transcript From NEAL - NPR-Connection

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The following is a transcript of a radio program called The
Connection (National Public Radio) that aired across the United
States on Monday November 25, 2002. It is interesting because it
reveals the thinking of two prominent US academics (Fuad Ajami at
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and Murhaf Joueijati
at George Washington University in Washington DC) on the evolution of
the Syrian occupation of Lebanon. Of particular interest is the
intervention of the Vice-President of the New England Americans for
Lebanon (NEAL), Mr. Nabil Khoury, and the intervention of Michael
Young, the columnist of the Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star.

National Public Radio ñ The Connection. Monday November 25, 2002
(Note; This transcript was made by NEAL and is not an official NPR
transcript).

Begin transcript:

I am Dick Gordon, this is The Connection.

Dick Gordon (DG): At the very moment the UN Security Council voted to
send weapons inspectors back into Iraq, most observers werenít
watching the raised right hand of the American French or Russian
ambassadors.

Most everyone was watching the man from Syria, the one Arab
ambassador with a seat on the Council. Some thought Syria might vote
no opposing the harsh language against Saddam Hussein. Others thought
Syria might abstain to avoid the public demonstration of siding with
America. However the Syrian ambassador voted yes. Yes to the weapons
inspection. And yes to the possibility of another war between the US
and Iraq.

The Syrian Arab Republic is literally and figuratively pinched,
pinched between East and West, between Israel and Iraq, between
support for and prosecution of Muslim terrorist groups.

We are continuing our series examining nations in Iraqís backyard,
nations facing significant choices, given the possibility of war.

So Connection listeners, whose side is Syria on? It remains at war
with Israel, it trades with Iraq, and the nationís new leader has
been pushing for reforms. So what effect would a war with Iraq have
on Syria and on its relationship with the US?

Our # is 1-800-423-8255, thatís 1-800-423-TALK.

Joining us today is Fuad Ajami (FA) professor of ME studies at the
School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins
University, and Murhaf Joueijati (MJ) Dr. Professor of Political
Science at George Washington University and a scholar at the Middle
East Institute here in Washington DC. Welcome to both of you.

FA and MJ: Thank you.

DG: FA let me begin with you. If I can give you the same question we
are posing for our listeners. Whose side is Syria on?

FA: Well Syria obviously is on its own side. It understands that this
war is coming if you will, so they priced it, they factored it into
the equation. And as you rightly said in your introduction, which I
thought was right on the mark. All the fundamental cause you made
that we waited for the riddle of Syria to in a way be solved. The
Syrian vote at the Security Council was a very shrewd piece of
diplomacy. Where the Syrians can say they are engaged in dual
containment that is containing the Iraqi regime and containing the
Americans. And it was very, very subtle and very shrewd.

DG: Mr. J, do we need to go back to Sept. 11 to try and make sense of
Syriaís current relationship with the US. It seems to me there is
something of a turning point.

MJ: Truly a turning point, Sept. 11, although I have to say here that
Syria has for a very long time tried to improve their relations with
the US, understanding perhaps that the US is the only external power
that could use its influence and leverage with Israel in order for a
final piece, a just piece, that would take place in the Middle East.
But Sept. 11 did add a new dimension to the Syrian-US relation in
that Syria has cooperated very intensively with the CIA in the US war
against terrorism against Al Qaeda. So yes, Sept. 11 is truly a
turning point in the US-Syrian relations, and the Syrians have
cooperated again tremendously with the US.

GD: So how is it that it is able to manage that strange position it
is in, doing all the trade it can currently with Iraq, remaining at
war with Israel, and still maintaining relations with the US?

MJ: Well here let me go back to your introduction. I am not quite in
agreement with when you say that Syria is siding with the US. I do
not think this is the reason why Syria voted positively at the
Security Council. First and foremost is Syriaís desire to avert war
and this resolution from a Syrian perspective is exactly intended to
avert war, to give Iraq one final chance to accept the international
inspectors, to open up to the international inspectors, and so in the
Syrian mind this is truly to avert war. This is why in the end Syria
voted yes with the Security Council. Yes Syria trades with Iraq. Iraq
is right next door to Syria. But Syria of course in the neighborhood
is not the only one that trades with Iraq. The regional allies of the
US such as Jordan and turkey also have a lot of trade with Iraq. Yes,
Syria is in a state of war with Israel. And that is because Israel
occupies Syrian territory. Syria would like nothing better than to
end this state of war, if there is, if the Israelis choose to abide
by UN resolutions that request for them to withdraw from Syria
territory. And yes the Syrians maintain a relationship with
Washington. On most issues the Syrians and Americans in fact see eye
to eye.

