Page 2 of 2 Was it really Pelosi in
Damascus? By Sami Moubayed
Syrians - at least not on
television - and was very pleased with her visit
to the Old City, where she visited the Omayyad
Mosque, and described Damascus as "wonderful".
The Americans have been searching for ways
to re-engage the Syrians in recent weeks. Pelosi
in Damascus, showering the Syrians with praise -
and confidence - was an excellent way to do that.
The Americans realized, as was stated in the Iraq
Study
Group Report, that Iraq
cannot be stabilized without the Syrians and the
Iranians.
Talking to both Syria and Iran
would simply be too difficult for Washington. Yet
continuing to isolate - and ignore - both
countries would also be impossible. The United
States has a choice: it's either Syria or Iran. It
chose Syria. That country, after all, can be
talked to. Its leaders have never been
anti-American (not in the Iranian sense of the
word) and tension did not arise until the US
invaded Iraq in 2003.
Syria has no
ambitions in Iraq, unlike the Iranians, and has
much to gain from combating Islamic fundamentalism
and refusing the partitioning of Iraq. For a while
it was feared that there was only very little the
Syrians could offer in Iraq, given that they do
not control the insurgency and are only
influential within parts of the Iraqi Sunni
community. The other part is controlled by Saudi
Arabia, and as long as the Syrians and Saudis were
arguing over Lebanon, the Iraqi Sunni street would
remain divided.
And if it did, the Syrians
would fail in Iraq. That is no longer a problem,
given the rapprochement between Syria and Saudi
Arabia at the latest Arab summit. King Abdullah of
Saudi Arabia re-established his warm relations
with Damascus, partly because he realizes that the
Syrians are pivotal for stability in the region,
but mainly to try to bring Syria out of the
Iranian fold and back into the Arab one.
However, by no means does the world want
to end the Syrian-Iranian alliance. On the
contrary, it wants to invest in it to moderate
Iranian behavior. For a while the US was puzzled
on what to do with the Tehran-Damascus alliance.
"Do we break it, or do we use and make the best
out of it?" That has been settled.
Coinciding with Pelosi's visit to Damascus
was the groundbreaking news from Tehran declaring
that the 15 British sailors and marines taken
hostage by Iran on March 23 were being set free.
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad called it a "gift" to
Great Britain.
Shortly before
Ahmadinejad's announcement, Syrian Foreign
Minister Walid al-Moualim had announced that his
country was mediating with the Iranians to set the
British sailors free. In a press conference before
Pelosi's departure, Moualim said British Prime
Minister Tony Blair's special envoy, Sir Nigel
Sheinwald, had contacted Assad for that purpose.
Earlier, Moualim told the Kuwaiti daily Al-Anba
that Syria was using "calm diplomacy" to solve the
British-Iranian crisis.
This is testimony
to what the Syrians can actually do to influence
Iran. They can be problem-solvers, rather than
problem-creators. This message has now been heard
loud and clear in Washington.
Last summer,
voices were heard in the United States calling on
Syria to use its influence to do the same with
Hezbollah. It was believed that the only party
able to moderate Hezbollah in Lebanon was Syria,
either directly, through its excellent relations
with its secretary general Hasan Nasrallah, or
indirectly, through Iran.
At the time,
former US secretary of state Warren Christopher
wrote an article in the Washington Post recalling
how during his term in office he had called on the
Syrians twice, once in June 1993 when Israel
launched attacks into Lebanon in what was called
"Operation Accountability" and again in April 1996
during the "Grapes of Wrath". Both times he had
sought the assistance of Syria's late president
Hafez al-Assad to calm the situation. Christopher
wrote: "We never knew exactly what the Syrians
did, but clearly Hezbollah responded to their
direction." And now, the Syrians have also done
"something" with Tehran in regard to the crisis
over the sailors.
All US attempts at
engaging the Syrians, despite the cosmetic meeting
in Baghdad on March 10, have to date not been
serious. Nor was the visit of Ellen Sauerbrey, the
US assistant secretary of state for population,
refugees and migration, to Damascus last month.
That has changed. The Americans are very
clear in what they want from Syria. Last October,
Sheinwald visited Syria after visiting Washington
and made his claims to the Syrians. Prime on the
list, which was understood to be on the US agenda
as well, was the issue of Iraq. Syria has shown a
lot of cooperation in this issue.
Among
other things, it had lengthy discussions with
Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Boulani about the
Syrian-Iraqi border, welcomed Sunni leader Harith
al-Dari to Damascus to talk about the insurgency,
and received US-backed President Jalal Talabani in
Syria as well. This in addition to opening an
embassy in Baghdad and thereby giving a lot of
Arab credibility to the administration of Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
More is to come,
the Syrians promise. They are now waiting to see
what the Americans will give back in return. The
results might be seen when Pelosi returns to
Washington.
Sami Moubayed is a
Syrian political analyst.
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