Israel Matzav

Bush hopes Olmert knows what he's doing

In today's JPost, David Horovitz writes that President Bush let the cat out of the bag about Syria during their oval office interview two weeks ago. But what's more interesting than the faux pas of having let the cat out of the bag and then trying to stuff it back in is Bush's reaction to the 'negotiations.'

Beyond the president's letting the cat out of the bag and then quickly trying to stuff it back in, however, Bush made some telling comments about Syria that appear particularly resonant now that the secret is, indeed, out and everybody knows that formal indirect negotiations are under way.

For while the White House on Wednesday said it did not object to Israel's opening of the indirect Damascus track, The New York Times on Thursday quoted an administration official as calling it "a slap in the face."

And the president's own remarks in the Oval Office to us last week seem to indicate a high degree of concern, if not outright dismay, at Olmert's decision to seek an accord with a determinedly unreformed Bashar Assad - a sense of "I hope he knows what he's doing..."

For a start, Bush made crystal clear that he had no intention whatsoever of warming his ties to Syria so long as Damascus is sponsoring terrorism, enabling the arming of Hizbullah and making "life miserable for the young democracy in Iraq."

Syria would first have to change course, he indicated, for America to rethink: "It's easy to get our attention," he said dryly. Syria simply had to become "a constructive force, a positive force, a force for peace - not a force that continually uses these extremist groups to destabilize the neighborhood."

Still, the president acknowledged, it was easy for the US to remain aloof, "separated from Syria by an ocean." Israel's politicians, he allowed, have "got to come up with their own vision of security."

But sounding like a disapproving uncle, he cautioned starkly, "My hope, of course, is that a decision is made with Israel's interests at heart... [In other words, Bush, like most Israelis, believes that Olmert is doing this to save his own skin. CiJ] One of the things I try to do is think strategically, and the biggest long-term threat to peace in the Middle East is Iran. The Iranian connection with Syria is very troubling for not only the United States, but Israel, as well as other Arab nations. And anything done should... keep that strategic vision in mind." Of course, he concluded more gently, "Of all the people who understand the existential threat that the Iranians pose, it's the Israelis."

The word is that Bush, to put it mildly, was not easily persuaded by Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak of the virtues of the Syria-Turkey-Israel track, and is highly dubious about the possibility of drawing Damascus out of Teheran's orbit.

And of course, unless the US is willing to do for Syria what it did for Egypt in terms of foreign aid, Syria does not have a whole lot to gain in these negotiations. Contrary to Assad's assertions, the Golan Heights are not vital to Syria's security or anything else and the pining for them is nothing but an excuse to continue efforts to extirpate the State of Israel. Horovitz insists that the defense establishment - or at least parts of it - are in favor of the 'negotiations:'

Several very senior security officials have privately insisted to me in recent months that the potential benefits of an accommodation - under which Syria would evict the terror HQs it hosts in its capital, cease facilitating the transfer of weapons to Hizbullah and, chiefly, render Iran increasingly isolated - outweigh the risks of the negotiations failing.

Well, maybe. But I wonder if those 'senior defense officials' will be in favor if Syria continues to insist on a maximalist position of getting the entire Golan - all the way to the June 4, 1967 lines - and on maintaining its contacts with the terror organizations. And Horovitz warns that public opinion is fickle and could change.

Of course, public opinion also initially opposed relinquishing the Sinai to Egypt in the 1970s - but that was a buffer zone, rather than a geostrategic ridge from which Israel has been acutely vulnerable to attack.

In the 1970s, what it took to turn around public sentiment was an extraordinary flying visit and address in the Knesset by an Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, who spoke unprecedentedly and persuasively of a heartfelt desire for peace. Today, an unlikely replication of that journey to Jerusalem, by Bashar Assad, would seem to be a necessary, though not in itself sufficient, step to convince the Israeli public, battered by its enemies and deeply mistrustful of its leaders, that a new era of reconciliation could be dawning.

That's all correct. But the likelihood of Assad even going through the motions of repeating Sadat's move is close to zero.

I believe these 'negotiations' will fall apart, either because Olmert will be indicted and there will be new elections or because the Knesset will block them. Give it a month.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:31 AM