Pardon Me, Obama Administration, But Isn't Your Policy on Fire?

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
05 March '10

Posted before Shabbat

The story of the U.S. engagement with Syria and the sanctions issue regarding Iran’s nuclear program are fascinating. Each day there’s some new development showing how the Obama Administration is acting like a deer standing in the middle of a busy highway admiring the pretty headlights of the automobiles.

It’s like watching the monster sneak up behind someone. Even though you know he won’t turn around, you can’t help but watch in fascinated horror and yell: “Look out!” But he pays no attention.

The story of the U.S. engagement with Syria and the sanctions issue regarding Iran’s nuclear program are fascinating. Every day there is some new development which shows how the Obama Administration is acting like a deer standing in the middle of a busy highway admiring the pretty headlights of the automobiles.

Or to put it a different way, it is like watching the monster sneak up behind someone. Even though you know he’s not going to turn around, you can’t help but watch in fascinated horror and yelling out: “Look out!” But he pays no attention.

So I’m not just writing about these two issues in isolation but as very appropriate symbols of everything wrong with Western perceptions of the Middle East (and everywhere else) and the debates over foreign policy (and everything else) nowadays.

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Dinner in Damascus: What Did Iran Ask of Hizballah?

David Schenker/Matthew Levitt
Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Policy Watch #1637
02 March '10

On February 26, Syrian president Bashar al-Asad hosted Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad and Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah for a dinner in Damascus. Nasrallah is a routine guest in the capital, but the timing of this high-profile trip -- just a week after the United States dispatched Undersecretary of State William Burns to Damascus and nominated its first new ambassador in five years -- seemed calculated not only to irritate Washington, but also to highlight the central role Hizballah plays in Iran and Syria's strategic planning. Apart from serving as a pivot between Tehran and Damascus, however, the group also holds the power to engulf Lebanon and perhaps the entire region into another war through actions of its own.

Unfulfilled Promise of Retaliation

Two years after Hizballah military commander Imad Mughniyah was assassinated in Damascus -- prompting Nasrallah to declare an "open war" on Israel, the presumed perpetrator -- the group has yet to successfully retaliate. But it is not for lack of trying: in 2008, two Hizballah operatives and several Azerbaijani nationals were convicted of plotting attacks against the Israeli and U.S. embassies in Baku and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. The same year, Turkish authorities foiled as many as six possible Hizballah terrorist plots targeting Israelis and possibly the local Jewish community. Iranian intelligence agents were reportedly helping the group establish a network of operatives posing as tourists.

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How Bashar Assad made a fool of the US

Fresnozionism.org
28 February '10

News item:

The U.S. administration has asked Syrian President Bashar Assad to immediately stop transferring arms to Hezbollah. American officials made the request during a meeting Friday with the Syrian ambassador to Washington…

The move was described as an opportunity to discuss the next steps following the visit to Damascus by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns on February 17. The administration also said the meeting was part of its efforts to achieve a direct dialogue with Syria on issues of interest to both sides.

Haaretz has learned that Burns’ visit to Damascus ended unsatisfactorily for the U.S. administration. During Burns’ meeting with Assad, the Syrian leader denied all American claims that his regime was providing military aid to terrorists in Iraq, or to Hezbollah and Palestinian terror groups.

Assad essentially told Burns that he had no idea what the American was talking about. — Ha’aretz

The US recently presented a gift to Bashar Assad, by nominating Robert Ford as the first US ambassador to Syria since the recall of our ambassador following the Syrian-perpetrated murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

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Barack Obama can still avoid the Syria trap

Tony Badran
Now Lebanon
23 February '10

The Obama administration last week made a major diplomatic opening to Syria. It dispatched Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns to Damascus for talks, thereby elevating the level of diplomatic contact and further making good on a pledge to engage with countries that George W. Bush’s administration shunned.

Administration officials leaked to the media, on background, that the Burns visit was intended to “isolate Iran” by wooing Damascus away from Tehran and other allies, particularly Hezbollah and Hamas.