DG: Fuad, the relationship between Syria and Iraq, if we go back just
to 1991 Syria was with the Western coalition that was part of the
Gulf War. Would Syria join in another war with Iraq or have things
changed?

FA: I think things are a bit different but nevertheless youíre
absolutely right. Letís go back to 1990-91 when Bush senior put
together the, you know, that Gulf War Coalition. It is very
interesting where in this land of dynasticism, if you will here,
there was Bush senior and Assad senior in 1991, and now it is Bush
junior and Assad junior, so weíre highly synchronized if you will,
the fathers in 1991, the sons in 2001-2002. So in that war in 1991,
the Syrians joined our posse. They did not do very much but they did
well by that war, and they sided with the Americans. Fundamentally
they sided with Saudi Arabia. And they made, they cast a decisive
vote then, not so much diplomatically but in the fight for the Arab
world because they thought that Saddam was a brigand and they thought
Saddam was a very dangerous man, and they looked around and they knew
he was going to be defeated. And they did well by that war, and I
think this time we really donít need the Syrians to be with us. They
are not going to take part in any big military campaign, it is not
about that. It is just that we need to make sure that we are not
alone and exposed in the Arab world. And what the Syrians did at the
Security Council, it was just good enough for now. So we do not
require explicit Syrian support. We just understand we need tacit
understanding in what weíre doing. And the Syrians have provided
this. Dr. Joueijati was absolutely on the mark. Behind closed doors
in the war on terror, not so much the war on Iraq, because there are
two wars here, one on terror and one against Iraq. In the war on
terror the Syrians behind close doors without compromising the
ideological purity of the regime, they are quite helpful to American
intelligence and to this covert war on terrorism.

DG: And Murhaf, thatÖthatÖthe nature of that relationship where the
Syrians are supplying intelligence information to the US, primarily
in the war on terror, but obviously in other areas as well. It is a
part of the relationship that both sides would actually prefer to
keep somewhat quiet. Which is why we never really here that much
about relations between the US and Syria at that level?

MJ: Of course. The part of the discourse in the US has been very anti-
Syrian and so for the US, suddenly to change the tone would be quite
a departure from the past. By the same token in Syria at a time where
the US does not enjoy very much support in public opinion, in large
part due to its support of Israel, the Syrian regime would not look
very good if it were to say to its people, yes we are cooperating
with the CIA. So it probably is preferable for both sides to keep
things hush hush, while at the same time both depend very much on one
another.

DG: And Fuad, I mean, at one level too Syria benefits by having
things exactly the way they are right now, with the amount of oil
that they get from Iraq with Saddam Hussein in effect keeping that
part of the border under control.

FA: Youíre absolutely right and the Syrians are shrewd, the Syrians
are subtle, we allow them this subtlety. I mean, for example, there
are several people who have been picked up, several Syrians who are
practitioners of this trail of terror. Because we have to go back to
the Syrian dilemma. The Syrians had a trail of terror and they had an
Islamist movement in their midst, which they defeated and drove out
of the country, drove fundamentally into Germany for one, among many
many interesting spots where the Syrian terrorists are active.

DG: Are you going back to what? The early 80ís when Hafez Al-Assad
crushed the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama?

FA: Yes, thatís absolutely right. I am going back fundamentally to
that point. And that the Syrians had their own war on terror and
therefore as you again go back to the assignment you gave us, in
Sept. 11 suddenly we discovered that we have a marriage of
convenience with the Syrians. And if the Syrians wish to deny that
marriage in public and we wish to deny it in public because we have
this war, Dick, on terrorism. So we have to do business with the
Syrians, with the Pakistanis, with the men in Uzbekistan, but then we
bill it to our own people as a Wilsonian campaign to expand liberty
and democracy. There is a contradiction here. We live with the
contradiction and the Syrians live with it. Itís as Humphrey Bogart
would say in Casablanca, ìit is the beginning of a wonderful
relationshipî.We can deny it, they can deny it.

