13] A few weeks later, however, Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs Paul V. Kelly wrote in a letter to Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California): "In light of the current fluid environment we ask that you not move forward on this bill at this time."[14]

Postponement of the bill's consideration in congress may have been misinterpreted by Damascus as a sign that the administration was not serious about its threat - after all, the American executive branch typically opposes legislation that restricts its ability to make foreign policy unilaterally. Moreover, no public threats regarding SALSA appear to have been made by career diplomats at the State Department, who have long argued that sanctions would discourage Syria from making peace with Israel and alienate American allies in the Arab world.[15] As a result, it does not appear that the Syrians anticipated that the White House would stop obstructing the passage of SALSA. Just days before it actually did so, Assad confidently told the Arabic daily Al-Hayat that the Bush administration "does not want its issuance as it would be embarrassing."[16]

Although the prospective gains of cooperation, such as accommodation of Syrian interests in Iraq and Syria's removal from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism, were made relatively clear, lack of interagency consensus regarding the benchmarks of compliance resulted in the premature distribution of "carrots." For reasons that have never been clarified, in the latest (April 2003) edition of its Patterns of Global Terrorism annual report, the State Department dramatically softened its portrayal of Syrian sponsorship of terrorism. The previous edition (released a year earlier) had stated squarely that Damascus gives "safehaven and logistics support" to a number of terrorist groups in Syria, provides several of them with "refuge and basing privileges" in the Syrian-occupied Beqaa Valley of eastern Lebanon, and serves as "the primary transit point for the transfer of Iranian-supplied weapons" to Hezbollah.[17]

In contrast, the April 2003 report declared in its Syria overview that Damascus provides only "political and limited material support" to Palestinian terrorist groups with offices or headquarters in Syria. There is no suggestion in the overview on Syria that these groups train or have military bases in the country. All mention of terrorist bases in the Syrian-controlled Beqaa Valley was removed from the report. The earlier reference to Syrian transshipment of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah was also cut - the report merely charges that permits "Iranian resupply" of the group. While last year's report did not give voice to Syria's official spin on its terrorist sponsorship, the new one was quite indulgent. Not only did the report relay its claim that the groups "undertake only political and informational activities," but it explained Syria's "view that Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist groups fighting Israel are not terrorists" and noted the Assad regime's counter-claim that Israeli actions in the Palestinian territories constitute "state terrorism."[18]

This debacle, which apparently resulted from State Department officials taking the Syrians at their word, was repeated weeks later. In early May, after emerging from a meeting with Assad in Damascus, Powell told reporters that there had been "some closures" of offices belonging to terrorist groups in Syria, subsequently specified by the State Department as Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), and Islamic Jihad. However, an official of Islamic Jihad answered phone calls later that day, politely directing inquiries to its Beirut office, while a representative of Hamas picked up the phone and said cautiously, "I don't know if it is closed or not."[19] Later that month, the Syrians received another gift - American forces reopened the border to Syrian-Iraqi trade.

The Syrians continued to see tensions with the United States as mainly a public relations problem. Assad replaced his ambassadors in Washington and at the United Nations over the summer, while Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Butheina Shaaban was sent on regular public relations visits to the United States. Although Assad understood the importance that the Bush administration attached to the peace process and post-war stability in Iraq, he saw these American commitments as an opportunity to wrest concessions from Washington, not make them.

In July, Powell sent the Syrians another mixed signal by appointing Edward Djerejian head of an advisory committee charged with guiding US public diplomacy towards the Arab world. Djerejian, a former ambassador to Syria and assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs who established the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Texas after his retirement in 1994, undoubtedly had sufficient experience and language skills for such an undertaking, but he has long been an advocate of accommodating the Assad regime. Whether by coincidence or not, Djerejian's visit to Damascus in August left the Syrian capital spinning with talk about a softening of American pressure. One Syrian analyst told United Press International that American "thinking towards Iraq and the region has changed." Another concluded there were "improved ties between Syria and the US" because Washington needs Assad to "keep the truce with Israel alive."[20]

Back in Washington, however, patience with Assad was wearing thin. With the death toll of American soldiers killed in Iraq steadily mounting, Pentagon officials were pressing hard within the administration for a tougher position on Syria. According to one report, they even asked the CIA to put together a list of Syrian political figures who might one day succeed Assad.[21]

Policy Shift

Although the Bush administration was already preparing for a shift in policy toward Syria, Israel's raid on the Ain Saheb terrorist training camp outside of Damascus in retaliation for Islamic Jihad's October 3 suicide bombing in Haifa provided the immediate impetus. On October 6, President Bush expressed support for the raid, telling reporters that Israel has "a right to defend herself" and "must not feel constrained" in exercising this right. A day later, he expressed more explicit approval, saying "We would be doing the same thing."[22] While Bush also warned Israel to "avoid escalation," the implied license in these statements was virtually unprecedented. Surprisingly, the State Department fell in line with the new policy. "Dialogue at some point has to lead to action," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher on October 8. "If Syria wants, eventually, to have peace, and is willing to have peace with Israel, one has to question why they continue to allow the operation and support the operation of groups who are fundamentally opposed to that goal."[23]

At the same time, the Bush administration dropped its objections to SALSA, which was quickly brought to a vote in the House and approved overwhelmingly. The White House has indicated that the bill, expected to be approved in the Senate in coming weeks, will not be vetoed when it reaches the president's desk. If the bill enters into law, its impact would be mainly symbolic, as most of its provisions are subject to waiver by the president and the United States does not have strong trade relations with Syria. According to the US-Arab Chamber of Commerce, Syria's exports to the United States, consisting mainly off artisan products and vegetable oils, totaled $148.1 million last year, while its imports of American goods totaled $274.1.[24] There is little American investment in the country outside of the oil and gas sector.

