Inspector Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

The situation in Iraq appears much the same: suspiciously quiet. The recent attacks against the foreign and finance ministries attracted little more than a one-day story in the press. Yet, these attacks could be a precursor to more violence, and should give pause to those that believe the job in Iraq is done. Despite progress, there remains a significant number of unresolved grievances such as the status of Kirkuk, distribution of oil revenues, inadequate incorporation of the Sons of Iraq into the security services and, in general, a “winner-take-all” attitude by the Maliki government. Any of these could lead to a reversal on the ground and a renewal of widespread violence.

Others would suggest the opposite. They point to noteworthy reductions in attacks against, and casualties among American forces, the easing of widespread tensions between the Sunni and Shi’a communities, and a general war-weariness which often precedes a long-term reduction in violence.

So which side is right? Is Iraq on the verge of backsliding, or is it moving towards a normal, albeit rocky, political situation which militates for the final departure of U.S. troops in 2011? Will 2010 be the year when it all falls apart or finally comes together? Will Iraq transform itself into a relatively pluralistic nation at peace with itself and its neighbors, and remain an ally of the United States?

On this, the United States cannot sit idly by and allow the situation to determine its own path. U.S. involvement in shaping and achieving an outcome positive to our interests is critical. However, one wonders if this can happen, given the comparatively laissez-faire policy embraced since the elections. I believe the current situation argues for more administration effort, and a return to direct administration involvement in order to ensure a “soft landing” in Iraq. If the goal remains the drawdown of all combat brigades by June 2010 and the complete withdrawal of all troops by the end of 2011, the administration must devote more time and effort to the problem.

The administration in general and President Obama in particular must reinforce a message and reinforce a policy which demonstrates that success in Iraq remains a national priority. The current message seems to be, “we’ve won in Iraq, so let’s move on to Afghanistan” or, dangerously, “we never should have been there, so let’s get out as quickly as possible.” Those who criticized the “forgotten and unresourced war” in Afghanistan and now devote full attention to that effort risk making the same mistake in reverse. Too rapid a shift of focus, resources and priorities from Iraq to Afghanistan, and failure to devote the required time and high-level effort to working through the unfinished business, put the hard-won gains in Iraq in peril. Despite the 2008 election rhetoric, this administration inherited the responsibility for success in Iraq. Pretending it doesn’t exist, bleeding it of needed resources or failing to rally public support for the remaining hard work abrogate the responsibilities that came with the election victory.

While Afghanistan remains an important priority, it cannot be at the expense of Iraq. For a reminder of this, I often turn to an editorial published by Professor Eliot Cohen in 2003. In talking about leaving Iraq prematurely, he noted:

Cut-and-run cannot be disguised, and the price to be paid for it would be appalling. No one else would take on the burdens of Iraq; talk of handing it over to the United Nations or NATO is wishfulness, not strategy. Whatever one’s view of the war’s rationale, conception, planning or conduct, our war it remains, and we had best figure out how to win it.

While there has been tremendous progress since Eliot Cohen wrote this in 2003, there is still work to be done. And we had best figure out how to do it.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

After several years in which Egypt seemed to have ceded the mantle of Arab leadership to Saudi Arabia (and even to small states such as Qatar), the octogenarian Husni Mubarak has become reenergized in the last few months. He came out swinging against Hezbollah last week, charging the Lebanese group with efforts to destabilize Egypt via terrorist attacks. He has pressed harder recently for a deal in Fatah-Hamas talks (see this article by Khaled Hroub in the Arab Reform Bulletin for more on the struggle between Egypt and Hamas). He took a forceful position in the Gaza crisis, despite deep opposition in Egypt and throughout the region.

What has changed? Has the Iranian threat to Egyptian interests finally become clear to Mubarak? Mubarak has lashed out at Hezbollah leader Nasrallah several times in the last few years, and perhaps views the current episode as a way to expose the dangers Hezbollah presents—and to get back at Nasrallah for his calls to Egyptians to rise up against Mubarak during the recent Gaza affair. Regarding the Iranian dimension, Mubarak has always been strongly suspicious of the Islamic Republic. Just last year he rebuffed the latest of repeated attempts by Iran to reestablish diplomatic relations, broken 30 years ago.

While Iran is a continuing worry, what seems to be motivating Mubarak now are two interests—one in foreign policy, one domestic—that are closely related. Mubarak’s renewed assertiveness suggests that he views the advent of the Obama administration as an opportunity to reestablish his worth as a U.S. ally. By serving as the principal channel to Hamas, Mubarak has placed Egypt at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, important to the Obama administration. And by taking on Hezbollah strongly, he has placed Egypt squarely on the correct side of the regional divide between allies of Iran and allies of the United States.

The curious thing, however, is that Mubarak does not really need to try this hard. The Obama administration came into office focused on rebuilding relationships that were tested by the policy disagreements and freedom agenda of the Bush era, and already has given signals of friendly intentions toward Cairo.

This brings us to the domestic Egyptian dimension of what Mubarak is up to. The next two years promise to be interesting and challenging ones in Egyptian politics. In autumn 2010 there will be parliamentary elections, which are likely to be at least as controversial as those of 2005 (in which the Muslim Brotherhood won over 20 percent of seats, in spite of government interference). In September 2011, Mubarak’s current presidential term finishes, and (assuming he is still with us) the 83-year-old president will have to decide whether to run again for another six-year term, step aside and encourage his son Gamal to run, or step aside and encourage someone else (perhaps a military or security figure) to run. What those three options have in common is that all will be deeply unpopular with the Egyptian public, because there is no expectation that the election will be freely contested.

While there is no reason to expect that opposition in Egypt will be strong enough to force Mubarak’s hand regarding presidential succession, it certainly would be helpful to him to have unambiguous U.S. support for whichever course he chooses. Also, keeping the Muslim Brotherhood cowed and defensive (whether through direct measures against the group or against its regional allies and ideological bedfellows) helps Mubarak clear the decks for whatever he plans to do. Playing the regional power game has its value, but keeping hold of power at home is the bottom line.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

With the fighting over in Gaza (at least for now), many see Hamas emerging as the victor in the same way that Hezbollah did in the war it fought with Israel in the summer of 2006. But did Hamas really win? Is it better off now than before the fighting began?

Just like Hezbollah in 2006, Hamas has survived its January 2009 conflict with Israel. Also like Hezbollah, Hamas has retained—and perhaps even increased—its control over its core constituency. In another similarity with Hezbollah in 2006, the 2009 conflict with Israel has increased Hamas’s status throughout the Arab and Muslim world. Also like before, criticism in the West and elsewhere has focused on the damage caused by Israel, and not the damage done to it.

Further, Hamas can probably still launch missile attacks on Israel just like Hezbollah can. Finally, Hamas has reportedly begun to rebuild the Israeli-damaged tunnels it uses to smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza.

But just how impressive are these achievements? Like Hezbollah, Hamas survived an Israeli onslaught. But also like Hezbollah, Hamas was unable to prevent or stop Israel from causing enormous damage to its supporters as well as the population it claims to protect. It is true that the conflict has increased the stature of Hamas in the West Bank. But this was something that was already occurring anyway through the incompetence and corruption of Fatah, which has made Hamas look better to many Palestinians.