DG: But Murhaf you know there are people saying that after Baghdad,
then the US should turn its attention on Damascus, and root out all
the support that exists there for Hamas and Hizbollah and Islamic
jihad. Is that not something that the Syrians are concerned about?

MJ: Well if the US does that in fact what it would be doing is to
take a gun and shoot itself in the foot. The US needs Syrian
cooperation. And this is not only in the war against terrorism. Syria
is a major player in the Middle East, and Syria is part and parcel of
the Arab-Israeli conflict, and as Henry Kissinger once said, ìthere
cannot be war in the Middle East without Egypt, and there cannot be
peace without Syriaî. So if the end game for the US is a stable
Middle East, one in which Arabs and Israelis can live in peace, Syria
certainly will have to figure in that equation. And so going after
Damascus would truly be the wrong thing to do, the wrong thing from a
perspective of a US national interest.

DG: Fuad, let me ask you about this sort of Cheney-Wolfowitz favorite
dream, and that would be that a friendly Iraq under US control would
mean that Syria would then say yes, in fact democracy is the best
thing for everyone in the region, and weíll get on board as well and
stop our support for terrorism, I mean, is there, is that something
that even bears consideration?

FA: You know this idea of the city on the hill that we would
establish this pro-American regime in Baghdad and the light would go
out into Arabia and Iran and Syria and we would change the region is
a bit ambitious. I think what we would do, we are not going to wage
war against Damascus. We just, we are not going to do it. We are not
going to wage war against Iran. As soon as weíre done with this war
on Iraq, if weíre done with this war on Iraq, we will be exhausted,
we have a big bill to pay for we will have to make Iraq work. So the
idea that we are going to go after the Syrians and after the Iranians
is in my opinion quite far fetched. And the idea that we would get a
big bang if you will and this kind of democratic dividend if you will
in the region out of Iraq, there may be some truth to it, but I think
itís a bit ambitious because the region there is stubborn. It can
dilute any American victory. It can work its will on an American
victory, so I think we have to take that region and work and try to
improve it on the margins if we can.

DG: Connection listeners, our telephone number is 1-800-423-8255.
This hour a conversation about Syria as Syrians anticipate the
possibility of a war between the US and Iraq, and what that would do
to different countries, both of which the Syrians have relationship
with but both of which arenít really getting along that well and
whether or not it would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship or
the beginning of more difficulty in the Middle East. 1-800-423-TALK
to join our conversation. I am Dick Gordon, and this is the
Connection from NPR.

BREAK

DG: Youíre listening to the Connection from NPR. My name is Dick
Gordon. Our number is 800-423-8255 and as we do our geographical
series looking at countries in the neighborhood of Iraq and what
would happen, what the possibility of a war in that country would
mean for politics there. And in this hour we are focusing on Syria. I
have with me today on the program Professor Fuad Ajami of the School
for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University,
Professor Murhaf Joueijati who is with at the Department of Political
Science at George Washington University, and we are joined on the
line now by Michael Young (MY). He is a columnist with the Daily Star
newspaper in Beirut. And Michael was just this past weekend in
Damascus, the Syrian capital, where he is looking at the implications
of war with Iraq on Syria for the International Crisis Group. Hi
Michael.

MY: Hello

DG: Thanks for joining us. I am interested in knowing what you are
hearing this weekend? What people are saying?

MY: Well I mean one of the good things is you can actually go to
Damascus these days and hear different opinions, as opposed to the
past. The official line is, of course, at least from the Foreign
Ministry because there again Iraq policy is compartmentalized in
Syria even at official levels you have different opinions. But from
the Foreign Ministry, the idea of war is in fact so abhorrent that
Syrian officials will really not answer many questions on it. Clearly
the Foreign Ministry is very worried about the war, hopes it wonít
occur, and in fact interprets the UN Security Council Resolution
essentially as an instrument to avoid war. On the other hand, when
you speak to members of the Syrian Intelligentsia, you hear a rather
different point of view. While they may not support war per se, you
hear much more openness when it comes to the idea of a war that would
bring democracy. In other words, you hear people saying that in fact
if a war can bring more democracy to the region, well why not.
Although obviously the conditions there are, areÖ, they have
conditions for that. But, so we have 2 extremes really, the official
view, which is no war. We should not really get caught up in this.
But also in the society a much more flexible attitude considering war
and I think the regime is actually somewhere in the middle. I mean
between its rhetoric and the opposition, the idea of, all right, if a
war is coming, letís try to make the most of it.

