From Madrid to Geneva: The Rise and Fall of the Syrian-Israeli Peace Process, 1991-2000

 

Syria suffered several serious foreign policy setbacks in the inter-Arab arena in the late 1980s.  In Lebanon, Hafiz al-Asad was unable to force the remnants of the Lebanese government to accept the pro-Syrian candidate for the presidency - despite the presence of some 40,000 Syrian troops in the country.  In early 1989 these troops clashed with the decimated Lebanese army, headed by General Michel 'Awn who enjoyed Iraqi support.  The focus of the Arab-Israeli conflict again moved away from Syria with the Palestinian intifada and Yasir Arafat's decision to recognize Israel and accept UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 at the end of 1988.  Asad saw himself as the natural leader of the Arab world in the quest for a comprehensive settlement with Israel and therefore sought to control the intifada as a means of focusing the region's attention back to the Levant, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Syria's centrality in making any progress.  By 1990, this strategy was not realized.

 

Syria's leading role in regional affairs was also eroded by the cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war.  Asad supported Iran in the conflict, angering the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states and Saudi Arabia specifically, who withdrew their funding for Syria as a front-line state in the conflict with Israel.  The Syrian-Iranian axis was also a thorn in Egypt's side who saw Iranian fingers stoking the fire of their domestic Islamist movements.  The cease-fire also enabled Iraq to increase their involvement in the inter-Arab system and Saddam Hussein proved to be far more bellicose in his threats against Israel, which in turn threatened to undermine Syria's plan to stand at the vanguard of the Arab nation.

 

At the emergency Arab summit in Baghdad 28-30 May 1990, Hussein again threatened the United States and Israel and sought to subordinate the oil-rich Gulf monarchies to his intimidation and fiery rhetoric about Israel's threat to Arab national security.  Saddam demanded the mobilization of all Arab resources behind his leadership, threatening that there would be no tolerance for fence sitting and the faint-hearted.  While the summit provided no clue to Iraq's decision to invade Kuwait, it reflected the new inter-Arab alignment with Iraq and Egypt as leaders of rival coalitions. 

 

By 1989, Egypt immerged from the regional isolation imposed on it since their peace agreement with Israel a decade earlier.  With their diminished regional standing and under Saudi Arabian pressure, Syria allowed Egypt's return to the Arab League at the end of 1989, effectively admitting that they were not positioned to lead the Arab nation.  Syria's bid to lead the Arab world failed; Asad would have to be content in the backseat of either's car.^[7]

Worse still, Asad's quest for 'strategic parity' (at-tawazun al-istratiji) vis-à-vis Israel was dashed in April 1987 when on a visit with Gorbachev in Moscow, he was told that rather than striving for 'strategic parity,' Syria should make do with 'defensive sufficiency.'  During the same meeting, Gobachev told Asad of his plan to normalize relations with Israel, which quickly led to tens of thousands of Soviet Jews immigrating to Israel.^[8] 

 

By the summer of 1990, given the crisis in Lebanon, a betting person would put their money on war breaking out between Syria and Iraq.  It was in this context that on 2 August 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, handing Syria a blessing in disguise.

 

Raymond Hinnebusch explains: "The second Gulf War presented a golden opportunity to trade membership in the coalition - to the credibility of which Syria's nationalist credentials were arguably crucial - in return for U.S. acknowledgment of Syrian interests...In short, Syria saw Bush's 'new world order' shaping up and wanted to influence it rather than become its victim."^[9]  Although Asad's decision to join the anti-Iraq coalition was at odds with Syria's desire for pan-Arab unity under their leadership and sharply contradicted most of the concepts that underlined Syrian Ba'th ideology,^[10] his conduct during the crisis was responsible for improving Syria's standing regionally and internationally.

 

Syria and Iraq, and their two Ba'th regimes were constant enemies.  Iraq's support for General 'Awn in Lebanon was an obstacle to Syrian hegemony in Lebanon, which also was important in the struggle with Israel.  Iraq aided the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria in the early 1980s and supported other opponents of the regime.  They also made clear that they were seeking to punish Israel for their attack on the Osirak nuclear reactor.  Given America's plan to embark on a regional peace process after evicting Iraq from Kuwait, Syria was especially concerned and wanted to avoid any situation where Iraq could dictate war and peace between Syria and Israel.

