Israel Matzav

How long will Obama pursue Assad?

After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad delivered a hard slap in the face to American President Barack al-Hussein Obama on Thursday night, one has to wonder how long the exercise called 'engagement' with Syria is going to continue. Michael Kirchik explains that it may last for quite a while.

But it seems that no amount of Syrian spit in our eyes will dissuade the engagers. Rather than admit they were wrong in the first place, defenders of the accommodationist approach have spun Iran’s rejection of American overtures into a diplomatic victory. At least the United States tried to talk the Iranians out of their madness, they say. Now, with a series of good-faith efforts rejected, America can more credibly present the case of isolating Iran to the world.

This rosy narrative - which will no doubt inform the logic of Syria-engagers over the course of the next year or more - obfuscates the fact that Washington, including the allegedly "unilateralist" Bush administration, has tried for years to persuade Iran and Syria to adopt the most basic characteristics of good international citizens, all to no avail. And concomitant attempts to "split" Damascus from Tehran are as fruitless as they are frequent.

At some point, we must realize that the behavior of these regimes is due to deep ideological impulses and an instinct for self-preservation. All that the failed attempts at wooing Iran have done was waste an entire year that could have been devoted to sanctioning and weakening the regime from within. Today, we’re 12 months closer to the point where Iran has nuclear weapons. And now we are repeating the same mistakes with Syria.

It does seem that way. And my guess is that we're in for at least another eight months of it. If the Democrats suffer enough losses at the polls in November, I would look at some of the younger Democratic leadership (not Pelosi and Reid will be gone) to call Obama on the carpet and try to push his agenda toward the center. That would mean abandoning 'engagement' with Syria among other things. Will they succeed in moderating Obama's positions? Maybe. Obama may be willing to be a one-term President, but if he can't get his legislation through Congress, he won't be able to accomplish much in that one term. And that's definitely not a scenario that will please the White House.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:06 PM