Hezbollah's "New" Political Document

In case you haven't seen it, here's my commentary on Hezbollah's "new" political document.

I will come back with a lengthier post to touch on some other points I wasn't able to include in the NOW Lebanon piece.

The Syrian Illusion Revisited

Here are two excellent recent pieces by Emile Hokayem and Jonathan Spyer on the stale old illusion of a Syrian "peace track," and assessing the whole enterprise of engagement with Syria more generally.

Spyer explains why the so-called "Syria track" -- that most absurd leftover from the delusional 1990s "peace process" -- will, once again, lead nowhere. There are structural reasons, as I've argued repeatedly here and elsewhere, why this is so, and they have to do with the regional system overall and Syria's position as a second tier regional actor (its over-inflated self-image and role-conception notwithstanding) with no other assets to remain relevant save for its sponsorship of violence and alliance with other violent actors:

Why would such talks almost certainly fail? The formula for success in negotiations between Israel and Syria is no longer the '90s recipe of land for peace. A breakthrough in Jerusalem-Damascus negotiations would be predicated on the basis of "land for strategic realignment."

That is, Syria would be expected to abandon its regional alliance with Iran in return for Israeli territorial concessions on the Golan Heights.

Damascus, however, has made abundantly clear that such a realignment is not on the table. The reasons are fairly obvious. Syria's current stance of alliance with Iran gives the Damascus regime most of what it needs. Syria is seen as a vital part of any regional diplomatic process, because of its ability to spoil progress through its alignment with radical forces.

The 30-year old (and counting) illusion of distancing Syria from Iran, as well as the desire to counter Iranian influence in Iraq, is the driver behind Saudi Arabia's recent and ridiculously inept political moves. Both Spyer and Hokayem correctly identify the shared interest (which, ironically, is also shared by Iran!) in undermining Nouri al-Maliki in Iraq, something that I've written about at the time of the August bombings in Iraq, responsibility for which Iraq has, correctly in my view, laid at Syria's doorstep. General Odierno also agrees with the Iraqi accusation.

The French position is even more pitiful. France is a secondary world power that wishes to carve a "role" for itself in ME affairs and its only avenue to do so is through the so-called "peace process," and more specifically (by default) through Syria. How apt, therefore, for a secondary power to place its bets on a secondary regional actor in a process that will lead nowhere. The poseurs leading the pitiful on a bridge to nowhere, as it were. The Syrians, for their part, have no problem feeding the French delusion, while extracting real concessions, as the French paper, Liberation, recently noted in a stinging critique of Sarkozy's useless Syria policy.

Spyer accurately describes this dynamic, noting that Syria's recent limited diplomatic gains are "testimony not to any hidden diplomatic genius lurking among the Ba'athists of Damascus. Rather, it shows the weakness, confusion and disunity of those forces in the region and beyond it who might be expected to have an interest in challenging Iran and its allies in their bid for dominance of the Middle East."

US policy in contrast, as noted by both Spyer and Hokayem, has not jumped on this foolish bandwagon. Nevertheless, Spyer notes, the lack of a coherent and forcefully articulated strategy and understanding of regional dynamics on the part of the US (and, I would add, as Michael Young has done, US ambiguity on Iraq) has allowed for secondary players like France and Saudi Arabia to step forward in an exercise of virtual diplomacy, which nevertheless can potentially have a real impact on US interests.

Spyer's conclusion is worth repeating and applying to US policy as well:

The building of clarity in this regard represents a core strategic interest for Israel. It would be mistaken to sacrifice this interest on the altar of any short-term alleviation of pressure resulting from a revival of virtual diplomacy with the Assad regime.

The Hezbollah Model Revisited

Following up on my previous post, here's a piece I co-authored with Mara Karlin that appeared in the Washington Times today.

I guess it was a fitting coincidence that it was published on the anniversary of Hezbollah's 1983 attack on the US Marine Barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 American servicemen.

The Hezbollah Model in Afghanistan?

Over at the MESH blog, Matt Levitt has an excellent post on a recent report in the Washington Post that "[s]ome inside the White House have cited Hezbollah, the armed Lebanese political movement, as an example of what the Taliban could become."

Make sure you read Levitt's post, and then check out my own comment there.

Is the Obama Administration Fed Up with Syria?