 

Asad realized that if he did not back Saudi Arabia in their hour of need, he would risk losing all GCC financial aid.  At this point economic and strategic principles matched.  The Gulf crisis also enabled Syria to emerge from their regional isolation.  Asad understood he could not realize his goals while opposing the only world superpower.  As Henry Kissinger once said, in the Arab Middle East, there can be no war without Egypt or peace without Syria.  Asad wanted the region and the West to understand that all roads to a future peace in the Middle East lead to Damascus.  Asad was apparently successful in this endeavor.  In the wake of the crisis, American Secretary of State James Baker remarked, "I was beginning to come to the conclusion that Syria was the key to significant progress.  Asad's engagement would signal, in the most dramatic fashion, that our efforts were legitimate in Arab eyes."^[11]  Indeed, in building the coalition to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, America's Arab allies frequently asked Bush to meet with Asad.^[12]

 

As a result of Syria's participation in the Gulf coalition, they were given carte blanche to act against Michel 'Awn in Lebanon, who was an obstacle to achieving Asad's objectives in the country.  Regional and international circumstances prevented Syria from acting in 1988, when they originally marked him as a target.  With their participation in the anti-Iraq coalition, Asad was able to surround the Ba'abda palace in Beirut and take over the enclaves held by General 'Awn, thus clearing the way for Syrian hegemony in Lebanon with the signing of the "Agreement of Fraternity and Cooperation" in May 1991.  Choosing the 'right side' in the Gulf crisis allowed Syria to accomplish more in Lebanon in a year than it could during the previous 15 fruitless years.^[13] 

 

Nevertheless, maintaining Syria's new regional standing required turning a new page with America and the path to warm relations with Washington required a Syrian-Israeli peace process.  Syria's strategic decision to seek a comprehensive "peace of the brave" with Israel must be seen in the above context.  Embarking on a peace process with Israel was seen as a necessary evil in Damascus.  As Uri Savir, Israel's lead negotiator with Syria under Peres' brief prime ministership pointed out, "Damascus was truly less interested in its Israeli 'suitor' than in the American 'mailman'."^[14]

 

 

            Israel faced a new reality in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm.  On one hand Iraq's invasion of Kuwait helped to extinguish the fire of the Palestinian intifada, however, the lessons learned in Israel were durable.  The status quo they enjoyed during the Reagan years was no longer a viable option.  They came to understand that the Palestinian issue must be dealt with somehow, and that ruling over Palestinian's lives in the West Bank and Gaza could not continue indefinitely.  Additionally, while Israel had withstood the barrage of Iraqi Scud missiles during the war, it brought home the danger posed by weapons of mass destruction.  Whereas Israel had always seen itself as America's strategic ally, the Gulf War saw Israel become America's strategic liability whose contribution to the war effort would best be to absorb Iraqi missiles without responding.^[15]  Israel's strategic doctrine was shattered.^[16]   Seeking a political solution to these threats became a vital Israeli interest but deciding how to proceed was no simple decision.

 

Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's coalition government was a volatile political cocktail of many two and three seat parties with divergent interests.  Shamir possessed much of Menachem Begin's ideology, but none of his decisiveness and leadership qualities.  He had made an art form of making "a movement forward when it was safe to do so and a movement to the side when it was not.  Standing still while opponents exhausted themselves in sheer frustration was always an option."^[17]  The idea of land-for-peace as espoused by UN Security Council Resolution 242 was not in Shamir's lexicon.  He offered peace-for-peace. 

 

On 1 October 1990, President Bush told the United Nations he would address the Arab-Israeli conflict as soon as the crisis with Iraq was over.  Shamir's government had little appetite for such a process, and could feel their growing isolation from Washington.  American Secretary of State James A. Baker III already held his office for two years by the end of the war and had yet to visit Israel.  While he had shuttled around the region in order to build the coalition against Iraq, he conducted his diplomacy with Israel over the phone from the comfort of his Washington office.  In this manner, he obtained Israel's pledge not to respond to an Iraqi attack so as not to disturb America's important Arab coalition.  In Shamir's eyes this left Israel without their strategic power of deterrence where they would strike back hard against anyone who dared to attack Israel.  Shamir was being asked to join the peace process, however, he would start from a position of weakness rather than strength.^[18]

 

In the spring of 1989 Baker delivered a blunt speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee where he criticized Israel's expansionist policies and told his primarily Jewish audience that, "for Israel, now is the time to lay aside once and for all the unrealistic vision of a Greater Israel."^[19]  A year later on 11 June 1990 while testifying before Congress, he famously exploded at Congressman Mel Levine and more broadly at Israel and their supporters, saying, "When you're serious about peace, call us.  The White House number is 1-202-456-1414."^[20]  This testimony was given in the context of the United States holding up $10 billion in loan guarantees to Israel to ensure that the money would not be spent absorbing the new Soviet Jews in West Bank settlements.  Indeed, American-Israeli relations had reached a low point perhaps not seen since the 1956 Suez War.  Shamir might entertain an Arab-Israeli peace process, but Washington would have to drag him there kicking and screaming.

 

            Whereas for nearly fifty years the Middle East had been another battlefield in the American-Soviet Cold War, the early Bush administration enjoyed regional supremacy as the U.S.S.R. continued their rapid decline.  In previous administrations, Washington sought to balance two interests.  The first was safeguarding their oil interests in the Gulf region that became even more acute following the gas shortages in the mid-1970s, the 1979 Iranian revolution, and the Iran-Iraq war.  The second was nurturing their relationship with Israel after the 1967 war as the only democratic state in the region firmly planted on the American side of the Cold War.  These two American interests were not mutually exclusive, as the failure of one did not inhibit the success of the other.