Like Hezbollah in 2006, Hamas has won enormous sympathy and support in Arab and other Muslim countries. But if anything, Hamas has received even less support from their governments than Hezbollah did. America’s Muslim allies have not broken relations with Washington (as many did in 1967) or sent men and materiel to help their Palestinian brothers fight Israel. Even anti-American forces have kept their distance from Hamas. While expressing solidarity, Hezbollah has not launched a missile onslaught from Lebanon that might have forced Israel to divert its attention away from Gaza. Indeed, Hezbollah was quick to disclaim responsibility for the few missiles that were fired into Israel from Lebanon. As for Syria: while encouraging Hamas to resist, Damascus has done little to help it do so.

Tehran has actually become frightened over the genuine anger toward Israel that has welled up among Iranians. As Azadeh Moaveni’s Washington Post Outlook piece of January 25 noted, “Early this month, Khamenei appeared on national television to temper his previous declaration encouraging martyrdom on behalf of the Palestinians. He thanked the young people who had offered to go die in Gaza but said that ‘our hands are tied in this arena.’ Khamenei didn’t really want anyone’s hands to be untied, however; the whole Gaza incident was meant to distract Iranians, not to jeopardize Iran’s role in the region.”

However impressive the volume of outrage expressed in the Arab and Muslim world over Gaza, the Palestinians living there—and Hamas itself—may well have been more impressed by the fact that they received no meaningful support from these quarters in their struggle.

Also like Hezbollah, Hamas could not take much comfort from European criticism of Israel, as this did not result in effective action to halt Israeli military activity—much less any material support for the Arab side. Most importantly, whatever strains the 2006 and 2009 conflicts may have put on the Israeli-American relationship, U.S. support for Israel clearly remains strong. While criticism of Israel and sympathy for the Palestinians may be growing in the United States, this has not led to sympathy or support for Hamas. Nor is it likely to.

Finally, it should be pointed out that a large part of the reason why Hezbollah was perceived as victorious in 2006 is that it was the Israelis themselves who, in their disappointment at not having destroyed it, declared Hezbollah to have been the winner. Yet while Hezbollah’s political strength within Lebanon certainly increased as a result of the 2006 conflict, it is noteworthy that Hezbollah has been extremely careful not to provoke another Israeli attack since then.

It remains to be seen whether Hamas will follow Hezbollah’s example in refraining from firing missiles into Israel after such an intense conflict with the Jewish state. If it does, then Hamas’s behavior might more reasonably be described as prudent rather than victorious. If, instead, it resumes missile attacks, Hamas risks not only triggering another Israeli intervention in Gaza, but also being blamed by Gazans for having needlessly brought them more pain without any gain. And this would open the door for another Palestinian movement to displace Hamas through taking advantage of Hamas’s mistakes (just as Hamas did with Fatah). Hamas cannot afford a “victory” such as this.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

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Jon Alterman :: For those who despair reading still more about the Middle East but who find it frivolous to read something that has nothing to do with Semites at all, Shalom Auslander’s Foreskin’s Lament is the answer. Auslander’s book is a hilarious romp through his adolescence in an Orthodox Jewish community in Monsey, New York. Shoplifting, sexual aids, and premarital sex all make unlikely appearances in this book. The battle running through the book is the way in which the author’s deep religiosity plays off against his rather lax observance. Auslander believes fervently in a God who is endlessly tormenting him and punishing him for his excesses, and he just as fervently feels he should tell God to stick it. Auslander’s eye for hypocrisy, his impatience with religious pieties, and his underlying outrageousness make this book laugh-out-loud funny, page after page. One can only hope the names in this book were changed to protect the innocent.

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Daniel Byman :: God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215, by David Levering Lewis, is a quirky and wide-ranging book, covering the period of Islam’s rise and spread. Unlike most histories of this period, Lewis is superb not only at detailing the struggles within the Arab world and Muslim community, but also at placing Islam’s rise in context: we learn about imperial politics and dynamics that weakened Byzantium and the Sassanid empires and allowed the new religion to flourish and about Islam’s competition with parts of Christian Europe (in particular the Franks). Much of the book focuses on Spain, where Islam flourished as Muslims and Christians traded with, taught, and warred against each other.

Lewis’ writing is colorful yet clear, and he is an excellent storyteller. Scholars may note that there are large parts of the story that he doesn’t cover or mentions only briefly (Byzantium, in my view, gets short shrift, particularly in the centuries after Islam’s birth), but such gaps are inevitable for a book that covers such a vast period and region.

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Mark T. Clark :: Sean Naylor’s Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda is a good book for the holidays. Naylor, a war correspondent for the Army Times, narrates the U.S. military operation in March 2002 against the Taliban and remnants of Al Qaeda in the Shahikot Valley in Afghanistan. It was the largest military operation in Afghanistan after the action against the Taliban and Al Qaeda at Tora Bora.

The well-written book is riveting for many reasons. First, it helps the reader understand the kinds of challenges the United States faces in fighting in Afghanistan; second, it shows some of the problems the United States has encountered while trying to avoid the mistakes of the Soviet Union; third, it reveals some early problems with Rumsfeld’s transformation plans; fourth, Naylor’s account demonstrates the difficulties of coordinating such a large operation with conventional and special operations forces in conjunction with CIA operatives and indigenous fighters. And fifth, it promises to help the reader anticipate some of the concerns we may have when the Obama administration shifts U.S. focus away from Iraq and towards the renewed conflict in Afghanistan.

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Steven A. Cook :: I recommend Amin Maalouf’s wonderful book about his family, Origins. The first 75-125 pages are a bit of a slog, but once over that hump, Maalouf’s work hums along as he traces the arc of his family’s history from Lebanon to the United States to Cuba to France and back to Cuba. Largely because Maalouf is a writer of historical fiction, the book captures all the complexities of identity without the post-modernist jargon that often clouds the issue.

One of the most poignant moments early on in the book is Maalouf’s discovery of a trunk filled with, among other items, his grandfather’s correspondence. Maalouf’s meticulous, yet also vaguely frantic efforts to organize the contents of the trunk represent the ambivalence of the assimilated émigré. He is content in the Parisian world of letters, but there is an inextricable pull to the ancestral village in the mountains that hang over Beirut. The scene launches Maalouf on a journey to understand not only his grandfather’s life, but also to comprehend the powerful nature of that force that connects him and his relatives to this place. The device for this meditation on identity and one’s place in the globalizing world is the tension between the lives of Boutros, Maalouf’s grandfather, and his brother Gebrayel who ventured from Lebanon in the late 19th century bound for New York City and ultimately Havana.

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Mark N. Katz :: I love travel narratives, and since this is a recommendation for holiday reading, I’d like to call attention to one of my favorite Middle East travel narratives: Eric Hansen’s Motoring with Mohammed: Journeys to Yemen and the Red Sea. Yemen is frequently in the news, and the news from there never seems to be good. Yet as visitors to Yemen (including myself) have discovered, there is much that is friendly and attractive about this country that is little known not only to Westerners, but also to other Arabs.

