Damascus at the gate

[question everything]

w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 09:52 28/12/2006
Damascus at the gate
By Ari Shavit

Is it possible to achieve peace with Syria? It's doubtful. It's true that Damascus is at the gate and Syrian President Bashar Assad is sending increasingly strong peace signals, and it's also true that Syria is not an inseparable part of the axis of extremism threatening the Middle East today. After all, the secular nationalist regime in Damascus is supposed to be standing up to Shi'ite Islamic extremism, and not serving as its bridgehead to the Arab world. But a peace agreement with Israel is a genuine challenge to the minority Alawite government and could endanger the stability of the anachronistic Baathist regime.

A peace agreement with Israel would deny Syria its identity as the flag bearer of Arab nationalism and would turn it into a marginal Middle Eastern country. A peace agreement would bring prosperity to Israel and Lebanon, and maybe even economic cooperation between the two countries, and would turn their large neighbor into an unimportant, backward country living in their shadow. There is no reason why the Syrians should agree to that.


(snip)

The mission of the Israeli government must be clear: to make every effort to prevent the situation from deteriorating and to prove to the Israeli public that if violence erupt, it is not because of Israel's refusal. The soldiers who would be sent to the next war must know that their government did everything possible to prevent war, that every last opportunity was exploited, that every knock at the door was answered. U.S. President George W. Bush is not interested in Israeli-Syrian peace. Israel is beholden to President Bush and is committed to his honor, but if he errs on the Syrian issue as he did in Iraq, it is not his citizens who will pay the price.

Israel does not have to be brazen in confronting those sitting in Washington, but neither can it behave like its vassal. Israel cannot act in contradiction to its interests only because it has been told to do so by a failing U.S. administration in its final days.

(snip)

We have to come up with new kinds of proposals and adhere strictly to our red lines. But we must get the show on the road, using caution, wisdom and creativity.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/806579.html

[dave_p]

1. BS

"A peace agreement would bring prosperity to Israel and Lebanon" - but not to Syria? Note how this assertion's just dropped into the piece without any support. Why wouldn't Syria prosper? It still shares an economic unity with Lebanon only incompletely undone by the French in 1920, and there's no reason why all countries in the region shouldn't prosper from a just & lasting peace.

"Israel is beholden to President Bush and is committed to his honor"?? Wow. Sooner them than me.

[question everything]

2. Read the next sentence:

Israel cannot act in contradiction to its interests only because it has been told to do so by a failing U.S. administration in its final days.

[dave_p]

3. Haha! Fair point

... but it's still BS. And WTF does that mean? Israel's shown little reluctance to "act in contradiction to its interests" lately. The whole piece seems designed to out-neocon the White House. That's no way to smart policy. Somebody needs converting on that road...

[applegrove]

4. I think the point that many middle eastern countries use Israel as an

excuse to keep their underrepresented populations stirred up and not looking at things that need to be fixed at home is a valid one. Where you go from there..to war..or to soft power is up to you.