Assad calls for full diplomatic ties with US

Damascus has become an unlikely hotspot for Western visitors in 2009, with President – and peacemaker-in-chief – Nicolas Sarkozy and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband taking in the sights and sounds of Damascus.  Chairman of the Senate Committe on Foreign Relations John Kerry is jetting in next week, and the rumours are that he could soon be followed by a new US ambassador.  

In today’s Guardian, Middle East editor Ian Black interviewed the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, with the title “Syrian leader extends olive branch to US”.  So what did Assad say? …Well everything you would expect him to really!

On resuming diplomatic relations with the US:

“An ambassador is important,” Assad said. “Sending these delegations is important. This number of congressmen coming to Syria is a good gesture. It shows that this administration wants to see dialogue with Syria. What we have heard from them – Obama, Clinton and others – is positive.” But he added: “We are still in the period of gestures and signals. There is nothing real yet.”

Drawing a line under the Bush administration, and hopes for Obama:

“Bush failed in everything,” says the president. “They [the Bush administ ration] worked hard to achieve regime change. But it didn’t work. It didn’t work because I am not an American puppet and have good relations with my people.”

“We have the impression that this administration will be different,” he says “and we have seen the signals. But we have to wait for the reality and the results.” He hopes “in principle” to meet Obama, “but it depends on what we discuss. I will be very happy to discuss peace.”

On the peace process:

“If you want comprehensive peace in the Middle East you can’t achieve it without Syria,” he says. “We are a player in the region. If you want to talk about peace you cannot advance without us.”

Of course what Assad did not disclose was what Syria was willing to give away to resume diplomatic relations with the US.  Will the Syrian leader downgrade Damascus’ relations with Tehran? Will Hezbollah still receive arms that are transported via Syria?  …Assad was tight-lipped.

I would be interested to hear what Mediashack’s opinions are on this one.  The US will undoubtedly want things that Damascus doesn’t want to give.  Catherine Philp of The Times was also in Damascus last week, and quoted a Syrian businessman in Damascus assaying: “From Tehran we get free oil, weapons, money, support. What has the West to offer that can beat that?” I can’t see the removal of economic sanctions being enough – although they are pretty severe. (When I was living in Damascus I found out that Syrian Air are prevented from buying new planes – they just keep tacking on old parts to old planes!)  The bigger enticement for Assad would be the return of the Golan Heights, THE prize in Syrian politics.  It is plausible that an Israeli government led by Netanyahu would find it easier to move on the Golan than Jerusalem or the West Bank – a sympathetic Whitehouse could certainly do no harm on this front. 

 For his part, Assad finished his interview by saying that:

“You can’t only deal with good people. If they can spoil things or put obstacles in your way you have to deal with them. And I don’t mean Syria and Iran. This is a principle. It applies anywhere in the world. Forget about labels and rhetoric.”

Hopefully, the Obama administration will be inclined to agree….

Where have I heard this before?

Stephen Walt at ForeignPolicy.Com makes_a_point on Afghanistan I’ve been constantly repeating:

In fact, we have only one vital national interest in Afghanistan: to prevent Afghan territory from being used as a safe haven for groups plotting attacks on American soil or on Americans abroad, as al Qaeda did prior to September 11. It might be nice to achieve some other goals too (such as economic development, better conditions for women, greater politicalparticipation, etc.), but these goals are neither vital to U.S. nationalsecurity nor central to the future of freedom in the United States or elsewhere. Deep down, we don’t (or shouldn’t) care very much who governs in Afghanistan, provided they don’t let anti-American bad guysuse their territory to attack us. As I recall, President Bush was even willing to let the Taliban stay in power in 2001 if they had been willing to hand us Osama and his henchmen. 

In fact, I would argue that a Taliban dictatorship is in US interests.  I can hear a collective “Rob, stop doing drugs” from the readership but hear me out.  There’s two reasons:

1) Having some form of centralized rule is critical to the sole US interest of preventing Afghanistan from turning into an Al-Qaeda launching pad
2) The Taliban is the Afghani group most capable of achieving some semblance of centralized rule

“But wait,”  some might say in response, “they are terrorists.”  Actually, they aren’t: The Taliban has  never employed terrorism against the US, or, for that matter,  targeted it in any way. 

 Sayyid Imam’s latest “revisions”  (read more about him here) were mostly 100 pages of worthless rambling but in his desire to embarrass Al- Qaeda, he did reveal some interesting CT titbits.    According to Imam, Bin Laden deceived Mullah Omar regarding 9/11, violating a pledge he made not to overrule Omar’s authority when it came to plotting attacks against the US (which Omar opposed).  When some members of AQ heard that Bin Laden was plotting a big attack inside US territory (9/11) they got mad and reminded him of the pledge.    Bin Laden then pulled a Jihadi Bill Clinton and said “no, no, we pledged allegiance to Mullar Omar inside Afghanistan.  We can do whatever we want outside Afghanistan.”   From Al-Masri Al-Youm newspaper, 11/21/08:

بدأ الإعداد لتفجيرات ١١/٩/٢٠٠١م قبل سنتين من وقوعها، ولما اكتملت التجهيزات أعلن ابن لادن فى ٦/٢٠٠١ أن هناك عملية كبرى ستقع ضد أمريكا بدون تحديد لمكانها أو تفاصيلها. فاعترض عليه بعض أتباعه خاصة من لجنته الشرعية بأن أميرهم الملا محمد عُمر نهاهم عن الصدام مع أمريكا وأنه لا طاقة له ولا لدولته بذلك، فاخترع ابن لادن هذه البدعة «محلية الإمارة» للرد على منتقديه من أتباعه، وقال لهم إن محمد عُمر أميرهم داخل أفغانستان ولا دخل له بما يفعلونه خارجها. والرد على ذلك من وجوه:

إن الأمر الشرعى بطاعة الأمير لم يقيد ذلك بمكان «داخل أو خارج» كقول الله تعالى: {… أطيعوا الله وأطيعوا الرسول وأولى الأمر منكم…} «النساء: ٥٩»، وكقول النبى [: «من أطاعنى فقد أطاع الله، ومن عصانى فقد عصى الله، ومن يطع الأمير فقد أطاعنى، ومن يعص الأمير فقد عصانى» متفق عليه.

وكذلك نصوص الوعيد لمن عصى أميره غير مقيدة بمكان، كقول النبى [: «من خلع يدًا من طاعة لقى الله يوم القيامة ولا حُجة له» رواه مسلم.

Imam is hardly an objective observer of Al-Qaeda but this account is consistent with what I read in the Arabic press and the people I’ve talked to. 

So what’s the moral of the story?  The Taliban did not know about 9/11 beforehand and would have opposed it if they knew.  They have never committed acts of terrorism against the US and almost certainly never will — these are a bunch of  unsophisticated, illiterate  hicks from the countryside and from a CT perspective, these guys wouldn’t ever get past Kabul airport.    All of this supports my argument that the Taliban is not a natural enemy of the US; whether they are in power is not important to the US, provided they don’t give Al-Qaeda free reign to plot attacks against the US, which they really haven’t done before.