Bush needs Syria to end war

2006-07-23 10:02

Beirut - US President George W Bush may have to set aside his hostility to Syria if he wants its help in ending the war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Syria has offered to play a constructive role, but there is no sign the Bush administration is ready to turn to a country it accuses of sponsoring terrorism and helping insurgents in Iraq - or to pay the price the Syrians would try to extract.

Secretary of state Condoleezza Rice starts a mission to the region on Sunday, but will not talk directly to key players such as Syria, let alone Hezbollah or its founding patron Iran.

Bush again criticised Damascus and Tehran on the eve of her trip, saying their actions "threaten the entire Middle East".

The United States, willing for now to let Israel keep up its assault in Lebanon, says no ceasefire will last unless it is part of overall arrangements that will prevent Hezbollah from menacing Israel with rockets and cross-border attacks.

But unless the Israeli army can crush Hezbollah - a goal that has eluded it in nearly two weeks of bombing - it is hard to imagine how outside powers can negotiate a complex deal to change the status quo in south Lebanon without Syria's consent.

Any such initiative would also have to take account of the Shi'ite Islamist group's sponsors in Iran, whose nuclear dispute with the West might not incline it towards cooperation.

For now, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad can bide his time, hoping for Washington to seek his help and reasonably confident that Israel will not expand its Lebanon war to Syrian soil.

Political reward

"Now the political environment is conducive to deal-making, but if the Syrians are asked to intervene with Hezbollah, they would expect a political gain," said Murhaf Jouejati, a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

Syria would be looking at least to rebuild its bruised influence as a regional actor and end its diplomatic isolation.

Bush indirectly acknowledged Syria's importance when he told British Prime Minister Tony Blair in an aside last week that the key was to "get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit".

Engaging Syria in diplomacy would be hard to stomach for Bush, who with French President Jacques Chirac led international pressure to isolate Damascus and force it to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri in February 2005.

But if he wants a durable solution to the deadly conflict in Lebanon, Bush may have scant choice, even if he saves face by relying on UN or Arab emissaries to get Syria on board.

"So far Israel has not regained its soldiers, wiped out Hezbollah or turned the Lebanese against the guerrillas, but it cannot stop the war without achieving anything," said Nadim Shehadi, an analyst at London's Chatham House think tank.

"Hezbollah has shown again that Israel's military is not invincible and Israel can be vulnerable," he said. "It has also shown the Lebanese that the outside world won't help them."

Syria may have influence, but with Hezbollah's prestige soaring across the Arab world, it is not clear how amenable the group would be to Assad's wishes in any diplomatic end-game.

Syrian political commentator Sami Moubayed said Hezbollah had become more independent of Syria since Israel's pullout from Lebanon in 2000. It had also been strengthened by last year's election of hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"They still confer with the Syrians, seek their advice and coordinate with Syria but they do not take orders, money or arms from Damascus," Moubayed said.

Jouejati said Damascus could use its good offices to best effect if Hizbollah also saw an interest in calming the crisis.

Guarded reactions

Assad has been guarded in his reactions to the war on his doorstep, saying the world must act more swiftly to impose a ceasefire and promising in a general way to help Lebanon.

Fears that the conflict might spread to Syria have receded.

Israeli planes have bombed near the Syrian border and Israel has repeatedly accused Damascus of sending fresh weapons supplies to Hezbollah - charges denied by Syrian officials.

But Israel has also gone out of its way to stress that it has no intention of attacking Syria, which also serves as a base for leaders of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist militant group.

Israel is wary of destabilising Assad's government, fearing it might be replaced by Islamist radicals even less likely to cut links to groups that are sworn to destroy the Jewish state.

"It's basically a question of not wanting to open up an active third front at this time," said Mark Heller of Israel's Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies, referring to Israeli offensives already under way in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

"The sense at least in Israel, perhaps also in the United States, is that problematic as this regime may be, the probable alternative would be even worse," Heller said. "Assad has bought himself a bit of immunity, having made a fairly persuasive case that without him the Islamists would take over in Syria."

(Additional reporting by Matthew Tostevin in Jerusalem and Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Damascus)

- Reuters