Lots of foreign policy sophisticates have told us that the American way forward in the Middle East is to engage Syria and draw it out of Iran’s orbit. Last week the Washington Post editorialized in response to President Obama’s naming a new ambassador to Syria:
The exercise of talking to Mr. Assad serves a certain purpose, since it allows a skilled diplomat such as Mr. Burns to lay out the administration’s incentives for changed behavior as well as its red lines, and it might make Iran’s paranoid leaders nervous. But anyone who thinks the Obama administration has come up with a way to change the Middle East through detente with Syria would do well to study the history of Mr. Assad’s decade in power. That gambit has been tried, by more Western diplomats and politicians than can be counted, and the results are clear: It doesn’t work.
(In addition, as Barry Rubin pointed out, the timing of the appointment couldn’t have been worse.)
Tony Badran expanded on the Post’s view.
The administration is setting a perfect trap for itself by giving Syria the time and space to pursue its actions without American benchmarks to verify if engagement is working. This will be exploited to the fullest by Assad. The US would do well to abandon the ill-advised “short term vs. long term” approach that allows Syria to obtain rewards for minor concessions while allowing its regime to pursue a policy of destabilization.
Further complicating matters, the administration’s outreach couldn’t have had worse optics. While Burns was visiting Syria, the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that Syria was developing a covert nuclear program with North Korean help. This came a few days after a report disclosed that North Korea and Syria had resumed cooperation on “sensitive military technology” in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. In a sign of what’s in store for the Obama administration, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem declared that Damascus would continue to ignore IAEA calls for cooperation.
Syria responded to the outreach by threatening Israel and inviting Iran’s President Ahmadinejad for a visit.
The visit went about as can be expected:
Arab nations will usher in a new Middle East “without Zionists and without colonialists,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday.
Ahmadinejad spoke Thursday during a trip to Syria. The trip follows a string of US efforts to break up Syria’s 30-year alliance with Tehran.
Or to get a sense of the non-filtered chatter:
President al-Assad went on to say, ”We are meeting today to communicate and hold dialogue on various issues and thorny and complicated topics in this region…such a meeting not only comes in the course of years-long regular and routine meetings between the two countries, but it also coincides with this noble occasion adding special meanings…This is a blessed occasion to which we sought to add the bless of work and communication,”
”We wanted this festive day to be one of accomplishment, so we signed an agreement on annulling entry visas between Syria and Iran…This agreement would result in more communication and enhancing of the common interests of the Syrian and Iranian peoples,” President al-Assad said.
It sure sounds as if Syria is drawing closer to Iran, not dropping out of orbit.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
