Obama and Assad Both Tripped Up by Focus on Israel

Jonathan S. Tobin
Commentary/Contentions
01 April '11

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/04/01/obama-and-assad-both-tripped-up-by-focus-on-israel/

Bashar Assad and Barack Obama don’t have much else in common, but as recent events have shown, both have labored under the delusion that an obsession with Israel could solve their problems.

Earlier this week, Syrian dictator Assad addressed his country in the wake of violent protests in which his security forces had killed dozens. But rather than play the Arab reformer — the pose that this British-trained opthamologist has often assumed during his decade as Syria’s strong man — Assad showed that he was his father’s son. Like the murderous Hafez Assad who slaughtered tens of thousands of his opponents during thirty years in power, Bashar didn’t back down. Instead, he claimed that dissent against his regime was the result of a foreign conspiracy designed to bring down Syria and “enforce an Israeli agenda.”

But on Friday, protesters ignored the charge that they were Israeli agents and again took to the streets of Syria’s cities. Assad’s thugs were there too with, as the New York Times reported, “tear gas, electrified batons, clubs and bullets.”

There are two conclusions to be drawn from this latest turn of events.


First, as in other Arab countries, the citizens of this so-called “confrontation state” were not deflected from their demands for freedom by Assad’s attempt to brand all dissent as somehow inspired by Israel. Even in Syria, a country where hatred of Israel has been deeply inculcated by the educational system and popular culture, the practice of using the war against the Jews to stifle all dissent against the Assads’ minority Alawite regime may no longer be true. If so, it would call into question not only the false notion that Israel is the source of all the Arabs’ troubles and grievances but also the legitimacy of a government that has no other policy than war with Israel.

Second, the illusion that “engagement” — to use the Obama administration’s way of describing its attempts to appease dictatorships like Syria and Iran — was essential to reviving the Middle East peace process ought now to be finished.

Since he took office, Obama has acted as if the only real problem in the Middle East was Israel and its democratically elected government. For two years, Obama’s foreign policy team has been promising to detach Syria from its alliance with Iran. They swore that Assad’s decision to accept a land-for-peace deal with Israel would transform the region.

These false assumptions have now been exploded. Assad never had any interest in peace or abandoning Iran. He is, in fact, showing the sincerest admiration for Iran by slavishly following its own pattern of brutally suppressing dissent. Obama’s team ignored the danger signs about Syria and its role in putting Hezbollah into power in Lebanon. And why? They were focused exclusively on Israel and committed to picking fights with the Netanyahu government over Jews’ building in Jerusalem. No wonder the administration has been caught flat-footed by the Arab Spring.

Obama now finds himself half-heartedly pursuing regime change in Libya, and may soon be prodded to do something about Syria. Like Assad, the president assumed that Israel could solve all his Middle East problems. Instead, Obama has discovered that what is really needed is the sort of democracy promotion he used to dismiss as a discredited relic of the Bush administration. As Assad futilely waves the bloody shirt of the Arab-Israeli conflict to save his sinking regime, Obama, who is reportedly mulling another campaign of pressure on Israel later this year, might want to re-think some his own shattered policy assumptions.

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