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America's Big Middle East Game

(Now Lebanon) Tony Badran - Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, testifying last week before the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, outlined the administration's conceptual framework for its Syria policy as follows: The U.S. is working to mitigate Iran's regional influence, which Syria facilitates. But Syria is not Iran, and there's a basic policy difference between them - unlike Iran, Syria has an interest in negotiating a peace agreement with Israel. Therefore, the peace process is, in Feltman's words, the "big game." This toxic viewpoint was echoed by National Security Adviser Jim Jones at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy: "One of the ways that Iran exerts influence in the Middle East is by exploiting the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict....Advancing this peace would...help prevent Iran from cynically shifting attention away from its failures to meet its obligations." The sought-after model for Syria is Anwar Sadat's Egypt. But that model is totally inapplicable. Egypt made the leap into the pro-American camp before signing the peace treaty. The Obama administration might lean on the Israelis to resume peace talks with Syria. But even if the Netanyahu government agrees, it's highly unlikely that the talks will lead anywhere, especially since Assad has repeatedly rejected putting his ties to Hizbullah and Iran on the table - a sine qua non for Israel. And so, the "grand idea" will come crashing down, as it already has in its Palestinian version. The writer is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
2010-04-29 08:48:22
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