Arrest Assad, Don’t Treat with Him

(Washington, D.C.): President Clinton today announced that he would be meeting
Hafez Assad
in Geneva next Sunday. The transparent purpose of this seance is to see if the United States can
pay the Syrian dictator enough to accept Israel’s surrender of the strategic Golan Heights.
Neither regional peace, U.S. interests nor a presidential legacy worth having will be served by
an agreement that comes from a transaction with someone like Assad.

A far better use of Assad’s visit to Switzerland would be for him to be subjected to the
Pinochet
precedent: In light of serial crimes against humanity, among other offenses, an international
warrant should be issued for the arrest and deportation to compel this ruthless despot and mass
murderer to stand trial. This suggestion is but one of the noteworthy points made recently in an
important op.ed. article on Assad’s abiding malevolence and hostility to peace that appeared
recently in the Wall Street Journal Europe under the by-line of one of America’s
foremost
students of Mideast affairs, the American Enterprise Institute’s David Wurmser.

Wall Street Journal Europe, January 4, 2000

Does Syria Want Peace?

By David Wurmser

The round of Syrian-Israeli peace talks that started Monday in West Virginia was attended by
U.S. President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Syria, meanwhile, sent only
its foreign minister, Farouk al-Shara. The Clinton Administration would like observers to believe
that there is no significance in this. But symbolism does not go unnoticed in the Arab world, with
its precise protocol and constant emphasis on who is paying homage to whom. Public events
express the relations of power among leaders and nations — an ancient legacy inherited from
Byzantine times where high politics were decided by seating arrangements at banquets.

True, it must be acknowledged that Syrian President Hafez Assad’s health remains
questionable,
and may make it difficult for him to travel. (He managed to make it to Moscow last year.) Assad
would also, if the activist lawyers who nabbed Augusto Pinochet were consistent, risk arrest for
crimes against humanity. But Assad could at least have sent his designated successor — his son
Bashar — as he normally does for important events he does not himself attend. The fact that he
did not is consistent with Syria’s behavior so far, and suggests Assad may have more interest in a
peace process than in peace itself.

During the round of talks in Washington last month, Mr. Shara shocked everyone by
launching a
tirade against Israel and the United States. He dwelled on the long conspiracy to oppress and
victimize Syria. And as if that were not enough, the last hours of the summit were spent
unsuccessfully trying to convince Mr. Shara to publicly shake Mr. Barak’s hand. The White
House dismissed these humiliations as negligible glitches in an otherwise momentous, historic
chain of happy events. But Syria intended the very structure of the negotiation to portray Israel
and the United States as subjugated.

Syria’s behavior is part of a pattern. Indeed, for most of the last decade the Syrian
government
seems to have made sport of humiliating the United States. Here are a few highlights:

• In late 1994, President Clinton traveled to the Middle East. While visiting Syria right
  after a bomb, likely planted by a Syria-based group, ripped through an Israeli bus, Mr.
  Clinton gingerly called on Syria to crack down on terror groups. Assad contradicted the
  president at a news conference and defied him to produce any evidence that Syria had
  ever supported terror, in essence calling him a liar to his face.
• In fall 1995, Mr. Clinton again traveled to the Middle East to witness the Jordanian-Israeli
  peace treaty. Syria marked the moment by letting its minions unleash a volley of
  rockets on northern Israel to protest, while Assad flew to Cairo to coordinate with Egypt
  on how to derail the treaty. Mr. Clinton, trying to avoid offending Syria, went on to
  Damascus right after that to pay a courtesy call.
• In early 1996, after the last time Israel offered Syria the entire Golan Heights for peace,
  Syrian-backed factions in Lebanon unleashed a volley of Katyushas on Israel, which led
  Israel to launch a mini-war. Seeing his carefully nurtured negotiations melt into the hell
  of rocket and artillery barrages, then-U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher flew to
  Damascus to mediate a ceasefire. He sat for hours on the tarmac waiting to meet any
  Syrian official. None came. Mr. Christopher returned to the United States.
• In late 1998, America launched a short air war on Iraq. In Damascus, where nothing
  happens without the blessing of the government, crowds of students — regime loyalists —
  stormed and ransacked the U.S. embassy and hoisted Syria’s flag atop the consular office.
  The crowd then sacked a British installation and wound up at the U.S. ambassador’s
  house, which they also ransacked while his wife hid in the cellar. Syrian police looked on
  but never interceded. Syria never apologized, but the speaker of its parliament appeared
  on television to say that the U.S. deserved it. About the same time, the U.S. ambassador
  to Lebanon ran into a band of Hezbollah fighters while visiting Syrian-controlled areas.
  In sight of Syrian soldiers, according to the Israeli press, he was surrounded and forced at
  gunpoint to trample on an Israeli flag. Syrian troops never intervened, nor did Syria
  apologize.

Why does Syria do this? After coming to power 30 years ago, Assad’s regime quickly
degenerated into a totalitarian ally of the Soviet Union. It has failed in every aspect of
governance. Its economy is a mess. Ethnic and sectarian divisions tear as hard as ever at its
seams. Like North Korea, Syria became a poor country with a large army into which it still pours
ever more precious resources. The Syrian regime cannot base its legitimacy on internal
accomplishments, since there are none.

Syria has failed externally too. Its patron, the Soviet Union, turned out to be a lame horse.
Turkey to its north has a larger army than Syria’s and shows no hesitation to use it. War with
Israel has only brought Syria defeat. Syria successfully digested Lebanon, but only because of
Iranian support, American acquiescence and Israeli passivity.

Instead, Assad’s path to legitimacy lies in humiliating the United States and Israel. Assad has
long sought to demonstrate to his people that his Arab neighbors, Israel and even the United
States acknowledge his power and superiority. By humiliating America and getting away with it,
he, like Saddam, taps its power to vindicate his own.

It is, however, a difficult dance. Assad must humiliate without engendering a reaction to his
regime or its hold on Lebanon. Enter the peace process. Real peace would loosen his grip on
Lebanon and shake Syria’s internal stability. A regime like Assad’s needs external conflict to
survive. Without it, he cannot explain to his people why massive internal repression and a state
of emergency are still necessary. A peace process, on the other hand, is useful. Through offers of
progress, he lures Israel and the United States close enough to give him a steady stream of
opportunities to demonstrate his importance.

And why does the United States dance with Syria? Perhaps it is because the Clinton
administration has no concept of honor. Lacking that, this administration cannot understand the
damage caused to its credibility by allowing a flailing Stalinist regime in Syria to humiliate it
freely and repeatedly. Nor, it seems, does the Clinton Administration understand that tolerating
Syria’s behavior makes real peace less, not more, likely.

David Wurmser is director of Middle East Studies at the American Enterprise Institute
in
Washington, D.C.