This strategy will not work. Indeed, it may be no strategy at all. Despite its eagerness to engage with Syria, the United States must avoid giving too much up until the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, makes verifiable and substantial concessions on key Washington demands, not least surrendering Syrian support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Otherwise, Assad may dictate the avenues, conditions and aims of the engagement process.

Why Syria, and why now? The Obama administration’s efforts to open a dialogue with Iran have been ineffective. To undermine Iran’s nuclear program, the administration must contemplate actions that will exacerbate relations with Tehran and might endanger the US withdrawal from Iraq and surge in Afghanistan. The administration has always regarded Arab-Israeli settlements as necessary to temper regional animosities. However, given its failure to restart Palestinian-Israeli talks, Washington believes the only alternative is to advance on the Syrian track.

Obama, as The New York Times has reported, also hopes to “benefit from a global perception” that he has “reached out to North Korea, Cuba and even Syria.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton argues that the resumption of high-level contacts with Syria has proven the administration’s “willingness to engage.” But this begs the question: Which audience is Washington trying to impress? And how would these impressions actually further American interests in the Middle East?

Important actors in the region are unnerved by the fact that the administration appears incapable of hearing the most pressing concerns of its anxious allies.

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Don't expect progress from talking to Syria

Washington Post Editorial
19 February '10

THE NOTION that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad can somehow be turned from his alliance with Iran and sponsorship of terrorism is one of the hardiest of the Middle East. No number of failed diplomatic initiatives, or outrages by Mr. Assad, seems to diminish its luster. The latest attempt to test it comes from the Obama administration, which this week nominated the first U.S. ambassador to Damascus since 2005 and dispatched a senior State Department official, William J. Burns, to meet with Mr. Assad. "I have no illusions," Mr. Burns said afterward, "but my meeting . . . made me hopeful we can make progress together."

We don't disagree with the administration's selection of an ambassador or Mr. Burns's visit; both represent a modest delivery on President Obama's campaign promise of "direct engagement" with regimes such as Syria. But it's worth noting that Mr. Burns has done this before: He met with Mr. Assad in 2004 on behalf of the Bush administration. Earlier, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell "engaged" Mr. Assad. So have House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John F. Kerry, and numerous European notables, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy. When he was Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert negotiated extensively with Mr. Assad through Turkish intermediaries.

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Straining those unbreakable bonds

FresnoZionism.org
13 November 09

On November 1,

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said … at a press conference in Jerusalem that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement on limiting construction in the settlements was “unprecedented.”

A senior government source in Jerusalem said Clinton told the prime minister, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Defense Minister Ehud Barak that she had demanded that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas remove his preconditions and renew talks immediately. — Ha’aretz

But 9 days later,

The United States does not accept continued Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, a senior U.S. state department official has said, adding that Jerusalem’s commitment to restrain settlement activity is not enough.

In an address to the Middle East Institute, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William J. Burns on Tuesday said that the Obama administration does not “accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”

“We consider the Israeli offer to restrain settlement activity to be a potentially important step, but it obviously falls short of the continuing Roadmap obligation for a full settlement freeze,” he said. – Ha’aretz

What a difference a bit more than a week makes! During those 9 days,two main things happened. Mahmoud Abbas threw a tantrum and threatened to quit or even to dissolve the Palestinian Authority (PA), and the State Department fell in love with the Fayaad plan to declare a Palestinian state in two years.

Let’s face it, the State Department doesn’t give a rat’s tuchas about security for Israel. Their goal is always stated in terms of “two peaceful states, side by side”, but what they care about is the Palestinian state. Burns gave the usual meaningless nod toward America’s connection with Israel, but you can see that it’s the Arab state that he’s salivating for:

A Jewish state of Israel, with which America retains unbreakable bonds, and with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967, that ends the daily humiliations of Palestinians under occupation, and that realizes the full and remarkable potential of the Palestinian people…

The good news is that he said “A Jewish state” and that he mentioned 1967 — after all, if he had just said “the occupation”, Palestinians would assume that he meant the ‘occupation’ that dates from 1948.

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