In this book, Hansen conveys a strong sense of the country’s rugged beauty and individualism. Though many outside Yemen fear the rise of radical Islam there, Hansen’s descriptions of two widespread Yemeni customs—chewing qat (a mildly narcotic leaf) and carrying arms—suggest that this is not a country that Al Qaeda or other puritanical Islamist movements will find easy to dominate. Hansen, though, also discusses Yemen’s many problems—which have largely grown worse since his book was published. More than anything else, Motoring with Mohammed provides a clear, understandable introduction to a country whose politics so often appear to be neither clear nor understandable.

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Martin Kramer :: The Institut du monde arabe in Paris is hosting a splendid show on Bonaparte in Egypt through March 19. I saw it, and couldn’t resist the sumptuously illustrated catalogue, Bonaparte et l’Égypte: feu et lumières. It’s the next best thing to being there, and a perfect souvenir or gift if you do get there over the holidays. Not only are all the exhibits shown and explained, but there are background essays by leading experts, including Henry Laurens on Egypt and the French Enlightenment, André Raymond on Mamluk Egypt, Abdul-Karim Rafeq on Bonaparte’s Syrian expedition, and more. Despite its title, the exhibition covers Franco-Egyptian relations right up to the digging of the Suez Canal. There’s lots to captivate, from a panoramic painting of the Battle of the Pyramids to a special bookcase designed to hold the Description de l’Égypte, on loan from the National Assembly. Safe to predict that two hundred years hence, our descendants won’t be celebrating the cultural legacy of the invasion of Iraq. That’s what makes the French great—even (and all too often) in defeat.

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Walter Laqueur :: Read The Yacoubian Building, a fascinating, astonishingly outspoken bestseller about the life of the dwellers of a well known building in Central Cairo dealing with the radicalization of Egyptian youth, the fate of the old elite, homosexuality, corruption and a great many other topics. The novel, written by a Chicago-trained Egyptian dentist, inspired a movie by the same name, as well as a television series (I liked the movie even better than the book).

Also to be looked at (even if your Hebrew is a little rusty) is David Kroyanker’s new book about the (Jerusalem) German Colony. The author, architect and historian of architecture and Jerusalem, has dealt earlier on with half a dozen other sections of Jerusalem. This book, heavily illustrated and well researched, covers the history of this part of Jerusalem since the first Templars arrived from southwest Germany in mid-19th century. About every other house gets a write-up or illustration. Both a coffee table book and a serious study of wide interest.

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Michael Mandelbaum :: The Foreigner’s Gift by Fouad Ajami, the most insightful book on the American encounter with Iraq, has three cardinal virtues. First, it takes the measure of the people of Iraq as no other book has done, because unlike almost all other Iraq books, this one is written by a native speaker of Arabic with a deep familiarity with the history and culture of the Middle East, who visited the country frequently and traveled widely in it after 2003. Second, as the book’s subtitle—The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq—indicates, the book deals in depth with the third party to the post-2003 events, describing how the rest of the Arab world worked to thwart the plans and crush the hopes of the other two. Third, the book is elegantly, often lyrically written. Anyone interested in the Middle East will find The Foreigner’s Gift a pleasure to read even as he or she will come to understand better both the frustrations and tragedies since 2003 and the more recent hopes for better days in Iraq.

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Michael Reynolds :: The best books for the holidays are ones that are accessible to a general reader yet manage to inform and open new vistas. My recommendation, the Chechen doctor Khassan Baiev’s memoir of life and war in Chechnya, The Oath: A Surgeon Under Fire is more than just accessible, informative, and stimulating. It is one of the most powerful stories I have read, and was written by one of the most extraordinary men I have ever met.

The book’s title refers to Baiev’s determination during the wars of Chechnya to fulfill his Hippocratic obligation to treat all wounded and sick, Chechen fighters and Russian servicemen alike. Baiev’s loyalty to his profession’s code led both sides eventually to identify him as a traitor and seek retribution, forcing Baiev to flee Chechnya in 2000. Fortunately, he was able to find asylum in the United States, where he put his story to paper.

Baiev’s description of the laceration of Chechen society by war, radical Islamism, and crime in the years between 1994 and 2000 is exceptional in its intimacy, but the book offers more than a recounting of conflict in Chechnya. Through the story of his childhood and life in the former Soviet Union, Baiev allows the reader to see the Chechens, who more commonly are either celebrated cartoonishly as die hard opponents of Russian imperialism or pilloried wholesale as terrorists and gangsters, as people. Baiev’s witness of human savagery unsettles at the core, yet his own example of courage inspires and offers hope.

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Tamara Cofman Wittes :: Orientalists: Western Artists in Arabia, the Sahara, Persia and India, by Kristian Davies, is beautifully produced, with many full-color plates and wonderful details of some great Orientalist paintings. But more importantly, Davies helps us understand how and why Western artists became fascinated with these “exotic” parts of the world, through a narrative that is mercifully free of academic aridity and political jaundice. His fresh approach resonates with his pure aesthetic enjoyment of the subject, and his delight at peeking into the worlds (the real world, and the ones in the artists’ minds) that the paintings portray.

MESH members’ answers have appeared in installments throughout the week (Tuesday, Wednesday, and yesterday). Today’s responses, the last in the series, come from Steven A. Cook, Mark T. Clark, and Jon Alterman.

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Steven A. Cook:: George Bush’s Middle East report card:

Effort: B
Willingness to Listen: F
Cognitive Issues: F
Grasp of Abstract Issues: F
Recognition of Complex Problems: F
Group Interaction: D

Overall Grade: D-

Comments:

George and his friends have demonstrated strong views about the Middle East, but precious little grasp of the region’s history, politics, and culture. While the President et al. have made a strong effort, their unwillingness to listen and insistence that their views were superior to all others accentuated their knowledge deficit. As a result, not only have they not achieved their goals in the region (democracy in Iraq, a Palestinian state living side by side in peace with Israel, OBL “dead or alive,” the end of the Asad regime in Syria, Egypt leading the region in freedom, ending the U.S. addiction to oil, draining the swamp of extremists, getting Hezbollah to “stop this s***,” and disarming Iran), but in most cases Washington’s approach has produced precisely the opposite of the desired effect.

Many of George’s friends argue that things are better in Iraq these days. This is certainly true, but nobody is quite sure what will happen in Iraq. There are still a variety of issues that can undermine the progress of the last year. In addition, George’s grade suffered because he was unable to think through the consequences of his actions. The invasion of Iraq did get rid of an awful regime that was a menace to the region, but created an opportunity for another awful regime to be even more of a menace to the region.

I have to give some credit to the President for speaking out forcefully about democracy and freedom in the Arab world. A lot of people there did not like it (at least publicly), but it did have a salutary effect on the dominant discourse in the region. Arab leaders have had a very hard time changing the subject from reform and political transformation since the “forward strategy of freedom” was articulated in November 2003.

Still, the rest of this effort to promote change was either poorly conceived (see Al-Hurra), or old ideas wrapped up with a new bow (see MEPI). The administration’s diplomatic tin ear did not help (see Rice, Condoleezza “birth pangs of the new Middle East” or Hughes, Karen “Saudi women should drive, Middle East tour 2006″). Once again, deficits in grasping abstract issues, in group interaction, and in willingness to listen forced the administration to virtually abandon the freedom agenda once the situation in Iraq deteriorated and Islamists scored electoral gains in Egypt and Lebanon as well as a victory in Palestine. This resulted in a return of the state throughout the region, but particularly in Egypt. It turns out Cairo did not lead the region in freedom but rather repression, as the Mubarak regime used almost every coercive instrument at its disposal to undermine, intimidate, and destroy its opponents.