Hussain Abdul-Hussain has a very interesting report in the Kuwaiti Al-Rai today (Arabic): As a result of its frustration with Assad's negative behavior, Abdul-Hussain writes, the Obama administration has decided against sending its ambassador back to Syria at this time, in a reversal of the announcement made 100 days ago.

This report comes a few days after Jackson Diehl wrote in the Washington Post that "George J. Mitchell, the Middle East envoy, appears to have given up on including Syria in the Middle East negotiations he is preparing to launch." Mitchell did not include Syria on the itinerary of his current trip to the region.

Abdul-Hussain spoke to unnamed sources and US officials who expressed to him that the Obama administration has had it with the Syrians, who, according to one source, "don't know the difference between normalizing relations and [them] behaving like they've defeated the US in a world war."

Anyone who's read my commentary, whether here or elsewhere, knows full well that that's precisely how the Syrians were interpreting engagement. Remember Imad Shoueibi, the incomparable apparatchik who declared that Syria had "broken" the US, and that it was therefore "up to the defeated to present his menu and up to the victor to present his demands," even threatening then Acting Asst. Sec. Feltman?! And of course, who can forget the comedy classic, the list of conditions to "Abu Hussein" from the regime's most amusing clown, Sami Moubayed?

The sources go on to tell Abdul-Hussain, in an unamused tone, that "Assad had started to count the American eggs in his basket before offering anything in return," adding, "Assad fires a rocket here or there [in south Lebanon] and expects us to run to him... This kind of security blackmail no longer works on the United States."

However, the straw that broke the camel's back, according to Abdul-Hussain's sources, was the regime's behavior after special envoy George Mitchell's latest trip to Syria in July. Abdul-Hussain's sources provide us with a recounting of what happened at the meeting between Assad and Mitchell, and what ensued afterwards:

"During the meeting between Mitchell and Assad in Damascus, the Syrian president asked the American envoy to explain to him the articles in the Syria sanctions. Mitchell pulled out the sanctions draft and read it article by article, and explained it in detail to Assad, which took over an hour and a half... Mitchell concluded by explaining the mechanism of placing and lifting sanctions, and informed Assad that they were reviewed yearly, and that they could be lifted if and when the necessary conditions were met."

However, the Syrians, who are always eager to portray relations with Washington as being on an inevitable path of entente, leaked, either intentionally or by mistake, that the US had promised to lift the sanctions imposed on Syria. Before Mitchell's plane landed in Dulles airport... a wave of anger was sweeping through official hallways in Washington. The State Department had not given Mitchell any instructions that would give the impression that it had any intention of lifting the sanctions. Likewise, several members of Congress were angry, and quickly requested meetings with diplomats from State in order to be briefed on the US envoy's meeting with Assad.

Mitchell showed the official minutes of the meeting with Assad to his colleagues at State and to his former colleagues in Congress. "When we read what really happened between the two men, we reached a singular decision: Assad was always trying to play us, and we had to prove to him that Washington's plans in the region are not dependent on him," said one high-level US source.
...
But what really angered the US administration, according to the sources, was that "after months of dialogue with him (Assad), he hadn't changed an inch in his behavior, and offered us nothing of what we were asking. Instead, he always asks us about what we can offer him, under the mercy of blackmail and instigating [security] incidents in the region... America will not succumb to Syrian blackmail."

The bit about the Syrians eagerly and prematurely leaking the disinformation about sanctions is certainly true, and I've written about it recently. Essentially, it's Imad Moustapha's doing (via the WSJ), which didn't win him any chums here (not that the had many). And apparently, according to rumors, his standing in Syria is not that hot either, given the way engagement with the US has gone, after Moustapha and pals had portrayed it as a walk in the park, setting up what Andrew Tabler dubbed a huge "expectations gap."

Abdul-Hussain also asked unnamed US officials regarding any Arab role to bring Washington's and Damascus' viewpoints closer, and they replied that "Egypt is angry at Assad and shares our point of view that there is no use talking to the Syrian regime. As for Saudi Arabia, we watched it offer concession after concession to Assad -- in Lebanon and elsewhere -- and we have not seen any results so far." The officials added, "Israel is further today than ever from the idea of prying Assad away from Iran." The Syrian president, said the officials, had tried to use the card of indirect talks with Israel -- via Turkey -- in order to get to Washington, "but Israel categorically rejected what Syria and its Turkish sponsor had to offer."

