Politics

“Let us head east” has been a popular phrase within political circles in Damascus since 2005. Is it just a catchy media slogan, aimed at provoking Europe and the United States, or is it a strategic shift in the political pendulum of Syria’s foreign policy?

The United States, with the support of French President Jacques Chirac, tried to enforce a political isolation of Damascus after the assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister

With the presidential battle heating up in the US, analysts begin to wonder what model the future president will follow. Can we expect a headstrong military driven conqueror, a dialogue pushing peacenik, or something in between?

Just last December it seemed highly unlikely that an African-American with a Muslim father and the middle name Hussein could make a decent showing in the race for the US Democratic nomination for president. Yet in January, Obama won the Iowa caucuses, eclipsing veteran Hillary Clinton. Five months later, with his win in Oregon, Obama has won a majority of “pledged” or elected delegates and is in a strong position to win the nomination. 
If Obama does win the nomination, he will compete against Republican John McCain, a Vietnam War veteran and former prisoner of war. What are the ideas, attitudes, and tendencies of the two men? And what difference could they make for Syria?
The short answer is that McCain is a cautious “Idealist;” and the Idealists are the ones who gave us the current Iraq War. McCain justifies the war, still beats the tired victory drum, and promises a long term occupation on some days—then predicts a withdrawal over four years (which will necessarily require him to broker a deal with Syria).
Obama is the most idealistic US political figure in a generation. Yet he has praised George H. W. Bush’s “Realist” approach to foreign policy. Still, as a Democrat, he is at pains to prove that he is tough on foreign enemies. Although he will attempt a quick withdrawal from Iraq over two years with help from Syria and Iran, look for him to ratchet up US military intervention in Afghanistan.
Rather than attempting to predict specific actions by a future president, it is more sensible to consider the underlying principles. In recent years, Americans have talked about foreign policy as a continuum between two poles: Realist and Idealist. The Realists are regarded as leaders like George H. W. Bush, the father of the current president. The elder Bush was close to the Saudis and saw no problem in supporting the dictators of the world in the interest of stability and prosperity. His leading adviser, Brent Scowcroft, is a leading proponent of the realist position. The prime tenant is to avoid military conflict while using the threat of military action to give teeth to diplomacy. Realists point to their success in the Cold War to show that even implacable enemies such as the Soviet Union can be managed and ultimately vanquished using a Realist approach.  
If Bush the father was a Realist, his son George W. Bush is thought of as an Idealist. The Idealists are those who favor military action as a tool for reshaping and improving the world. Their idea is to overthrow dictators in order to instill “democracy.” A democracy is a country that has elections that are internationally supervised and certified to be competitive, free, and fair.  
However, if the country in question is called Palestine and if the winner of the certified fair and free election is Hamas, the Idealists will still tag the elected government as “terrorist.” Therefore we need to add to the Idealist definition of democracy. In practice, Idealists regard as democracies those countries that support US interests in their region and hew to the American line when it comes to touchstone issues such as support for Israel. Critics will add that Idealist think of democracies as countries that also provide profit-making opportunities for major US corporations—especially those corporations that have or are likely to employee the Idealists when they are no longer in government. 
The Idealists are militarists—they believe in the efficacy of military action—yet, typically, they are not military generals. For that matter, few have ever even served in the military. In the current administration, the Idealist philosophy was most strongly promoted by men like Paul Wolfowitz in the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld at Defense, and Vice-President Dick Cheney. The latter avoided service in the Vietnam war while his contemporaries were being drafted and sent to the jungles. Why? As Cheney famously remarked, “I had other priorities at the time.”  
