Doubts Grow Over Bush's Syria Policy
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34506
Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON, Aug 30 (IPS) - A growing debate within
Israel over whether United States President George W.
Bush's Middle East policies really serve the interests
of the Jewish state has spread to Washington, where
influential voices within the U.S. Jewish community are
questioning the administration's hard-line positions in
the region.
Coming in the wake of the month-long war between Israel
and Lebanon's Hezbollah, during which Washington
provided virtually unconditional support and
encouragement to Tel Aviv, the debate has focused
initially on the wisdom of Bush's efforts to isolate,
rather than engage Syria, the indispensable link in the
military supply chain between Iran and the Shia militia.
But the debate over the Syria policy may mark the launch
of a broader challenge among Israel's supporters here to
the administration's reliance on unilateralism, military
power, and ‘'regime change'' in the Middle East -- whose
most fervent champions have been neo-conservatives and
the right-wing leadership of the so-called ‘'Israel
lobby''.
‘'Bush has been convinced by self-appointed spokesmen
for Israel and the Jewish community that endless war is
in Israel's interest,'' asserted the lead editorial in
the U.S.' most important Jewish newspaper, ‘Forward',
immediately after the cease-fire took effect.
‘'(Bush) needs to hear in no uncertain terms that Israel
is ready for dialogue, that the alternative -- endless
jihad -- is unthinkable,'' declared the paper, which
argued for Israel's participation in a regional dialogue
with its Arab neighbours, including Syria, for a
comprehensive peace settlement. ‘'Now is time to change
the tune,'' the Forward concluded.
While such a regional negotiation is unlikely to be
accepted either by Washington or Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert in the short term, the question of engaging
Syria is rapidly moving up the agenda both in Israel,
where several Cabinet ministers have endorsed the idea,
and in Washington, where the traditional foreign policy
elite -- from Republican realists like former deputy
secretary of state Richard Armitage to Democratic
internationalists such as former secretaries of state
Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright -- publicly
criticized Bush for rejecting talks with Damascus, at
the very least to probe its willingness to rein in
Hezbollah, if not loosen its alliance with Iran, during
the past month's fighting.
‘'I can't for the life of me understand why we don't
(talk with) Syria,'' said James Dobbins, an analyst at
the RAND Corporation who, as a senior State Department
official, coordinated the Bush administration's
diplomacy during and immediately after the war in
Afghanistan.
‘'I think this idea that we don't talk to our enemies
simply has to be jettisoned,'' he told a forum at the
New America Foundation (NAF) here last week.
Dobbins' critique echoes those raised by a number of
prominent Jewish figures, such as New York Times
columnist Thomas Friedman, former U.N. ambassador
Richard Holbrooke, and Dennis Ross, the main U.S.
negotiator on Israeli-Palestinian issues under Bush's
father and former President Bill Clinton, and
organisations in recent weeks.
The most direct challenge surfaced here Tuesday when
the Zionist group, Americans for Peace Now (APN), sent
a letter to Bush calling on him to clarify whether his
administration opposes renewed peace negotiations
between Israel and Syria.
‘'Unfortunately, many in Israel and the U.S. believe
that your Administration is standing in the way of
renewed Israel-Syria contacts,'' the letter, which also
called on Bush to ‘'reject the thinking of those who
view the Syrian regime as irredeemable,'' stated. ‘'We
urge you to clarify, publicly and expeditiously, that
this is not the case.''
While the administration is likely to dodge the
question, its commitment to isolating Syria,
particularly since the 2005 assassination of former
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Harari, has never been in
doubt.
Indeed, in the opening days of hostilities between
Hezbollah and Israel, the White House not only
reportedly rebuffed an appeal by Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert himself for Washington to quietly approach
Damascus about pressing Hezbollah to release two Israeli
soldiers whose capture touched off the crisis, but also
urged Olmert, according to one account in the ‘Jerusalem
Post', to attack Syria directly.
‘'In a meeting with a very senior Israeli official,
(deputy national security advisor Elliot) Abrams
indicated that Washington would have no objection if
Israel chose to extend the war beyond to its other
northern neighbour, leaving the interlocutor in no doubt
that the intended target was Syria,'' a well-informed
source, who received an account of the meeting from one
of its participants, told IPS here this week.