Finally, Abdul-Hussain concludes that this tension might be escalating, according to his estimation of the mood in Washington. His sources conclude by saying: "we went to Assad because we believe he's the weakest link in the alliance hostile to us in the Middle East. But he behaves as though he were the strongest link and places conditions on us instead of seizing the opportunity of engagement. In the midst of these discrepancies, a return to sharp disagreement, and perhaps even a lasting break, became inevitable."

All in all some very interesting stuff. Let's see how it plays out. But overall, the mood reflected in Abdul-Hussain's report was mirrored in this recent piece by Andrew Tabler. It was also reflected in Diehl's column: "The problem is that none of this has brought any results. ... The results of the outreach to Syria were manifest a couple of weeks ago when the Iraqi government withdrew its ambassador from Damascus after blaming Assad's regime for continuing to foment terrorism in Iraq."

Following up on Tabler's analysis in the aftermath of the crisis with Iraq (see my commentary on that here), David Schenker put forward a rather sensible policy advice, proposing the US "reevaluate" and "review" its approach to Syria.

Perhaps the administration is on a similar wavelength in its overall approach to Syria? In the end, as Ziad Majed recently put it, Syria pretends to be a player but has "no real capacity" to deliver. It's a structural reality that the administration would do well to acknowledge.

Addendum: A very well plugged-in source in Washington writes in response to this post: "I too think the kerfuffle on the Hill over Mitchell's meeting revealed to State that any nominee to Damascus is going to get a great deal of Congressional scrutiny, and until State and their nominee have very good answers to the question: 'What has Syria done to deserve this?' there is little or no reason to go to the mattresses for Assad. So I do think [the Ambassador idea] is pretty dead right now."

Meanwhile, a propos Imad Moustapha, guess who's not on the guest list for Secretary Clinton's Iftar dinner tonight. For whatever that's worth.

Gen. Odierno on Syria and Iraq

Important statements from Gen. Ray Odierno to al-Hayat (my translation from the Arabic):

General Odierno renewed accusations against Damascus of lending support to armed groups. He clarified in statements to al-Hayat that "during the past years Syria was lending indirect support to some of the fighters, on top of financial support." He added that Damascus "has not changed this type of interference and the American forces are watching that closely, and cannot interfere unless the Iraqi government requests it, that is for us to offer support and backup inside Iraqi territory and not outside it."

Regarding the evidence and documents displayed by Iraq in accusing Syria of supporting the perpetrators of the recent double bombings in Baghdad, and how convinced he was of that evidence, Odierno said: "there are armed groups that receive financial and logistical support from Syria," refusing to go into the evidence and confessions aired by the Iraqi government.

Regarding internationalizing the Syrian-Iraqi dispute, he said: "we support the Iraqi government's request that the UN moves to end the interference of all neighboring countries whose involvement in acts of violence or whose interference in Iraq's affairs have been proven." (Emphasis mine)

Update: Another major statement by Gen. Odierno:

"Syria continues to allow the facilitation of foreign fighters through Syria that both come into Iraq as well as, I believe, into Afghanistan," Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told reporters after meeting with Biden late Tuesday.

"We do know that there are some ex-Baathist elements that are in Syria that are funding operations in Iraq, and we also know that they are operating Web sites that encourage attacks inside of Iraq," Odierno said.

Inglorious Baathists

Here's my commentary on the crisis between Iraq and Syria. The Iraqi government has accused Syria of harboring and refusing to hand over figures who have played a direct role in the latest bombings in Baghdad.

The Syrians, I argue, are playing an old game of theirs, trying to create for themselves a political asset (where none exists in Iraq) using Muhammad Younis al-Ahmad, whom they cultivated in order to attempt and create a splinter faction of the Iraqi Baath party that they would control (think Abu Musa and Fateh Intifada, e.g.). I had blogged about him back in 2007.

The Iraqis are also shining the spotlight on Syria's sponsorship of Al-Qaeda in Iraq as well:

Shemari said when he arrived in Syria from Saudi Arabia, he was met by a militant who took him to an al Qaeda training camp in Syria. The head of the camp was a Syrian intelligence agent called Abu al-Qaqaa, he said.