DG: I want to ask you Michael if that notion you have of somewhere in
the middle is in your view a reflection of the new leader in Syria?
Bashar Al-Assad, two years in power, came in with real ambitions to
bring about change, to do some reforms, has been a little bit
constrained by the military taught so well by his father. But are you
seeing evidence of the reform, the type of change that Bashar Al-
Assad would like to push ahead?

MY: Well I think someone made, this past weekend someone made a good
distinction. I mean that Bashar is a modernizer, he is not a
reformer, in the sense that he is somebody who, yes, understands that
Syria is behind, he would like to modernize it. He is finding a lot
of problems from the so-called old guard, now that means many things,
the old guard, there are many centers of power in Syria resisting
change. There is the Baath Party, there are the intelligence
services, there are even people within his own administration. So he
tends now and then to be ahead of the people working for him, in the
case for example of the Iraq resolution. It seems that the Foreign
Ministry may well have advised him not to favor that resolution, but
the President took a different decision, deciding it would be in
Syriaís interest. Now I do think he is a modernizer, on the other
hand we should not ignore the fact that in the past year, in fact
more than a year, several key people, including 2 parliamentarians,
have been imprisoned, because they spoke their mind. Recently Ryad
Turk, former communist, a communist former official, was released,
but the trend in Syria, it does not seem to be going towards more
flexibility with the opposition. There is some room for the
opposition. But there are also many in the system who would favor
imprisoning more people. I think the President is watering that down
somewhat, but he is, he is certainly not going to take it to extreme
limits.

DG: Our telephone number is 1800-423-8255 . Letís take our first call
from Nashville, Tennessee. David is on the line. Hi David (D)

David: Good morning.

DG: Thanks for calling

David: Good morning to your guests. My question is, how does Syriaís
role in Lebanon affect the rest of the very complex equation that you
have all been discussing this morning and Iíll hang up and listen.

DG: Iíll start with Michael on that, who jumps across that border
fairly frequently, Michael.

MY: Well I think that is an important question because actually one
of the implicit understandings between the US and Syria, and it has
been a long-standing understanding. But the Iraq situation, I think,
has sort of strengthened that, is that the US will really not
threaten Syriaís role in Lebanon at all. And of course the Syrians as
they factor in their response to the US, including for example their
positive reaction to the Security Council resolution, they understand
that one of the things that they can get and that they are getting is
the US recognition of their role in Lebanon. And repeatedly US
officials have made it clear to at least the Lebanese opposition that
they should not expect the US to cross Syria in Lebanon. So I think
that as the Syrians look at the pros and cons of siding with the US,
when I say siding I do agree with Murhaf Joueijati, we should
interpret this in a conservative way. But as they look at how they
should react to the US, one of the big, one of the important things
they are considering is continued US recognition of their role in
Lebanon. Of their preeminent role in Lebanon. And I think that thatís
one factor why the Syrians will, while they will certainly not curb,
cut off Hizbollah, or suppress the movement, but I think that in the
foreseeable future, they will try to keep a low profile and they will
sort of advise the party not to provoke the Israelis in the Shebaa
farms area along the border.

DG: But Murhaf, if Syria is looking for a closer relationship with
the US, surely that the American State Department and the White House
can only go so far as long as Syria will continue to support those
terrorist camps in Lebanon, thatís how they are referred to in this
country.

MJ: This is really the major irritant between the US and Syria, and
one of the major obstacles to a far more solid relationship. In the
eyes of the US State Department, Hizbollah and other sub-national
groups that employ violence and engage in low level conflict against
Israel are terrorist groups. This is not the way Syria sees things.
Rather it sees these sub-national groups, including Hizbollah,
including dissident Palestinian organizations, as groups that are
legitimately fighting for the liberation of their homeland. After
all, their homeland in the case of Hizbollah and Lebanon, it is the
Israeli occupation of the Shebaa farms in Lebanon. And in the case of
the Palestinians, it is the West Bank in the Jordan. These groups are
fighting for their national liberation and therefore Syria makes a
distinction between these groups that, from its perspective, are
fighting for national liberation, and the wanton murder of groups
such Al Qaeda, which has targeted innocent 3rd party civilians
thousands of miles away from the theater of operations. So this
difference in definition is truly a major irritant in the UA-Syrian
relationship, and I do not see any one of the two backing down on
their own definition.