One irony of the administration of Bush the son has been that the Idealists were opposed by Realists such as Colin Powell and Richard Armitage in the State Department—two men who had served in the military and who knew the costs of war first hand. So we had civilians acting as militarists and promoting the US invasion of Iraq while we had military men who were trying to avoid armed conflict.
One significant wrinkle: when Americans talk about Realists and Idealists, they are specifically talking about Republicans. Democrats don’t fit the bill easily. Why? Because their Republican opponents in US politics, at least since World War Two, have tagged Democrats as hopeless dreamers without the strength to vigorously oppose foreign enemies and without the backbone to engage in military conflict. This argument has proved potent in electing Republicans as president, although less effective in Congressional contests.
As a result, Democratic presidents tend to snarl the neat dichotomy between Realist and Idealist. In other words, they tend to pursue a Realist agenda while using military force—partly as a way of protecting themselves against charges of weakness. John F. Kennedy launched the ill-fated invasion of Cuba and initiated the Vietnam conflict by sending “advisors” to support South Vietnamese troops against the North. Lyndon Johnson, recalling Republican attacks that it was Democrat Harry Truman who “lost” China to the Communists, did not want to be tagged as the leader who lost Vietnam to the Chinese-supported Vietnamese Communists. So he escalated the conflict into a major land war based upon shaky Congressional approval of the Tonkin Gulf resolution in response to a murky and perhaps contrived provocation.
Another snarl for Democratic leaders is that they often are idealistic leaders who seek to inspire Americans and citizens of the world to act on behalf of the common good. Yet their “idealism” does not make them Idealists, because they look to diplomacy, alliances, international organizations (Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations and the United Nations) rather than military action to accomplish their goals. Democrats will say that they are using “soft power,” yet they are exposed to Republican charges that they are just plain soft.
Jimmy Carter announced that “morality” was going to be an important principle in his pursuit of foreign policy—a striking statement from the leader of a nation that is at the mercy of Saudi sheiks and their oil spigot; a nation that, in the past, overthrew democratically elected leaders in Chile and Iran while inspiring the first coup d’etat in modern Arab history to overturn the elected government in Syria in 1953. Jimmy Carter’s morality doctrine helped him broker a peace deal between Egypt and Israel. Yet it also left him exposed politically. In 1979, Iranian students took over the US embassy in Tehran. In response, Carter turned to the military and launched a rescue attempt. When US helicopters crashed and burned in the Iranian desert, Carter’s reelection hopes crashed and burned as well.
John McCain served in the military, so one would think that he would be a Realist such as Colin Powell or Richard Armitage rather than an Idealist like the civilians Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Cheney. Yet Matt Bai, writing in the New York Times Magazine, points out that McCain was a pilot who spent most of his Vietnam time in a prison in Hanoi. He came away from Vietnam with his belief in the efficacy of military power, gained in military college, more or less intact. Others, in the Marines and Army, served on the ground and spent time “in country.” Many came away with the understanding that there are some wars that simply can not be won militarily—no matter how many troops and how much military power is expended.
Barack Obama has not served in the military and, as a man of forty six, he was only eleven years old when the Vietnam war ended. Obama has no personal lessons from military conflict and he does have the experience of living in a Muslim country as a child. Of course, his father’s side of the family is from Kenya—another connection of Obama to the world outside US borders. Add these together and you would predict that Obama will be a talker, not a fighter.  
The wild card? As a well spoken Democrat who hopes to avoid Carter’s fate and lose reelection, one suspects that the first term Obama presidency might well be accompanied by military action. Think Jack Kennedy. What we don’t know is if Obama will be the Jack Kennedy who launched the utterly bizarre and completely hopeless invasion of Cuba by a proxy army of Cuban expats, or the Jack Kennedy who displayed his toughness by facing down Nikita Kruschev with a naval embargo in the Cuban missile crisis.

