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EUA - The Wall Street Journal

Título: Dancing With Damascus

Data: 03/08/2009

Since taking power nine years ago, Syrian strongman Bashar Assad has: turned his country into a safe haven and transit corridor for jihadists en route to Iraq; funneled sophisticated munitions to Hezbollah and probably Hamas; sought to build an illicit nuclear reactor with North Korean help; mostly failed to liberalize Syria’s economy and resisted liberalizing its politics; publicly declared that Israel would never “become a legitimate state even if the peace process is implemented”; and ruled while Syrians have been implicated by a U.N. investigator in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

So, naturally, President Obama has made Syria a prime target for diplomacy as part of his new Axis of Engagement.

The President has already restored full diplomatic ties with Damascus that were cut off after the Hariri assassination. Last week, State Department envoy George Mitchell visited Mr. Assad to discuss improved military-to-military ties and easing some sanctions, though others remain in place. Now the Administration believes it can entice Mr. Assad into abandoning some of his bad habits, like sponsoring terrorist groups, meddling in his neighbors’ internal affairs and maintaining close ties with Iran.

“We received assurances that the relations between the two countries should resume on the basis of mutual interests and most importantly of mutual respect,” Syrian deputy foreign minister Fayssal Mekdad told the Journal last week. “We really welcome such a new approach.”

Damascus’s delight is no surprise, but the chances of success here are somewhat lower than Hugo Chavez becoming a capitalist. Since the current president’s father, Hafez Assad, came to power in a coup in 1970, the U.S. has repeatedly imposed sanctions on Syria, withdrawn ambassadors and even shelled Syrian military positions in Lebanon. But the U.S. has also repeatedly sought to engage Syria as a partner—during the 1991 Gulf War against Saddam Hussein, and later as a mediator in failed peace negotiations with Israel. After the fall of Baghdad in 2003, George W. Bush dispatched Colin Powell to Damascus to try to win Mr. Assad’s cooperation. Instead, Syria made itself a safe haven for the terrorists who killed U.S. soldiers.

Likewise in Lebanon, the international community pressured Syria to withdraw its army from the country after the Hariri assassination. But Mr. Assad redoubled his support for Hezbollah, leading to its 2006 war with Israel, and he has since helped to re-arm the group with heavy weapons and missiles despite a U.N. resolution calling for an arms embargo. Meanwhile, numerous Lebanese anti-Syrian politicians have been murdered by car bombs.

As for Syria and Iran, their strategic separation makes sense in geopolitical concept. But in practice their ties won’t easily be severed. Mr. Assad’s sectarian Allawite regime fears its own Sunni people and massacred them by the thousands in the 1980s. Maintaining close ties to Shiite Hezbollah and Shiite Iran are key elements to Mr. Assad’s strategy of political survival. Unlike Egypt’s Anwar Sadat in the 1970s, Mr. Assad has given no signs of wanting to engage Israel on equal terms and still shelters the leader of Hamas in Damascus. We wonder what the Obama Administration can offer that would change that fundamental calculus.

The self-styled “realists” who now run U.S. foreign policy say there’s no harm in trying, but there could be if this latest American courtship turns into pressure on Israel for concessions. And conferring U.S. prestige on Mr. Assad is no incentive for him to behave less brutally at home. Mr. Obama believes his Presidency represents a fresh start for America in the world, but as nice as it would be to think so, Middle East history didn’t begin on January 20.