‘DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY’: ROSS, INDYK STILL CONTEND IT IS ‘PREMATURE’ TO DEBATE A U.S. DEPLOYMENT ON THE GOLAN

(Washington, D.C.): At a White House meeting this
morning with over 100 American Jewish leaders and others
interested in U.S. Middle East policy, two senior Clinton
Administration officials — the State Department’s Dennis
Ross and National Security Council staff member Martin
Indyk⁽¹⁾ —
hewed to the established line: It is still too
early to have a debate about the wisdom of placing
American troops on the Golan Heights as part of a
prospective peace agreement between Syria and Israel,
notwithstanding the prominence recent public remarks by
President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin have given this initiative.

Mr. Indyk said that the Center for Security Policy was
responsible for stimulating what he deemed to be untimely
attention to U.S. commitment to deploy troops on the
Golan. Mr. Ross described how there are “four legs
to an agreement between Syria and Israel” involving:
(1) the content of peace, (2) the content of an Israeli
withdrawal from the Golan, (3) security arrangements and
(4) a timetable for all the above.

With respect to security arrangements, Mr. Ross
maintained that the parties were still far from
agreement. He noted that an international presence would
not be a substitute for such arrangements and reported
that the two sides disagreed at present on the nature of
such a presence. Syria prefers a United Nations force and
Israel a U.S.-led multilateral deployment along the lines
of what Prime Minister Rabin has taken to calling
“the Sinai model.”

For these reasons, Mr. Ross contended that it was
still “premature” to have a public debate about
a prospective Golan deployment — and about the
implications it might have for U.S. personnel and
interests in the Middle East. He went on to opine that
such a debate would be undesirable insofar as it could
signal that the United States lacked the staying power
needed to underpin a Syrian-Israeli peace.

Breaking the Code

The fact that the Clinton Administration continues to
try to discourage examination of such a deployment is
both a) instructive and b) understandable:

It is instructive because it confirms the Center for
Security Policy’s belief that the proposal to put
a U.S. force on the Golan is being actively worked within
U.S. and Israeli government circles and,
therefore, the Administration feels obliged to manage the
related “public diplomacy.” And it is
understandable because the idea of deploying
American troops on the Golan Heights is one that cannot
survive rigorous examination.

In the latter regard, it is noteworthy that the
Administration has, to date, declined to respond to any
of the issues or concerns raised by the Center for
Security Policy’s blue-ribbon
study of the Golan deployment.⁽²⁾ Authored by
eleven former senior military and civilian officials —
including three who served as members of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff — this study concluded that “the
costs — undertaking of risks, commitment of resources
and transformation of the U.S. role in the region —
would substantially outweigh any benefits.”

Against this backdrop, the Clinton
Administration’s continuing effort to discourage informed
discussion of the Golan deployment idea suggests that it
lacks good responses to the sorts of concerns identified
by the Center’s distinguished analysts. Evidently,
it has concluded that it is better to prevent a rigorous
debate rather than lose it.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy is pleased that the
White House has chosen to credit it with a principal role
in arousing public awareness of and interest in the idea
of a U.S. deployment on the Golan Heights. It would be
even more pleased if the Clinton Administration would
demonstrate that it is actually thinking through
the issues the Center has raised concerning any such
deployment here. This can only be done by addressing the
substantive points in the Center’s analysis.

In this connection, the Center welcomes a
statement made by Dennis Ross in the course of today’s
briefing to the effect that the Administration “will
not present Congress with a fait accompli“
concerning a deployment on the Golan Heights. We
look forward to hearing from the Clinton team in the
hearings that the Congress should hold on this topic
early in the next session and prior to any formal
commitment of U.S. troops to a Golan mission.

– 30-

1. Messrs. Indyk and Ross were
joined in the briefing by Lt. Gen. Daniel Christman, the
Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Gen. Christman did not address the issue of a prospective
U.S. deployment on the Golan. He did, however, note that
his boss, General John Shalikashvili, did not elect to
visit the Golan Heights during his recent trip to Israel
— an excursion that might have persuaded him it was no
place for American troops.

2. See href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=00-golan94″>U.S. Forces on the Golan
Heights: An Assessment of Benefits and Costs,
published by the Center for Security Policy on 25 October
1994.