Scott C. Davis is the author of The Road from Damascus: A Journey Through Syria. He is also the founder of Cune Press. www.cunepress.net.
 

In the tradition of other presidential swan-songs, Bush visits the Middle East in order to leave more to his legacy than Katrina, failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the emergeance of a new recession. Why, then, is he almost deliberately stirring up more disquiet in the region?

Like Caesar, he came, he saw (well, made lightning stops in Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia), but did not conquer.
The agenda for President Bush’s May 2008 Middle East visit was unfinished business. No, he didn’t attempt to pull a Bill Clinton and try to broker a last minute peace agreement between Syria and Israel, or the Israelis and Palestinians. Nor did he engage in serious diplomacy, which might have meant meeting with the “evil” leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria. He also avoided such unpleasant encounters during his January visit to the region. Bush eschews all things distasteful. He made one sacrifice to symbolize his sympathy for the U.S. troops in Iraq—giving up playing golf, but not video golf.
Bush did have one pressing priority: to declare, with full fanfare and lofty rhetoric, the United States’ unequivocal support for the state of Israel. What better place to do this than at Israel’s Knesset, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Israeli state. Palestinians driven away from their homes and livelihoods and still waiting for a home of their own call this day—May 15, 1948— “Al-Nakba.”
“America is proud to be Israel’s closest ally and best friend in the world,” Bush reiterated on May 15. He called it the “freest democracy in the Middle East,” without mentioning that Israel denies democratic rights to Palestinians living under occupation.
In a blunt message to Iran, Bush also reassured Israeli leaders that “America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world’s leading sponsor of terror to possess the world’s deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal for future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” Bush avoided—as he has repeatedly done—any reference to the facts, such as his own December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons program.
In Bush’s seven plus years, the Middle East has become more unstable and violent and, in addition, faces a severe refugee crisis in Iraq, with 2.7 million internally displaced Iraqis and over 2.4 million refugees. Bush ignored these proofs of failed policy. He has not spread freedom and democracy to the Middle East. But facts do not interfere with the president’s intentions. He simply repeated his empty message before the Knesset: “We must stand with the reformers working to break the old patterns of tyranny and despair. We must give voice to millions of ordinary people who dream of a better life in a free society.” To realize this vision, Bush predicted that 60 years from now, “Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists’ vision and the injustice of their cause.”
By lumping al-Qaeda, a group recognized and condemned by most Muslims and non-Muslims alike as “terrorist,” with Hamas and Hezbollah, both legitimate political parties with grassroots and regional support, Bush highlighted his disconnect from the Middle East. Palestinians who democratically elected Hamas in January 2006 could only sneer at Bush’s “democracy and freedom.”
While he only praised Israel during his visit, he chided Arab leaders and named his usual suspects (Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah). After a two day visit in Saudi Arabia, Bush concluded his five-day Middle East tour at the World Economic Forum in Sharm el Sheikh. “Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail,” Bush lectured the audience on May 18, without specifically naming US ally and Summit host Egypt. In a more direct message to “enemies” Tehran and Damascus Bush added, “We must stand with the good and decent people of Iran and Syria, who deserve so much better than the life they have today. Every peaceful nation in the region has an interest in stopping these nations from supporting terrorism.”
Like his previous visit in January and just as he did before the Israeli Knesset, Bush also raised the “Iran threat,” stating that “every peaceful nation in the region has an interest in opposing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.” Had the president read the latest Arab Public Opinion Poll conducted by the University of Maryland, he would have learned that most Arabs do not view Iran as a major threat and believe it has a right to its nuclear program. Instead, 86% of those polled in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Egypt and the UAE identified the Arab-Israeli conflict as an important issue to them.
In light of such public opinion facts, Bush could have called for diplomacy between Israel and her neighbors to address long-standing grievances. But Bush placed all the onus on Arab states. When he addressed the World Economic Forum he demanded they “move past their old resentments against Israel.”
 Did he forget that under the 2002 “Saudi Peace Plan,” Arab leaders in Beirut agreed to recognize Israel, in return for ending its occupation of Arab territories? Instead of acknowledging that a just Arab-Israeli peace requires talking to all players, Bush stated that “all nations in the region must stand together in confronting Hamas, which is attempting to undermine efforts at peace with acts of terror and violence.”
In stark contrast, former President Jimmy Carter met with Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus last April. In an April 13 ABC News interview Carter noted, “There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process.”
In two trips to the Middle East in four months, what did Bush accomplish? At the Knesset, Bush missed an opportunity to press Israel to end its occupation of Israeli and Syrian territory. He could have pointed out that continued settlement building will only erode, rather than make possible, the creation of a continguous Palestinian state. Cynics could praise Bush for dramatizing a classical exercise in futility, but as far as brokering peace in the region is concerned, Bush failed—100%.
The president repeated his call for an independent Palestinian state, but offered no help in achieving it. As he approaches his final months in office, his foreign policy achievements appear to be ongoing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and saber-rattling against Iran, plus endless repetition of “freedom and democracy.”
Bush’s latest trip does, however, offer a striking example for the next U.S. President: how to miss an opportunity for peace, by elevating double standards and rhetoric over political courage and diplomacy. 

Farrah Hassen is the Carol Jean and Edward F. Newman Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C