George does not generally avoid conflict, but he exhibited a demonstrable unwillingness to deal with the Arab-Israeli problem. He did get involved from time to time, but only reluctantly and for reasons that often had little to do with finding a resolution to the conflict. Moreover, when the President did get involved, he failed to grasp the complexities of the issue, resulting in cavalier commitments about the establishment of a Palestinian state by the end of his term. Indeed, while actively discouraging Israel from exploring peace talks with Syria, the administration’s problem with abstract issues resulted in the belief that negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas—two weak and wounded leaders—held “special promise.”

I am afraid that despite a lot of effort, exorbitant resources, and a not insignificant amount of blood, Middle East policy over the last seven and one-half years is a D-.

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Mark T. Clark :: On the broadest level, I agree with John Lewis Gaddis’s assessment of what may become George W. Bush’s legacy in an article found here. Comparing previous presidential legacies, he points out that many of the arguments that now rage over Bush’s policies will, as with the majority of policies of previous presidents, fade into the background.

Importantly, though, Gaddis believes that in Bush’s “Second inaugural” the president laid out a vision—a transformation, if you will—of the U.S. approach to international politics regarding the promotion of democracy in the world, including the Middle East. He proposed promoting democracy with the “ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.” Gaddis adds:

If the Bush Doctrine was meant in that sense—if ending tyranny is now to be the objective of the United States in world affairs—then this would amount to a course correction away from the 20th-century idea of promoting democracy as a solution for all the world’s problems, and back toward an older concept of seeking to liberate people so they can solve their own problems. It could be a navigational beacon for the future that reflects more accurately where we started and who we’ve been.

I believe Bush will have a second, narrower legacy as well, one that will serve U.S. interests in the future. In the proving grounds of the Middle East and Southwest Asia, Bush has restored the belief that the United States can fight and win an insurgency. We could win a conventional conflict, as in Iraq in 1991, but after Vietnam, it became conventional wisdom that insurgencies were virtually impossible to win. Lebanon in 1983 and Somali in 1993 only confirmed that view. The rapid defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan after 9/11 began to change that perspective. That war, of course, is not yet finished, but there are signs that it may settle soon.

Iraq, however, may come to cement this view. The initial success of rapidly defeating Saddam’s ragged army was overtaken by the unexpected insurgency, fueled by sectarian strife and outside support. Despite mounting problems, Bush insisted on pursuing the “surge” against opposition by many of his generals and members of Congress. The surge restored the fundamentally important element in a new, stable government: security for its citizens.

In other areas of the Middle East, he will have a mixed legacy. It will be unaffected by the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If it was difficult to get resolution with the Palestinian Authority, it became impossible with a government split between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. The one stain on his legacy in the Middle East may be the Iranian nuclear program. Giving Europe the lead to negotiate with Iran failed to net any gains. And, as the Europeans are learning, the Iranians are not serious about a diplomatic solution. They want a nuclear weapons program. Anything short of military intervention may never have worked. But given the administration’s preoccupation with Afghanistan and Iraq, it had no serious cards to play against the Iranians.

Excepting the last point, we are better off than we were eight years ago.

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Jon Alterman :: The United States is far worse off in the Middle East than it was eight years ago. There is an easy way to tell this is so: those whom the Bush administration has most avidly sought to weaken and isolate are stronger than they were, while the United States and the secular liberals that the Bush administration sought to nurture are weaker.

While the world does not miss Saddam Hussein, the governments of Iran and Syria did not cower after his fall. To the contrary, by acts of omission and commission they helped deepen Iraq’s agony despite the presence of more than 100,000 U.S. troops intended in part to intimidate them. Their allies, Hezbollah and Hamas, have also seen their fortunes rise, despite U.S. insistence on their isolation. Hezbollah’s influence in Lebanon has increased, and it now has veto power over the government. Hamas not only won an election that the Bush administration pressed forward, but it now controls territory of its own.

Although the Bush administration denied it vehemently at the time, the invasion of Iraq was always a roll of the dice, and a trillion dollars in, it remains unclear how those dice will land. Given the intelligence information available in 2002-2003, one could make a plausible argument for going in, but it is impossible to either justify or excuse the rank incompetence that characterized the first years of the occupation (which, in the best-case-scenario reasoning that underlay the military planning, was only supposed to last 90 days). Driven by hubris and a belief that with the events of September 11, “everything had changed,” officials were selected for loyalty over experience, with predictable results. Saddam’s fetish of loyalty had destroyed Iraq the first time; the Bush administration’s fetish of loyalty helped destroy it a second.

Bloodied in Iraq, the United States has far less pull in the region than it had a decade ago. In the Gulf, friendly governments actively undermine the Bush administration’s policy and engage in energetic diplomacy among Palestinians and Lebanese to make up for the administration’s shortfall. While these governments remain reliant on U.S. arms, they actively seek to balance U.S. influence with that of other outside powers such as France and China, and they seek to assuage the Iranians out of fear that the United States cannot protect them.

The bright spot is that there has been a good deal of progress on counterterrorism, especially in the last several years. A series of attacks within the Arab world persuaded governments that the problem is not merely a Western one, and their security services are both better prepared and better informed than a decade ago. Their newfound skills have helped decrease the number of attacks against civilian targets around the globe, and deeper intelligence cooperation has helped protect U.S. civilian lives.

Yet, much of the progress in counterterrorism has come at a cost. In 2003, the Bush administration appeared convinced that the brutality and ineptitude of Middle Eastern governments were principal drivers of terrorism; by 2007, it was clear that regional governments were the U.S. government’s chief allies. The U.S. government went suddenly from seeking to reform the status quo to zealously supporting it, and abruptly abandoned a wide range of opposition figures who had taken risks out of confidence in U.S. backing.

While there have been a series of U.S. missteps in the region, what has not happened is as important as what has. After the death of Yasser Arafat, the United States had an unprecedented opportunity to move forward on Arab-Israeli peace issues. A new Palestinian president came into office with broad support and legitimacy, and a record of speaking hard truths to Palestinians in Arabic. Yet, the opportunity to build up Mahmoud Abbas as a credible peacemaker was lost, in part out of an ambition ceaselessly to wring yet one more concession out of him.

The setbacks that the United States has suffered in the Middle East are reversible, but it will take years of effort to bring the United States back to the same level of regional influence enjoyed in 2000. The Bush administration has little of which to be proud.

As someone who normally focuses on the Middle East, why would I spend time thinking about China? The reason is simple: It is hard to imagine a future in the Middle East in which China does not play a more substantial role.

The Middle East emerged as a U.S. bailiwick in the early Cold War, and after the fall of the Soviet Union, no extra-regional state has thought to challenge U.S. preeminence. European nations have acquiesced to the U.S. lead, in part because they recognize that they cannot secure their interests in the ways that the United States does.

