Saudi-Syrian thaw in ties “benefits” Lebanon
Obama sending clear signals that Lebanese sovereignty won”t be compromised – Analysts
Lebanon should reap a measure of long-elusive stability from the past week”s diplomatic courting of Syria by the US and Saudi Arabia, a number of analysts told The Daily Star on Wednesday. Saudi King Abdullah welcomed Syrian President Bashar Assad to Riyadh on Wednesday for talks including Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in the first meeting of Saudi and Syrian heads of state since relations soured after the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Many in Lebanon”s March 14 political camp have fingered Damascus in the killing of Hariri, who was also a Saudi citizen and royal favorite. Assad has denied any involvement in the assassination and said Syria will not allow its citizens to appear before the international tribunal investigating the killing.
In another diplomatic breakthrough, US Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman journeyed to Damascus on Saturday to meet Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem. Feltman had served as US ambassador to Beirut from 2004-08 and had given emphatic support to efforts to reduce Syrian sway in Lebanon.
The various overtures to Syria ultimately originate in the entirely new approach to Damascus and the region by US President Barack Obama, who is clearly breaking with the confrontational posture of former President George W. Bush in favor of a policy of engagement, said Hilal Khashan, head of the department of political studies and public administration at the American University of Beirut.
"He wants to undo the Bush legacy," Khashan said, adding that he saw a "good chance" for progress on the US-Syrian and US-Iran fronts. "The world community might give him concessions that they would not have possibly given to Bush."
Syria”s new popularity might stem from a genuinely new philosophy, but the speed of Feltman”s inaugurating the diplomatic push in the Middle East so soon after Obama took office demonstrates that the new president knows he must negotiate a deal on Iran”s disputed nuclear program this year, before the uranium enrichment process goes further, said Paul Salem, head of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
"Definitely, Obama”s approach is to engage in very vigorous diplomacy with friends and opponents, and to do it intensively and quickly," Salem said. "With the Iranian nuclear file he doesn”t have that much time. He can”t drag it out too long. There”s going to be a rush of negotiations – they might work, they might not work."
Kicking off the regional diplomatic initiative in Damascus also reflects a US tactical decision to alter the US-Iran dynamic by trying to decouple Iran and Syria, Khashan said. Analysts have long said that removing Syria from the Iran-Syria-Hamas-Hizbullah camp would isolate Tehran and put added pressure on the Islamic Republic in future negotiations.
"The Americans want to engage, [and] it makes more sense to engage the Syrians before they engage the Iranians," Khashan said.
For its part, Syria is hinting that it could be swayed from its embrace of Tehran and that its ties with Iran are not strategic but merely the result of historical circumstance – namely, the deep enmity between former Syrian President Hafez Assad and former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Khashan said. Damascus has also witnessed in March the opening of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in Holland”s The Hague, as well as the International Criminal Court”s indictment of Sudan President Omar Bashir on war crimes charges.
"The Syrians got the message, and they have pledged to cooperate on Lebanon and Palestine," Khashan said, in reference to Syria”s enabling of the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation. "The Syrians have decided for now to play good guys."
"The Syrians have made up their minds on going ahead with peace," Khashan said, adding that Damascus would still exact substantial tribute for divorcing Iran.
"They are willing to make that dramatic shift if they are given the right incentives," he said.
Lebanon, the analysts added, will likely become a beneficiary of the fresh US-Syrian engagement. Feltman sandwiched his trip to Damascus around two stops in Beirut, a "psychological" signal to Syria that the US will make not concessions on Lebanon to curry Syrian favor, said Oussama Safa, executive director of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies.
"It symbolizes that really the [Obama] administration is not about to sell out Lebanon," Safa said. "This is not the time when Lebanon is part of a grand bargain or trade-off, as it was." Former US President George H. W. Bush assented to Syrian military presence in Lebanon in exchange for Syrian backing for the 1991 Gulf War.
Feltman”s numerous powwows with March 14 leaders also aimed to reassure the Lebanese that it was "out of the question" that the US would use Lebanon as a bargaining chip in talks with Syria, Safa added.
The Saudi-Syrian rapprochement, while yet to produce any specific results, also partly springs from the new, open US stance toward Damascus, Salem said.
In addition, it also stems from the Saudi and Egyptian desire to over come the "fiasco" of the overlapping summits in Kuwait and Qatar during the recent Israeli assault on Gaza, he added. Riyadh and Cairo are "more eager to paper over Arab differences" in order to present a "semblance of comity" ahead of the Arab League”s Doha summit on March 30, Salem said.
In the end, the thaw in Saudi-Syrian relations might well find its most immediate motivation in Israel, in that all Arab actors wish to show a "modicum" of Arab unity before a potentially hawkish new Israeli cabinet, Safa said.
"All these leaders” eyes are more on the next Israeli government more than anything else," he said.
As with the US engagement of Syria, the Saudi-Syrian diplomacy should have positive repercussions in Lebanon, because of the closeness of the Saudis and the Syrians to the March 14 and March 8 alliances, respectively, Safa said.
The rival Lebanese factions have endured years of antagonism, and many here have expressed fears about possible turbulence around the pivotal general elections slated for June 7.
"If this [Saudi-Syrian rapprochement] continues, this will mean the necessary stability for the elections in Lebanon, as well as for the formation of the new government afterward," Safa said.
The emerging regional entente might not guarantee an entirely peaceful vote, but it should largely end the political factions confronting one another in the streets and return them to their established patterns of ruling, Khashan said.
Continuing diplomacy "should reflect positively on the situation in Lebanon," he said. "This means the Syrians will de-escalate in Lebanon. The Syrian de-escalation may not be enough to quiet the country, but it is significant."
"There seems to be an understanding in the region and internationally that Lebanon should not be made to pay for the region”s turbulent politics. The various Lebanese factions will return to the politics of reconciliation and slicing the pie. The outcome will not be victors and vanquished – everyone will get a slice."