In the last month, I attended two public events in Washington DC that were of great interest to any thoughtful American who really wanted to understand the public mood in our part of the world. Both events were dedicated to presenting public opinion surveys conducted in the Arab World. One was undertaken by Gallup, the other by the University of Maryland in conjunction with Zogby International. 
The results, as far as I am concerned, were totally expected and came as no surprise to me, yet, they were refreshingly suitable for their intended audience: US political analysts and advisors to policy makers. What is particularly interesting is that the findings of the Zogby poll don’t come as an unexpected change in the Arab public mood, but as a continuously solidified perception of the US and its disastrous policies in our region. I thought that in these troubled times, it would be doubly assuring to review together the major findings of these two public opinion polls. 
In March 2008, Zogby International was contracted by the University of Maryland to conduct a major poll in six Arab countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, UAE, Jordan and Lebanon. The results will neither be to the liking of the Bush administration nor to some of the governments of the countries in which the poll took place in. 
The most popular Arab leader: when Arab citizens from all six countries were asked which world leader do you admire most, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria came first among Arab heads of states, only second to Hassan Nasrallah, and guess who came third from citizens of the so-called ‘moderate’ countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad! By the way, Sheikh Muhammad bin Rashed ranked fourth. The rest of the Arab leaders did not even register on the scale of popularity. 
The most reliable source of news and information: The second question sheds interesting light on the Arab viewers; which media do thjey trust more, and who is winning the battle for the minds of the Arab citizens. The questions was: When you watch news, which network’s news broadcasts do you watch most often? Zero percent said al-Mustakbal; 2% said al-Hurra; 2% said al-Manar, 3% said LBC, 9% al-Arabia, and 53% percent said al-Jazeera. It seems that even the citizens of Saudi Arabia are not very keen on watching their state financed al-Arabia channel.
However, the most revealing piece of information was when you break these statistics into a country-by-country analysis, and here you get the following results for the same question when asked in Lebanon only : 38% percent said al-Manar, 13% said al-Jazeera, 16% said LBC, 8% said al-Arabia, and here again, al-Mustakbal failed to register any value at all. 
On Iran as a major threat:  Contrary to what President Bush wants us to believe, the majority of Arabs do not consider Iran an enemy. Most believe that Iran has the right to its nuclear program (67%) and do not support international pressure to force it to curtail its program. A plurality of Arabs believes that if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, then it is most likely either not to use them at all or to use them against Israel (92% combined) as compared to 8% who believed that they might be used against Arab countries. 
On President Bush: Don’t be deceived if you see President Bush performing his saber dance with some Arab royalties. Here are what the “moderate” Arabs think of Mr. Bush’s policies and administration: 83% are very critical of US policies, and 70% don’t trust the US at all. There is one caveat here though: these percentages reflect the Arab public opinion prior to Bush’s last declaration that Israel’s population is actually 307 million.  Imagine what the results would have been had the survey been conducted after his pilgrimage to the Knesset on the 60th anniversary of the Nakbah. 
On Lebanon: to the chagrin of Elliot Abrahms, the chief architect of US policy on Lebanon, only 9% expressed sympathy with the forces of March 14, while 30% sympathized with Hizbollah. 41% said that they were more or less neutral on the issue. 
On Palestine: despite the fact that the majority of those surveyed are deeply concerned about the divisions that tear the Palestinians apart, only 8% sympathized with Fatah while 18% expressed sympathy with Hamas. However, 38% said that they sympathize with both sides since they blame Israel and the US for the rift between the two. 
The Gallop World poll: As I have mentioned earlier, an equally interesting survey was presented in Washington, and described as the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind ever. Gallop sampled 90% of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims. Many of Gallop’s findings challenged conventional wisdom in the West about the Islamic world, and ended up surprising, even angering, many people, for it totally undermined most of the premises and perceived truths of neo-conservatives and Bushites while proving the fallacy of the ‘Islamo-facism’ myth. The findings of this poll deserve careful analysis, which cannot be presented in this article, thus, I will leave this task to the next one.

As economic relations prosper between Syria and Turkey, and as Turkey gains enough political leverage to accomplish the Israeli-Syrian talks that has eluded peacemakers for decades, FW: Speaks to Halit Çevik, the Ambassador of Turkey in Syria, about how this all came about.