Whether the shift in American policy will persuade Assad to change his behavior is unclear. The initial reaction has been mixed. In a speech to the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit in Malaysia on October 16, Assad called US policymakers "a group of fanatics" bent on waging war against the Islamic religion and accused them of "secret financing of some organizations to ensure the continuation and expansion of Islamic extremism."[25] However, Syria also unexpectedly voted in favor of a UN Security Council resolution aimed at securing greater international support for the reconstruction of Iraq.

American pressure on Syria may bring about moderation indirectly by facilitating political reform in the country. Although few admit it openly, many pro-democracy reformers in Syria see external pressure as beneficial in two ways. First, it provides a compelling rationale for political reforms. "To face up to the US threats, the regime should open up for the people and give them back their freedom," said one of Syria's leading dissidents, Riyad al-Turk, in a September interview. "It's the people who resist and Iraq is the biggest lesson in this regard," referring to the unwillingness of most Iraqi soldiers to resist the entry of American forces.[26] In addition, the government's fear that it will be next on America's "regime change" list may make it wary of committing gross violations of human rights. "Some of us say that it is only because of what America did in Iraq, the fright it gave our rulers, that we reformers stand a chance here," said Anwar Bunni, a prominent human rights activist, in a recent interview.[27]

Notes

  [1] "Israeli Airstrike Hits Site in Syria," The Washington Post, 6 October 2003; US Department of State, daily press briefing, 8 October 2003.
  [2] "US looks at Syrian weapon complicity," United Press International, 17 September 2003; "US forces hold 19 al Qaeda suspects in Iraq-Bremer," Reuters, 26 September 2003.
  [3] "US Believes Syrian Banks Hold $3 Billion in Iraqi Funds," The New York Times, 21 October 2003.
  [4] "Envoy denies any contact with Syrian-born clerk accused of passing on information," The Associated Press, 29 September 2003.
  [5] Date of interview unspecified, republished in Tishrin (Damascus), 25 May 2003.
  [6] Syrian Arab Republic Radio (Damascus), 26 March 2003.
  [7] Agence France Presse, 27 March 2003; United Press International, 27 March 2003. Italics added for emphasis.
  [8] Eli J. Lake, "Few Good Men: The Search for Syrian Liberals," The New Republic, 26 May 2003.
  [9] Al-Hayat (London), 7 October 2003. Interview conducted five days earlier.
  [10] According to a recent unclassified report to congress by the Central Intelligence Agency, Syria possesses "a stockpile of the nerve agent sarin" and "apparently is trying to develop more toxic and persistent nerve agents." The report said "it is highly probable that Syria also is continuing to develop an offensive BW [biological weapons] capability." Central Intelligence Agency, Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, 7 January 2003.
  [11] Condoleezza Rice, State Department Foreign Press Center Briefing, 14 May 2003.
  [12] "Powell says Syria must accept post-Saddam Iraq, warns of isolation," Agence France Presse, 1 August 2003.
  [13] The Associated Press, 4 May 2003.
  [14] Janine Zacharia, "Damascus still 'harboring and supporting terrorism,' US official says," The Jerusalem Post, 20 July 2003.
  [15] "Analysis: Putting Syria in the dog house," United Press International, 22 September 2003.
  [16] Al-Hayat (London), 7 October 2003. Interview conducted five days earlier.
  [17] US Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism-2001, Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism, 21 May 2002.
  [18] US Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism-2002, Overview of State-Sponsored Terrorism, 30 April 2003. Italics added for emphasis.
  [19] "Militant Palestinian Groups Dispute Powell's Report of a Crackdown by Damascus," The New York Times, 5 May 2003.
  [20] "Analysis: Does the U.S. need Syria?" United Press International, 5 September 2003.
  [21] "Policy change taking shape in U.S. over Syria," Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. 7 October 2003.
  [22] "U.S., Israel move toward common position on terror sponsors as Sharon, Assad flex muscles," The Associated Press, 7 October 2003.
  [23] US Department of State, daily press briefing, 8 October 2003.
  [24] "Analysis: Putting Syria in the dog house," United Press International, 22 September 2003.
  [25] Syrian Arab Republic Radio (Damascus), 16 October 2003. Translation by BBC Worldwide Monitoring.
  [26] "Syrian dissident calls for more openness to face up to US threats," Agence France Presse, 22 September 2003.
  [27] "The Painful Truths that Now Confront Syria's Reformists," The Guardian, 6 October 2003.


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