China, however, has felt less of a burden to comply with U.S. wishes, and the government often sees a range of reasons to depart from the U.S. script. Far more than the United States, China is dependent on Middle Eastern oil. More than 50 percent of China’s imported oil comes from the Middle East, versus some 25 percent in the United States. Further, China’s oil needs are growing, while U.S. oil consumption has flattened. China’s strategic thinkers see the country’s continued reliance on Middle Eastern oil to be a strategic liability, not only because the Middle East itself is an unstable region, but also because they have little faith in their own ability to secure the sea lanes needed to transport the oil in the event of tensions with the United States.

As China looks to U.S. management of the Middle East, the country’s leaders grow concerned. The Iraq war and continued sparring with Iran have heightened tensions in the Gulf and helped drive up oil prices around the world. China is largely indifferent to issues of domestic governance among its trading partners, and it appreciates their indifference when it comes to internal conditions in China. China judges that whomever is in power in these countries will sell them oil, and they need not be concerned beyond that. After decades as an avowedly revolutionary power, China has become an intensely status quo power, and Chinese see the United States as tilting the world dangerously toward instability. The notion of spurring internal change in hostile countries such as Iran, or even in friendly countries such as Saudi Arabia, is anathema.

For all of its skepticism toward U.S. actions in the region, however, China is not indifferent to the U.S. lead. Indeed, the Sino-American relationship is the premier strategic question in China, and there is great sensitivity to the possibility of alienating the United States in a region that is clearly of strategic importance to both countries.

Up to now, China and its Asian neighbors have been the beneficiaries of U.S. efforts to secure the Gulf and its rich oil supplies. The United States has supplied the troops and the ships, and the Chinese have bought the oil. Some estimates price U.S. expenditures to secure Gulf oil at more than $30 billion per year—and that was before the military campaign in Iraq. The United States has borne those costs as part of its efforts to build global security.

Critics charge that China has been content to be something less than a full partner on Gulf security, entering into deals for Iranian oil and gas in the face of U.S. efforts to isolate the Iranians. While China certainly thinks that efforts at isolation are unwise, it has often yielded to strong U.S. protests (prolonging negotiations with U.S. adversaries rather than walking away from the negotiating table). Such strong U.S. demands have also prompted China to trim its weapons sales to Iran. Similarly, China has gone along with U.N. Security Council efforts to try to persuade Iran to be more transparent about its nuclear program, although it has often been reluctant to impose additional sanctions and has counseled much more patience. This is not a hopeless case.

Cooperation up to now has been incremental. Now, it is in the interests of both China and the United States that it become more systematic. The CSIS Middle East Program has just issued a book, The Vital Triangle: China, the United States and the Middle East (purchase here; free download here) that explores these questions more deeply. (John W. Garver and I are co-authors.) The bottom line is this: The United States and China share a wide range of interests in the Middle East, and efforts by either the United States, China or Middle Eastern countries to freeze out any of the others will surely lead to all parties emerging as losers. Small steps toward burden-sharing—cooperation on naval measures in the Gulf, such as ship identification protocols and disaster response coordination—can help steer China’s deepening interest in the Middle East in a positive direction. More robust diplomatic coordination can go a long way as well. There is an opportunity here, and the alternative to success is not a happy one.

A funny thing has happened in the Middle East: virtually all of the government opposition to the United States has gone away. After almost a half-century of Cold War battles to protect oil fields, deny Soviet access to warm-water ports, and commit hundreds of billions of dollars in aid, the number of Middle Eastern states hostile to United States can be counted on one hand, with several fingers left over. South Yemen merged into North Yemen in 1990, Saddam fell in 2003, Libya came in from the cold in 2004, and on they went. The only countries with truly adversarial relations with the United States are Syria and Iran, with Iran being the more consequential of the two.

This remaining opposition is not trivial. Indeed, the Iranians’ return on their regional investments is breathtaking compared to the U.S. return on a far greater investment over the last five years. Relying on skillful diplomacy, artful proxies and strategic discipline, Iran has used its regional efforts to consolidate its rule at home and confound U.S.-led efforts to isolate it. At the same time, the states that are closest to the United States are hedging their relationships with us.

For the most part, Iran’s regional allies are movements rather than states, and in a region in which states dominate the politics within their own borders, that would seem to be a losing strategy. Yet, Iran has been able skillfully to play the hand it is dealt. While it would be hard for Iran’s allies to topple U.S. allies in the Middle East, Iran can take comfort not only in these allies’ growing power, but more importantly, in the ways in which they insulate Iran from U.S. and international pressure.

It is worth pointing out at the outset that the consistent thread running through Iran’s efforts in the Levant is opposition to Israel. One could well argue that Iran has no business caring about Israel. Iran is a largely Shiite Persian nation rather than a Sunni Arab one. Jerusalem has been far more central to Sunni thinking than Shia, and before the Iranian revolution, hostility to Israel had been largely an Arab issue rather than a Persian or pan-Muslim one. In my judgment, the government of Iran uses its hostility to Israel strategically, as a way to open doors for a Shiite, Farsi-speaking power in the Sunni Arab heartland. By advertising its hostility to Israel—and supporting those who attack Israel—the Iranian government seeks to demonstrate to the disaffected throughout the region that it is more courageous and more true to their sentiments than their own governments. Iran is trying to obfuscate the fact that it is a foreign government with its own aspirations to regional dominance by portraying itself as a influential regional force agitating against the status quo, and a fearless rejectionist that dares to speak truth to power when other regional states cower under U.S. protection.

Opposition to the status quo is the core of Iranian strategy in the Levant. Israel is just one manifestation of that status quo, the other manifestations of which are regional weakness in the face of extra-regional powers, authoritarian governance, and economic malaise. Ironically, strong U.S. ties to regional governments—a U.S. policy success that has been nurtured over more than a half century—makes the United States complicit in the failure of these states and creates the dissatisfaction on which Iranian propaganda feeds.

Iran has played the game of Arab dissatisfaction far more skillfully than the United States. The U.S.-led effort to promote democracy in the region, which seemed robust just a few years ago, is in shambles. Arab publics never trusted U.S. intentions, governments carefully stoked nationalist sensitivities, conservative voices quickly drowned out liberal ones, and the United States found that a global emphasis on fighting terrorism quickly forced them into the arms of the local intelligence services who were most responsible for implementing anti-democratic measures. Cleverly, Iran has tried not so much to build a new order as to discredit the existing one, and it has met with some success.

A discussion of Iran’s strategies in the Levant must start with Iran’s most important state ally, Syria. Iran and Syria are, by some measures, improbable allies. Syria is a revolutionary secular regime, and Iran is a revolutionary Islamic one. Syria sees itself as the heart of the Arab world, a world that suffered through centuries of conflict with imperial Persia. Both regimes are highly ideological, yet their ideologies have little overlap.

Where they do overlap is in their opposition to the United States and to U.S. power and influence in the region. These two countries are drawn together in part because the United States opposes them using a variety of measures: bilateral sanctions, international pressure, and the occasional repositioning of troops to remind each of the reach of U.S. power. But they are also drawn together because they each seek to influence many of the same non-state actors in the Levant, from the Shia plurality in Lebanon to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian Authority. In general, it seems that Iran is the more senior partner but also the more distant one; seen another way, Iran seems somewhat more strategic in its search for regional allies, while Syria seems more urgently and narrowly focused on protecting its interests in Lebanon.