"They taught us lessons in Islamic law and trained us to fight. The camp was well known to Syrian intelligence," he said.

For more on the infamous Abu Qa'qa', see my old post here.

You'll recall that in the case of al-Qaeda's Abu Ghadiyah, the Iraqis had told the Syrians numerous times to hand him over, to no avail, until the US raided his hideout in the Syrian border town of Al Bu Kamal and ostensibly took him out. Similarly today, the Syrians are playing the same game.

This type of transparent evasive trickery will have repercussions on the already cautious US engagement effort.

Finally, Arabic readers should also check out Hazem Amin's follow-up in al-Hayat:

لكلا التوجهين السوري والإيراني نتائجه الدموية، والمالكي يتلقى صفعاتهما بصفته واقفاً في نقطة وسط. فالبعث الذي يتحدث عنه المسؤولون في سورية هو غير البعث الذي يرغب المالكي في استدراجه الى العملية السياسية. فالبعث، عند الأخير، بعث الداخل، او بالأصح البيئة البعثية بعد سحب الجهاز الحزبي منها، في حين تتحدث دمشق عن الجهاز الحزبي المقيم عندها، والمتورط بأعمال عنف وقتل، قبل سقوط النظام وبعده. أما البعث الذي تسعى طهران عبر حلفائها العراقيين الى «استئصاله»، فلا يقتصر على الجهاز الحزبي الذي كان حاكماً، إنما أيضاً يشمل البيئة البعثية في العراق، وهو ما يعني حرباً أهلية جرب العراقيون بعض نُذرها.

وإذا أجرينا عملية حسابية لما تريده كل من سورية وإيران في ملف البعث في العراق، حصلنا على نقطة مشتركة. فسورية غير مكترثة بالبيئة البعثية، وتطالب باستيعاب الجهاز الحزبي، وإيران غير مكترثة بالجهاز الحزبي المقيم في دمشق، وتطالب بإقصاء «مجتمع البعث». إذاً، الحرب الأهلية في العراق هي ما يلتقي عنده كل من النظامين الجارين للعراق.
...
الأوراق الإيرانية في العراق واضحة، وطهران تجيد لعبها، بدءاً من ضغطها لإعادة إحياء الائتلاف الشيعي وصولاً الى إيوائها قيادات تنظيم «القاعدة» العاملين على خط كابول – بغداد. أما الأوراق السورية فهي، وإن كانت اقل تأثيراً، أكثر طموحاً. فزيارة المالكي الأخيرة الى دمشق لم تُخلف ارتياحاً سورياً بسبب شعور المسؤولين في دمشق انهم حيال ممثل لدولة بدأت تتحسس الطريق الى مصالحها.

Amin is wrong about one thing, however, and that is the notion that the US discussed with the Syrians the issue of drawing in Baathist clients they harbor into the political process and forcing them on Maliki. That's simply not true. It is however the false impression the Syrians want to give, as I noted in my piece about how the Syrians are putting out such nonsense as the US "inviting" them to play a "bigger role" in Iraqi affairs! That's King of Comedy material.

What this Syrian propaganda campaign shows is a perfect example of how Syria uses engagement to screw its enemies (US allies and friends). I.e., it uses US engagement to screw US interests. It targets it in media (or other) campaigns in order to demoralize and confuse US allies and friends, and in order to create impressions about the engagement with the US. This is done to extract concessions from US allies under the illusion of an American cover.

In reality, however, no such "discussion" exists with the US. It's a complete distortion of not just US intentions, but also the actual pace and substance of the engagement process. It's vintage Syrian trickery. It's also a good example of some of the public pitfalls of engagement.

Amin's main insight, however, is that he shows how terrorist extortion is in fact the Syrians' (only) foreign policy tool, which is what I have argued repeatedly. That is what I've dubbed structural and systemic reasons why Syria won't change its behavior, and why its relations with its neighbors and the US will continue to be tense and problematic. Syria cannot have the kind of influence it regards as its entitlement, commensurate with its grossly over-inflated self-image, without sponsorship of terror and extortion of its neighbors. As Amin put it in the conclusion of his piece, "the bombings... are part of the relations with the Iraqi government." I.e., terrorism as state policy.