Syria bit the bullet and accepted Bush's invitation. Here's why, explains Sami Moubayed There was much speculation in Syria on whether to attend the Annapolis conference or not. Reservations stemmed from an earlier no-mention of the occupied Golan Heights, tension in Syrian-US relations, US backing for the anti- Syrian regime in Beirut, and the latest Israeli air attack against Syria, which took place on 6 September 2007. The Syrians could not forget what had happened on 6 September, which apparently was done in compliance with the Americans. They also could not ignore that in December 2003, President Bush had said, "Syria is a weak country that just has to wait" until all other pending Middle East issues are solved. The Syrians believe that Bush is unable to bring peace to the region, because of the problems on his hands in Iraq, and because, unlike president Bill Clinton; he is not interested in Arab-Israeli peace. President Bashar Al-Assad put forth his country's condition to attend: negotiations on the occupied Golan. The Americans said yes. If the Syrians were to attend, who would represent them in the United States? Would it be Foreign Minister Walid Al-Moualim, his deputy Faysal Miqdad, or Ambassador Emad Mustafa? Sending Al-Moualim would give the conference too much importance, and the Syrians were really going there just to tell the world, "we did our part. We attended. But Annapolis led to nothing!" Some in Syria wanted a complete boycott of Annapolis. According to the London-based Al-Hayat, the decision was taken only after a series of phone calls between Foreign Minister Al-Moualim and his counterparts in Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey and Egypt. The British and French ambassadors to Damascus also visited the foreign minister. All of them reportedly wanted Syria to go to Maryland so as not to miss the chance, after four years of absence from the Washington arena, to make themselves heard in the US. On the other hand, the Iranians and Hamas wanted Syria to boycott the event, seeing it as nothing but a PR stunt for Bush. Significantly, expressing how the Syrians views the conference, the official Syria News said, 24 hours before the conference, that Al-Assad and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad view Annapolis as doomed to failure. But regardless of outcomes, the Syrians scored a goal when Golan was actually put on the conference agenda. So a three-man Syrian delegation arrived in Annapolis, headed by Faysal Miqdad, his country's ambassador to the United Nations from 2003 to 2006. Ahmed Salkini, a communications officer at the Syrian Embassy in the US, said, "we participate with the understanding that the Golan will be discussed. Syria continues to be committed to the Arab peace initiative as the only way to achieve a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East." Al-Hayat quoted an unnamed Syrian source saying, "what we asked for was granted." Reportedly, the US Chargé d'Affaires to Syria Michael Corbin contacted a senior Foreign Ministry official on 24 November, giving him the final schedule for Annapolis. In a session called "Comprehensive Peace" the Syrian-Israeli track will be discussed, as well as the Lebanese- Israeli one. The Syrians head off to Annapolis convinced that solutions cannot be reached -- for different reasons -- so long as President George W Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are in power in Washington and Tel Aviv. It would have been unwise not to attend, however, for this would have given the Americans justification to say, "the Syrians are not ready or interested in peace." Recently, Ambassador Emad Mustafa was quoted in Forward, Syria's English monthly: "He [Al-Assad] has come to a realisation, however, that it is almost impossible to do business with this US administration. He concluded that with this administration, contacts would be either minimal, or non-existent." But regardless, the Syrians want to maintain ties and even improve relations with the US administration. Again, Ambassador Mustafa explains: "He is not hostile -- not at all -- towards the US. He is keen to improve relations with Washington, a basic reason being the understanding that it is very difficult for any country in the world not to have good relations with the world superpower." Last summer, Olmert made an initiative towards the Syrians in a interview with the Saudi channel Al-Arabiya. Olmert said: "I am ready to sit with you and talk about peace, not war. I will be happy if I could make peace with Syria. I do not want to wage war against Syria." This proposal was echoed by President Shimon Peres in September, who added, "we are ready for dialogue with Damascus." Back in July, President Al-Assad gave a speech in parliament in which he re-emphasised his country's willingness for peace, recalling that the basis of any Syrian cooperation would be the borders of 4 June, 1967. He also asked for guarantees, saying that from experience in the 1990s, Syria does not trust the Israelis. "We did not trust them before the 1990s and distrust them further now." Al-Assad asked for something similar to the agreement reached with the late Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin, which promised to restore the Golan Heights in full to Syria. Then came the Israeli air invasion, with US support, on 6 September 2007, which put a damper on Syrian hopes and shed serious doubt on Olmert's credibility. With that in mind, the Syrians went to Annapolis, almost convinced that it will lead to nothing. The Syrians believe that Olmert is in a difficult position because of the results of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in July-August 2006. Olmert understands that none of his declared objectives were met: Hizbullah was not crushed, and the two Israeli soldiers abducted in South Lebanon are still held by the Lebanese. The Israeli public holds him and his team accountable for the ill-fated Lebanon adventure. His Kadima-Labour cabinet was on the verge of collapse, arch-foe Ehud Barak was making a thundering political comeback, and the Winograd Report on the summer war made life all the more difficult for the Israeli prime minister. Olmert needed to divert attention fast from Israeli domestic affairs and find solutions to the tension in the Israeli-Syrian-Lebanese crisis. With such a defeat on his record, the Israeli prime minister cannot possibly deliver peace with the Syrians, who are viewed as the main backers of Hizbullah. Olmert needs to obtain his war medals to right the wrongs done to his image in Lebanon. Only after waging another war -- and either winning or at least not losing it -- can he project himself as a "peacemaker". That was the prevailing mood in Damascus this summer. Then, something changed in Israel. Many started to say that only Syria can secure Israel's border with Lebanon. Making peace with the Syrians, the Israelis started thinking, seemed all the more logical since it automatically would mean peace with Hizbullah. And since Hizbullah cannot be crushed by force (as the results of last year's war proved) then the best solution would be to isolate and neutralise it by making peace with the Syrians. If they sign a peace pact, after all, they cannot continue supporting Hizbullah. In April 2007, US Congress Speaker Nancy Pelosi went to Damascus with a message to Al-Assad from Olmert. The Israeli press went into a frenzy revisiting the Syrian-Israeli peace track. The Syrians were, and still are, unimpressed by the Israeli conditions for peace, which included halting Syria's cooperation with Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran. All of these recent events help explain why the Syrians are worried as they head off to Annapolis. Countries interested in peace don't go around flying into their neighbour's airspace without permission, especially when the two countries are in a state of war. They don't fire missiles into other countries' territory. The last time I checked, this was called war-making rather than peace-making. But despite all that, the Syrians have been committed to peace since Madrid and are willing to try Annapolis. But it's doubtful that Annapolis will lead to a breakthrough, with the likes of Bush and Olmert in power.