While Abrams was discreetly urging Israel to expand the
war to Syria, his neo-conservative allies, some of whom,
like former Defence Policy Board chairman Richard Perle
and former House of Representatives Speaker Newt
Gingrich, are regarded as close to Vice President *****
Cheney, were more explicit, to the extent even of
expressing disappointment over Israel's lack of
aggressiveness or success in ‘'getting the job done.''
Cheney's own Middle East advisors, John Hannah and David
Wurmser, have long favoured ‘'regime change'' in
Damascus, and, according to the New York Times, argued
forcefully -- and successfully with help from Abrams and
pressure from the Israel lobby's leadership -- against
efforts by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to
persuade Bush to open a channel to Syria in an effort to
stop the recent fighting.
But Bush's adamant refusal to engage Damascus is
precisely what has raised doubts in Israel about whether
his policies are in the long-term or even in the
immediate interests of the Jewish state.
Since the cease-fire, a growing number of former and
current senior Israeli officials, including Olmert's
defence, interior, and foreign ministers, have called
for talks with Damascus. And, while Olmert himself has
rejected the idea for now, he has also abandoned his
previous pre-condition for such talks -- that Washington
remove Syria from its terrorism list.
Of the officials, the two most important are both former
Likud Party members -- Interior Minister Avi Dichter,
the former head of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency,
and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who reportedly enjoys
a strong relationship with Rice and has appointed her
former chief of staff, Yaakov Dayan, to explore possible
ways to engage Syria.
Meanwhile, other prominent Israelis are asking even more
basic questions about the regional strategy pursued by
Bush and its consequences for Israel.
In a column published by the Ha'aretz newspaper last
week, former Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami argued
that, in the aftermath of the Lebanon war which, in his
view, had ‘'proven the limits of (Israeli) power,'' a
peace accord with Syria and the Palestinians had become
‘'essential'' for Israel, particularly in light of
‘'the worrisome decline of the status of Israel's ally
in this part of the world and beyond.''
‘'U.S. deterrence, and respect for the superpower have
been eroded unrecognizably,'' he wrote. ‘'ŕAn exclusive
Pax Americana in the Middle East is no longer possible
because not only is the U.S. not an inspiration today,
it does not instill fear.''
Indeed, the widespread perception that Washington's
influence in the region has fallen sharply as a result
of both the war in Iraq and the administration's
stubborn refusal to engage its foes diplomatically has
raised new questions about whether Bush and his
neo-conservative advisers have actually made Israel less
rather than more secure.
‘'(The) Bush administration at first avoided and then
was unable to deliver the diplomatic agility that was
called for, and that is bad news for Israel,'' wrote
former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy in this
week's ‘Forward. ‘'The United States had no direct
channels to or leverage with key actors, and could not
commit troops to any cease-fire implementation force.''
''The idea that current American policy advances Israeli
security and national interests is thoroughly
discredited -- something that is now openly aired in
the Israeli media, and raised, albeit in more discreet
circles, by Israeli Cabinet ministers,'' according to
Levy, who currently directs the NAF's and Century
Foundation's Middle East Initiative. (END/2006)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34506
***********
Jim Lobe is also a contributor to antiwar.com
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe
Jim Lobe, works as Inter Press Service's
correspondent in the Washington, D.C., bureau. He has
followed the ups and downs of neo-conservatives since
well before their rise in the aftermath of the
September 11, 2001 attacks and his expertise has been
recognized by major international media, including the
'Four Corners' public affairs programme of the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation Australia
BroadcastingCorporation; the BBC's 'Panorama' news
magazine and the London-based Al Hayat newspaper,
among others.
IPS has compiled all of Jim's stories on the
neo-conservative ascendancy that he has written for
IPS over the last several years for those interested
in learning more about the neo-conservatives, their
networks and remarkable success in gaining influence
over Bush's foreign policy.
http://www.ipsnews.net/new_focus/neo-cons/index.asp
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