Still, in my judgment Syria and Iran are bedfellows but not soul-mates. Syria is the principal bridge through which Iran projects power into the Levant and a vital land link to Hezbollah. Most of Hezbollah’s weapons are reportedly transshipped through Syria, and Syria provides a pro-Iranian base in the Arab heartland that Iran seeks to further its own campaign of regional influence. For its own part, Iran is Syria’s only regional ally and an escape valve for pressure applied by the United States and the Gulf states. With the demise of the Soviet Union, Syria lost its patron. A dalliance with Saddam Hussein ended with his fall, leaving Syria literally with nowhere to turn but Tehran.

Yet, when unknown assailants assassinated the Hezbollah killer Imad Mughniyah in Damascus in February, Iran swiftly announced that Iranian, Syrian and Hezbollah representatives would jointly investigate his death. The announcement was a recognition of his Iranian ties. Yet, within days, Syria announced that no such joint investigation would occur. Whether Syria’s rejection was due to a nationalist impulse, a reflection of having something to hide, or some other reason, we don’t know and may never know.

In Iraq, Syria and Iran—by acts of omission and commission—have each supported armed groups whose greatest enemies are the other state’s clients. Another sign of differing regional strategies are recent revelations that Syria is indirectly negotiating with Israel. Protestations of closeness in the last week seem to me to confirm the fact that there are serious rifts in this relationship.

While Syria is Iran’s principal state ally, Hezbollah appears to be its most intimate ally. Linked to Lebanon’s Shia plurality, Hezbollah was an Iranian creation that fights for Shia rights at the same time that it fights against Israel. Hezbollah set the mold for modern religious opposition parties, since copied by Hamas and others. It combines robust services with political agitation and armed struggle, all relying on local fundraising and substantial subsidy by foreign patrons. Iranian-Hezbollah ties seem as effortless as Iranian-Syrian ties seem forced. Iran does not feel an existential threat lurking in Lebanon, as Syria does, and it appears free to give Hezbollah considerably more leeway on tactical issues. In some ways, if fact, Iran seems to be using its own influence in Lebanon as a way to build Syrian dependence on Iran itself.

Overall, the Iranian bid in Lebanon seems to be one for influence rather than control over the country. A weak Lebanon with a virtually independent Shia region does Iran more good than an actual client state. Hezbollah gives Iran a stick with which it can poke Israel, Gulf Arab countries close to Lebanon, and the United States. At the same time, as a sub-national actor, it is harder to defeat in a conventional military conflict in which it would be badly outmatched by Israel and the United States. The 2006 war with Israel made this point perfectly, as Hezbollah hid behind Lebanese sovereignty to attack Israel. The Lebanese army cannot defeat Israel, but Hezbollah fighters on Lebanese soil can certainly damage Israel.

For its part, the current government of Lebanon is not capable of ending Iranian influence in the country and finds itself seeking to manage it instead. Iran has emerged as a foreign patron of a sectarian group, much as France has had a traditionally strong relationship with the Maronites and Saudi Arabia has been close to the Sunni community. Seen this way, Iran is not so much breaking the rules of Lebanese politics as reinventing them, especially since Hezbollah has been able to use the conflict with Israel as an excuse to remain armed. Just two weeks ago, we saw the effects of this on Lebanese internal politics.

Iran’s support for Hamas is a different kind of relationship, as Hamas represents no sectarian group or other natural base that is logically sympathetic to Iran. Instead, Iran’s support for Hamas—which appears to be a combination of cash and weapons—gives Iran ideological credibility in the Middle East at relatively low cost. While people in a classified setting can give better numbers, Iran’s investment in Hamas is likely in the tens of millions of dollars per year, a mere fraction of its spending on Hezbollah, and also a fraction of international support for the government of Mahmoud Abbas.

Iran also supports Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a smaller and weaker group than Hamas with no ambitions for political engagement or social service provision. In the current climate, PIJ seems to have left center stage as Fatah and Hamas struggle for power. Should Iran seek to disrupt peace moves in the future, however, Iran would likely use PIJ as an additional pawn with which it can further its own interests.

Like the government of Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority is hamstrung in its efforts to limit Iranian influence. Western patronage comes through the front door, but it often comes with restrictions and safeguards that hamstring the recipient bureaucrats. Iranian support for Hamas and PIJ comes through the back door in wads of cash and boxes of weapons and ammunition that are delivered to motivated and committed partisans. While Arab governments are generally alarmed at the prospect of Hamas coming to power in the Palestinian Authority—the prospect of a religiously inspired revolutionary movement seizing power makes every single regime in the region quake—they are generally sympathetic to the idea that less of a disparity in forces between Israel and the Palestinians would help draw Israel to the negotiating table. Their opposition to Iran’s support for Palestinian militant groups, therefore, is often muted.

Still, most of the states in the region are deeply troubled by Iran’s actions. King Abdullah of Jordan captured this disquiet most clearly in 2004 when he talked of a “Shia Crescent” emerging in the Middle East, a clear mark of concern about Iranian influence, but the concern is by no means limited to Jordan. The government of Egypt sees Iran as a key rival for regional influence and a proliferation threat for the entire Middle East, and the governments of both Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority see Iran pushing their populations toward extremism and division. Indeed, while one can make a case for some Iranian good works for the Shia in Lebanon, it’s hard to point to anything outside that arena where the Iranians are playing a constructive role in the region.

Even so, these governments seem to be drifting away from the U.S. embrace, partly as a consequence of Iran’s actions. U.S. standing in the Middle East grew at a time when governments felt their greatest threats came from beyond their borders. U.S. military support helped protect them and was welcomed. Now, the United States is able to offer far fewer protections from the things that governments most fear—internal threats against which a close U.S. relationship is more of a mixed blessing. Governments welcome the tools of U.S. counterterrorism—the communications intercepts, the paramilitary training, and the equipment—but they doubt the wisdom of the U.S. prescription of more open politics, respect for human rights, and the like. Instead, many have the sense that the United States is dangerously naïve; they see U.S. insistence pushing forward with Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 despite the disarray of Fatah and the gathering strength of Hamas as a prime example of that naïveté.

Iran not only profits from this split, but helps drive it. Iran does not threaten any of the Levantine Arab governments in a conventional military sense, but the growing feelings of anomie and disaffection that Iran helps fan drive a wedge between regional governments and the United States. The United States no longer leads the Free World, because there is no more Iron Curtain; the age in which the United States could act as if it enjoyed a monopoly on virtue is over. Governments and their citizens have a wider array of relationships to choose from—China, Europe, and even Iran are all carving out their own niches—and those relationships are increasingly complex. In addition, the apparent intimacy of the Information Age projects the United States into people’s lives as never before and sharpens the focus on blemishes and positive attributes alike.

What we are trying to do in the Levant is infinitely more difficult than what Iran is trying to do, but that does not account for all of our difficulties. Our inability to execute policy effectively, and some quixotic efforts to impose our own notion of moral clarity on the region, have taken their toll.