Syrian-Turkish relations are developing in all walks of life.  What is your assessment?
Turkey and Syria enjoy close historical, cultural and social ties.  Turkey has the longest land border with Syria.
In the recent period, with commercial relations in the forefront, cooperation in many fields, including security, culture, education, tourism, customs, transportation and water has been increased. This runs in parallel to the high level of political relations between Syria and Turkey.  In this context, the entry into force of the Turkish-Syrian Free Trade Agreement as of January 1, 2007 has been an important development.
Turkish-Syrian cooperation bears importance for the establishment of peace and stability in the region.  Turkish-Syrian relations will continue to develop to serve the common interests of the Turkish and Syrian peoples and contribute to regional stability and security.
What measures do you think should be taken by Syria and Turkey to keep the pace of accelerated bilateral economic cooperation?
For efficient economic cooperation, there are three prerequisites: good political relations; a complementary fit between the two economic systems; and the existence of an appropriate legal framework. In the case of Turkey and Syria, there is political will to strengthen economic ties and the two economies complement each other well.
On the other hand, the appropriate legal framework has been formed by agreement for prevention of double taxation, another for mutual promotion of investments, and last but not least an agreement on free trade.
A foreign investment in any country means a secure investment environment. How could Turkey become an investment attracting country and how can Syria benefit from the Turkish experience?
Over the past two decades, Turkey has undergone a profound economic transformation with a particular emphasis on structural reforms starting from the financial sector, with an accelerated privatization process, and sweeping reforms in agriculture, social security, energy and telecommunication.
Today, Turkey is the 17th largest economy in the world with a GNP of about $660 billion USD.  The growth rate has been 6.7% in average throughout the last 7 years. The IMF predicts a growth rate of 5.3% in 2008.

Sixty-one years ago, on April 17, 1946, Syria achieved independence from the French Mandate. Much has been writ-ten in Syria about the armed revolts against the French, which started in 1919 and accumulated in the great re-volt of 1925-1927. The heroes of these revolts are well-known to five generations of Syrians growing up during and after the Mandate. They include General Yusuf al-Azma, the minister of war who was killed in combat against the French Army in 1920, Ibrahim Hananu, commander of the Aleppo Revolt, Saleh al-Ali, commander of the mountain revolt, and Sultan al-Atrash, commander of the Syrian revolt of 1925. Leaders of the political process, however, who championed diplomacy—rather than violence—to secure Syria’s independence, have not received their due mention in Syrian history.

Sami Moubayed speaks with President Mehmet Ali Talat about the grievances and future of the Turkish Cypriot community, and their relations with neighboring Syria.

President Mehmet Ali Talat is a good neighbor-and loyal friend-that Syria does not really know. The 55-year old former electrical engineer is now president of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which controls the northern third of the island of Cyprus. It has been an autonomous state since Turkish intervention took place, to protect the Turkish Cypriot community, in 1974. For many years the world refused to recognize TRNC, offering official statehood recognition only to the “Republic of Cyprus.” The international community imposed an air, ground, and sea embargo on TRNC. Only local and Turkish banks were allowed to operate on its territory. Many foreign companies were prohibited from opening branches, under pressure from the Greek Cypriots. The Republic of Cyprus declared that degrees offered by TRNC universities were “illegal.” Even athletes wishing to attend international tournaments were denied access, under claims that they did not represent a legal, official state. TRNC’s only friends were a handful of countries in the Islamic world, and Turkey.

Some 25 years ego when I was serving at the Turkish Embassy in Damascus, I once asked a Syrian journalist friend of mine why such little positive news was reflected in the Syrian press regarding Turkey? His answer was rather revealing of the attitude adopted by many high officials at that time. He said that sometimes it was the ego. He gave the example of an instance when he handed over to the editor of his newspaper a piece of news about a major economic achievement in Turkey. The editor told him: “But there is nothing offending Turkey in this news item. So why should we publish it?” I do not know whether the editor was joking, but I was not surprised. I simply wondered whether I would see, anytime in the future, Turkey and Syria become the two countries that their people wanted them to become. I am extremely happy that this question has now been answered positively. Did we achieve everything that we ought to have achieved? Certainly not, but we are on the right track.

Relations between the United States and Syria reached a historic low over the past two years. Rocky since George W. Bush and Bashar al-Assad came to office at the beginning of this decade, the relationship has been in crisis mode since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 – and particularly since the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister RaFik al-Hariri in 2005. Although there are clear reasons why the relationship soured, from both a historical and a strategic viewpoint the present bilateral posture is abnormal. Moreover, enough time has now passed to make it abundantly clear to both sides that what is possible under conditions of cautious engagement trumps what either side can accomplish through subversion, estrangement and isolation. This essay suggests a way forward for the two countries, a way to escape the zero-sum dynamic that has taken hold.

Question: Why don’t the neocons cause me any in-digestion? Answer: Because I take them with a pinch of salt and a sense of humor. I know this is cruel and un-fair. These individuals and their twisted ideology have caused terrible suffering and great pain to our people in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq, besides costing many young American soldiers their lives, lighting for the wrong reason at the wrong place at the wrong time. Therefore, simply dismissing neocons as a joke might seem irresponsible. Yet, I cannot resist laughing loudly when I hear their arguments and listen to their logic. Here is an example, and I leave the rest to your imagination.