 

The Carter doctrine mandated U.S. action against aggressive states in the Gulf - specifically, Iran but more broadly, the U.S.S.R.  The Reagan doctrine further focused on the Gulf region, determined to prevent the destabilization of Saudi Arabia, and the regional order in general.^[21]  The early Bush administration continued the same policies, seeking a workable solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict but without the heavy hands-on investment that would mark the Clinton years.  However, in the changing Middle Eastern climate where the Soviet Union ceased to be a primary factor, American bureaucratic inertia and red tape in policy planning failed to adopt a new approach to the new situation.

 

It is far easier to maintain rather than change government policy.  In 1980, the National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzeninski was eager to bring Iraq into America's camp rather than the Soviet's.  This in part accounts for Washington's tilt toward Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, where they actively sold and encouraged others to sell weapons systems to Saddam Hussein.  This strategy went unrevised after the end of the Iran-Iraq war in August 1988 and didn't change when the first cracks in the Soviet Union became visible canyons.  Only after Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990 and threatened Saudi Arabia did the U.S. reconsider their Middle East policy.  Even after the Cold War, the National Security Council (NSC) and the State Department continued to argue for a policy of conciliation toward Baghdad. 

 

In February 1990, the Defense Department released their new guidance plan for 1992-1997.  A Soviet invasion of Iran was no longer considered a risk, and the focus switched to more direct efforts to defend Saudi Arabia and other moderate Gulf states who were considered to be in America's oil interest.  This reevaluation was primarily due to the military's need to find a new role for Central Command (CentCom) as the Soviet threat in Eastern Europe began to wane.  During the same month, CentCom's chief, General Norman Schwarzkopf, told congress that despite the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Baghdad was receiving a large amount of Soviet military equipment being pulled out of Eastern Europe. ^[22] 

 

Iraq's military did not shrink at the end of their war with Iran.  Saddam Hussein delivered a speech in February 1990 calling for American forces to leave the region.  In March, U.S. intelligence reports concluded that Iraq was building six launchers in western Iraq (the H2 sector) for Scud missiles capable of reaching Israel.  On 2 April, Hussein delivered another speech where he threatened Israel and the United States and declared that he didn't need nuclear weapons because he had chemical arms.  Indeed, Hussein revealed that Iraq possessed a binary chemical weapon and threatened to use it to burn "half of Israel" if it dared to attack Iraq.^[23] 

 

At the emergency Arab summit in Baghdad 28-30 May, Hussein again threatened the United States and Israel.  The fact that most Arab states and specifically Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan supported Iraq, led Washington to believe that opposing Baghdad would damage their Middle Eastern interests and therefore, throughout the summer of 1990, America continued its policy of rapprochement with Iraq.  Further misunderstanding the Middle East situation, the Bush administration set out to persuade Hussein that he was misreading Washington and that the United States meant Iraq no harm.  Hussein summoned the U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie a week before Iraq invaded Kuwait.  Her instructions were to avoid any confrontation and she praised Hussein's efforts to rebuild his country.  She told Saddam: "I know you need funds.  We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country.  But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait...[Secretary of State] James Baker has directed our official spokesman to emphasize this instruction."^[24]  There is little doubt that Washington's focus on European and Soviet issues at the expense of the Middle East and their failure to send Baghdad an unequivocal message other than reconciliation emboldened Saddam Hussein and gave him the confidence to invade Kuwait.

 

President Bush's desire to create a worldwide coalition against Iraq succeeded.  The Soviet Union joined the United States in immediate condemnation of Iraq.  Syria was the first Arab state in the Middle East to condemn Iraq and demand their withdrawal but an Arab solution to the crisis proved hopeless.^[25]  The price Washington had to pay for Arab involvement in the coalition was addressing Middle East peace in the war's aftermath.  When Operation Desert Storm ended in March 1991, the United States had a newfound prestige in the Middle East and was free from the Soviet Union's Cold War entanglement.  Bush made the decision to press ahead with a comprehensive plan for peace in the Middle East, which would require the backing of the Arab states. 

 

In assessing the prospects for peace in the Middle East, the United States realized the following:  Iraq was effectively contained and removed from the equation.  Egypt was already a party to a separate peace with Israel.  Jordan was ready but unable to stand at the vanguard of peacemaking states and cross the threshold to make peace with Israel.  The PLO was still an officially State Department-listed terrorist entity discredited by their support for Hussein during the war.  Iran lacked any relations with the U.S. after their 1979 revolution with the exception of a few military encounters in the late 1980s in the Gulf; they could be counted on to thwart any move toward peace and reconciliation between Israel and the Arab world.  Lebanon was a junior partner in the Syrian equation.  Syria, while still listed as a state sponsor of terrorism, had joined the U.S. in ousting Iraq from Kuwait and helped to provide cover for the West's invasion.  America saw Syria as the key to the Middle East.