The core of countering Iranian malfeasance needs to be better execution of policy by the United States. Rather than advertise our desire to remake the region in our image, pursue maximalist goals or loudly trumpet our sympathy toward Islam, we need to pursue our interests with quiet effectiveness. It is hard to imagine how this might be done without more direct U.S. government engagement in Arab-Israeli peacemaking and greater success in Iraq. I am somewhat more encouraged by the trendlines in the latter than the former, and even minimal progress on both fronts is both tenuous and easily reversible, but we need to be much more successful than we’ve been. To do that, we have to set more modest goals and be more effective achieving them. Put another way, we need to restore our position as a country that is not only predictable, but also reliable. When we say we will do things, we must deliver. We have lost that reputation, and it colors everything else we do in the Middle East and beyond.

Some might call this prescription European-style defeatism, but I view it as healthy American pragmatism. We have badly misjudged our influence over local events in the Middle East, and our influence has diminished as a consequence. We should neither abandon our ideals nor or friends, but we need to recognize that we serve neither when we over-promise and under-deliver. Some of our allies may be alarmed by a more modest American approach to the region and fear that rather than a recalibration it represents the beginning of an abandonment. Our response to their fears principally should be one of deeds rather than words.

There is a school of thought that suggests that much of our problem in the Middle East is one of messaging. If we can talk about ourselves in the right way and inspire the right people, this thinking goes, we can regain our previous position of influence. While it is vitally important that we better understand regional audiences, we cannot delude ourselves. Our problem in the Middle East is what we have done, what we have said we will do and not done, and what we have not committed to do. We have ceded ground to Iran—by seeking to defend unsustainable positions and letting spoilers derail peaceful progress—and thus played right into the hands of those who seek to cripple our policies.

None of this is to underestimate the fact that the United States is playing a difficult game in the Levant. We are seeking to build more effective governments and more robust societies, in part out of an expectation that they will emerge with some affection for the United States. That should remain an objective of U.S. policy.

Iran is playing a somewhat simpler game, seeking to undermine a status quo that few find desirable. Iran is not positioned to win, and I do not believe that it can win. Yet, Iran is certainly positioned to gain, especially as it seeks to slip from the cordon that the United States is seeking to place around the Islamic Republic. Iran is beset by internal problems, and it is hardly a model that many in the Middle East would seek to emulate. Still, its proxies will not soon go away, nor will our allies swiftly resolve their own internal challenges. We will be facing this challenge for some time to come, but with skill and patience, we can turn the tide.

Jon Alterman made these remarks to the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on June 5.

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It would be nice to think that Israeli-Syrian negotiations represent a key strategic advance. While I wouldn’t rule out such an advance in the future, this all has the whiff of tactical advantage to me.

On the one hand, the talks don’t represent a change in the Syrian position. I’ve met Bashar al-Asad twice, and both times he’s talked about his keen desire to negotiate with Israel. And he kept saying “Israel,” not “enemy forces” or the “Zionist entity” or any such circumlocution. Further, he didn’t wince and have a hitch in his voice, the way American politicians often do when they talk about Palestine. On this (and perhaps many other matters), he’s a realist. There are any number of reasons he has wanted such negotiations, the most obvious being that he’s not going to be able to re-conquer the Golan with troops. If he wants it back, it will be at the negotiating table.

But there are other, less noble reasons for wanting to open an Israel channel now. He is in a position of some strength, as he looks to consolidate his allies’ gains in Lebanon. He is also quite eager to ease his isolation—life is tough when your greatest friend in the world is Iran—and engaging with Israel presumably renders kosher a whole range of countries’ dealings with Syria. Not least, I think Syrians believe that such negotiations will protect them from attack by both Americans and Israelis, which are the two countries they fear most.

Ehud Olmert’s political troubles give him every reason to negotiate with Syria, because it makes him look like a statesman. Further, the Syrian track is less emotional and less morally difficult for Israelis than his indirect talks with Hamas, and it helps deflect attention from the very difficult choices Israel will have to make in Gaza. Also, such talks serve to light a fire under the Palestinians, who fear that the Prime Minister will lose interest in their track to concentrate on Syrian negotiations.

While each side has powerful reasons to negotiate, however, there are equally powerful reasons not to conclude a deal. Such reasons start with the political weakness of each leader, who would be hard pressed to make monumental concessions to a longstanding enemy whose ultimate intentions are disputed. The Bush Administration’s keen disinterest in engaging Syria also dims hopes, as one of the prizes the Syrians seek is U.S. acceptance. A year from now, with a new U.S. president and likely a new Israeli Prime Minister, the situation might be different, and in the interim, there are certainly common understandings that can be reached.

I wish I could say this was the beginning of the end of the Syrian-Israeli conflict, and I certainly can’t say it’s the end of the beginning. Unfortunately, it seems to me we’re still right in the middle, and I fear we’re going to stay in the middle for some time.

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The idea of splitting Syria from Iran seems like a no-brainer. This is the most important strategic argument that is often made for trying to improve the U.S. relationship with Syria. The idea has been around for a long time, however—25 years or so, in fact, since the Syrian-Iranian alliance took shape during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. The obstacle to actually accomplishing this strategic coup is that no one has figured out a way to do it consistently with other important strategic interests or without risk to other strategic interests of the United States.

It is reasonable to look at this question again, however, in the current context—especially in light of recent rumors of Syrian-Israeli contacts.

The main problems lately have been Syria’s role and actions in Iraq, in Lebanon, in the Palestinian diplomacy, and in the nuclear dimension.

Iraq. Syria’s President Bashar al-Asad sided with Saddam Hussein just before the 2003 Iraq war. Then, after the war, he opened Syria to Ba’athist extremists trying to undermine the new Iraqi government and to kill Americans. The Bush Administration sent senior officials on several visits to Damascus to meet with President Asad to try to persuade him to stop these activities: Secretary of State Colin Powell went in May 2003; I had the privilege of visiting myself in September 2004 as part of an interagency delegation with Assistant Secretary of State William Burns; and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had a similar meeting with Asad in early 2005.

In each case, the Syrians’ response was that destabilizing Iraq and killing Americans were the furthest things from their minds; they did confess to having trouble controlling the Syrian-Iraqi border, and asked for our technical assistance. The concern that the American side expressed, however, was that the main problem was not border control but the evident policy of the Syrian government to allow sanctuary inside Syria for political organizing by Iraqi extremists directly involved in those hostile activities. We even gave them names of senior Iraqi extremists who we knew were operating out of Syria. As we told President Asad, we had a hard time believing that the Syrian government did not have control over these kinds of activities on its territory. In response, they turned over one Iraqi radical, if I recall correctly.

And the Syrians are masters of spin. Each of these visits by senior Americans was meant to convey a serious warning and to ratchet up pressures on Damascus to reverse its disruptive and destructive policy. Our talking points, I recall on my own visit, were as blunt and tough as any talking points I have seen in many years (and we let President Asad know they had been cleared by President Bush). But the Syrians always publicized the fact of the high-level meetings as a sign that U.S.-Syrian relations were excellent. This conveyed a wrong impression to everyone, including our friends in the region. In other words, while our tough talking points were meant to ratchet up pressures, the Syrians spun the visits into relief from pressures.

Lebanon. The murder of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri took place in February 2005; the war between Israel and Hezbollah occurred in July 2006. One important consequence of these two events was to isolate Syria in the Arab world. The Arabs, particularly the Gulf Arabs, were furious at Syria—Hariri was a close friend of the Saudis, and the Gulf Arabs saw Hezbollah’s aggression as an Iranian power play. At an Arab summit, there was the unusual occurrence of many leaders condemning Hezbollah for provoking the conflict. The Syrians chose that period to float another peace overture to Israel. But we and the Israelis and the Arabs correctly saw this as a ploy—as a device to break out of their isolation, indeed as a way to split us from the Gulf Arabs. At a moment when we and the Gulf Arabs were intensifying our security cooperation—in an important U.S. initiative called the Gulf Security Dialogue—prompted in large part by concern over Iran, for us to have taken the bait and launched into a rapprochement with Syria would have caused considerable confusion in the Arab world about our strategic judgment.

Arab anger at Syria is a recurring phenomenon—usually short-lived. In recent years, however, given the growing threat from Iran, the unholy alliance between Syria and Iran is likely to remain a big issue in Syrian-Arab relations. We should not forget which side we have the bigger stake in.

The Palestinian issue. On the Palestinian issue, too, Syria has long played a negative role, backing rejectionist forces. Today it is solidly backing Hamas and harboring its leaders. President Carter’s efforts notwithstanding, this is a way of obstructing the peace process, not advancing it. Syria has long played this kind of role – to maximize its leverage over Israel and indeed its regional leverage.

The Nuclear dimension. None of us on the outside can know the full ramifications of the reported Israeli strike last September against a North Korean-related nuclear facility in Syria. It was interesting that both Israel and Syria perceived an interest in minimizing the public political fallout from that event. The incident probably has more immediate relevance to our present diplomacy with North Korea, but it is also a reminder of the potential dangers of a Syrian-Israeli conflict. Syria already possesses other forms of WMD if not nuclear weapons.

Where do we go from here? Some might say these are all reasons for the United States to reach out to Syria. But, if Syria really wants to make a deal with us (and Israel) in good faith, and if that’s what Syria is really after, it has been going about it the wrong way. It is not in our interest to take the bait (on the Golan) in a context that complicates our Arab relations or seems to reward the killing of Americans.

Some make the argument a little differently, saying that our current difficulties show we need Syria and need to reach out to them. But Syria’s collusion in the killing of Americans in Iraq has made it unattractive for the United States to take any such initiative. Yielding to blackmail, or approaching them as demandeur, would be the wrong approach.

Thus, Syrian policies have made it harder to visualize any kind of rapprochement—assuming that’s what they are interested in. My conclusion is, on the contrary, that the Syrian government has behaved like a government that has made a strategic decision to continue to play the spoiler—to cling to its alliance with Iran in order to maximize its regional position and leverage. Syria is an essentially weak country that has made itself a major factor in the Arab world by its alliance with Iran and by being disruptive and menacing in its behavior. It is not self-evident the Syrians will give all that up, just for the Golan Heights. Their strategic priorities do not seem to be limited to the Golan.

Is there some “grand bargain” to be had between us and Syria? If so, what would it be? What else could we give them, apart from helping them recover the Golan? We can’t “give them Lebanon,” or seem to. In 1991, the inclusion of Syria in the Madrid peace process was seen by some (including the Syrians) as giving them a green light to step up their bullying in Lebanon. That’s not in the cards today.

In other words, it’s not only Syria that has a price; we have a price:

• Will they leave Lebanon alone? The continuing deadlock over the Lebanese presidency and cabinet shows Syria still playing a bullying role and trying to regain by other means the dominance it lost in Lebanon after it took its troops out.
• In Iraq, there seems to be some recent reduction in the flow of extremist fighters from Syria, but it may be the result of a crackdown on Islamists within Syria—for Syria’s own domestic purposes—rather than a strategic decision to stop trying to weaken Iraq and bleed the United States.
• Will Syria still play the role of spoiler on other regional issues—supporting extremists, maintaining its strategic alliance with Iran?

In short, the conditions do not exist for an improvement of relations with Syria so long as Syrian policies remain hostile to important interests of ours in the Middle East. It is appropriate to continue sanctions and pressures on Syria so long as this is the case. And, based on the experience of past meetings with President Asad, I am skeptical of the value of further diplomatic overtures in the absence of significant improvements in U.S. leverage or in the overall balance of forces in the region.

Lately there have been fresh reports of Syrian-Israeli diplomatic contacts. I can only speculate, but I can see some benefit to the Israelis in playing the Syrians and Palestinians off against each other, or in nailing down a stable situation on the Syrian front while they continue to wrestle with the agonizing Palestinian problem. Perhaps now is an opportunity for the Israelis to be creative in this area. But I have two concerns.

One is whether Israeli domestic politics can absorb a Syrian negotiation at the same time as the (already difficult) Palestinian negotiation. It has long been an axiom of the Middle East peace process that the Israeli political system cannot handle major concessions on more than one front at a time. But that, of course, is for the Israeli government and people to decide.

Second, it is essential that Israel and the United States coordinate their respective strategies toward Syria, in light of the broader regional significance of Syrian policies. Israel and the United States also need to keep in mind the broader Arab context—and the Iran context—and the stake we both have in cooperation with the moderate Arabs, including in the Gulf. Ultimately there will have to be a Syrian-Israeli peace settlement—everyone knows that—but it should be in a strategic context that strengthens the forces of moderation in the region rather than weakening them. Syria will be thinking strategically if it pursues a dialogue with Israel; so should we.

My bottom line is that Syria has to pay a big part of the price—in Iraq, in Lebanon, in the Arab-Israeli diplomacy, and in its ties with Iran—if it wants the United States to lift a finger in its behalf.

Peter W. Rodman made these remarks to the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on April 24.

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Imad Mughniyah is dead, killed in Damascus by a car bomb at the age of 45. Mughniyah was believed to have been Hezbollah’s chief of military operations, and his assassination marks the first time a major figure in the movement has been killed since secretary-general Abbas Musawi in 1992—an assassination which brought the current secretary-general, Hasan Nasrallah, to power.

For many, Mughniyah was a reviled figure, wanted by both Israel and the United States for his alleged role in numerous attacks on American and Israeli targets—including the truck-bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the attack on the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992. (Formally, the FBI most-wanted him for his role in the 1985 hijacking of an American airliner to Beirut and the murder of a U.S. Navy diver on board.) For researchers such as myself, Mughniyah was of great interest because he represented a constant figure in Hezbollah throughout its evolution from an Iranian-backed Lebanese militia in the 1980s to a nationalist insurgent group in the 1990s and finally to its current incarnation as the most powerful political party in Lebanon—both in terms of weapons and popular support.

The timing of the assassination, from the perspective of Lebanese of all political stripes, could not have been worse. Tomorrow, after all, is the anniversary of the assassination of a great figure on the other side of Lebanon’s current political divide, former prime minister Rafik Hariri. One hopes that calm heads will prevail and that any ostentatious rallies in Hariri’s honor are postponed. At last year’s mass rally, ugly sectarian chants broke out, and surely given Beirut’s current tension, such chants could easily devolve into open violence.

This past week, Lebanon’s leaders once again irresponsibly postponed the election of a new president. So the assassination of Imad Mughniyah has taken place within a political environment that is, still, on a razor’s edge. If this year’s assassination and the memory of another lead Lebanon down a short path to civil war, Lebanon’s sectarian leaders will have only themselves to blame.

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