DG: It would come down to, Fuad, some sort of conversation, some sort
of agreement over the Golan Heights that would at least allow that
backing down to begin, wouldnít it?

FA: It would, but you see, I just want to take a step back to
something that, sure, Michael Young said. Because Michael, I donít
want to blow Michaelís cover, heís a good friend of mine and a former
student of mine, and you canít have a better interpreter of Syria and
Lebanon than the man you have on the line in Michael. I think Michael
has it rightÖ.

MY: (inaudible)

FA: A lot of what the Syrians are doing is premised on protecting the
sphere of influence theyíve carved out, this primacy they have won
for themselves in Lebanon. And go back, Dick, to the Gulf War I in
1990-1991, and thatís when Bush Sr. and Assad Sr. did business on
that war. One of the covert understandings of that war was that
America looked the other way, averted its gaze as Syria completed its
takeover and its primacy of Lebanon. So thereís a fight for the soul
of this new Bush administration, and this new war on terror, because
on the one hand, you say well look this is about self-determination,
and itís about spreading democracy, and on the other hand, you need
the Syrians, and the Syrians are keen to protect their position in
Lebanon. And there are congressional elements and we could talk about
them, down the road in this conversation. The congressional elements
that would like to make sure that we push Syria out of Lebanon, that
the price that the Syrians have to pay for this new order in the
region, this is the so-called Syrian Accountability Act about which
the Syrians are extremely concerned. And this is a piece of
legislation we donít want to get into the bowels of it, but
nevertheless it has Senator Santorum from Pennsylvania, a man of the
republican conservative right if you will, and Barbara Boxer, someone
from California from the far left of the democratic party. And
theyíve introduced this piece of legislation which aims to expel
Syria out of LebanonÖ

DG: But the White House has already said ìforget itÖwe are not going
to allow that to go through, has it not?

FA: The White House will say, forget it, and that will be the White
Houseís position, but this is really again one of the contradictions
of this new war, and the Syrians are very concerned about it, and
theyíve put the word out that this Syrian Accountability Act will
have to be pushed aside if Syria is to be cooperative in other
endeavors, i.e Iraq, and i.e. the war on terror.

DG: Michael Young, I fear that we risk getting a little bit
complicated here, but it seems to me that it would be really
important to figure out why. Why does Lebanon matter so much to the
Syrians?

MY: Well, it matters to the Syrians for several reasons, and I will
try to keep it as simple as possible. But as you know, the Syrian
political system is a system of, ÖI mean the political elite in Syria
gets a great deal of money from Lebanon. Itís Öwe have about the same
GDP as Syria. Of course they have a much higher population. Itís a
country that is relatively wealthy compared to Syria. The Syrian
elite has long gotten money out of Lebanon. Itís an outlet for Syrian
labor. Syria is a very young society, and its economy is not able to
absorb the increasing number of youths that are entering the
marketplace each year. So what happens is you have hundreds of
thousands of Syrian laborers coming to Lebanon to search for
employment, obviously sending remittances back home. Thatís certainly
important. Itís for the Syrian armed forces a source of wealth
through trafficking etcÖitís also Syriaís door to regional relevance,
because of course whatís happening in the South, I would like to take
issue with something Murhaf Joueijati said. I mean the Shebaa Farms,
whether itís occupied Lebanese territory or Syrian territory is
really not clear yet. What is clear, however, is that Syria, through
the continued attacks in the Shebaa Farms area, has a sort of point
of leverage on Israel, Itís not a very important point of leverage,
but it has to be maintained.

DG: Almost like a proxy warÖthey get to fight through the northern
border inside of directly confronting Israel over the Golan Heights,
then.

MY: Well, exactly. Certainly, thatís part of it. I would not want to
say that Hizbollah is entirely Syriaís proxy. It has its own
interests, but certainly Syria has maintained that front open for
specific reasons. Itís because obviously at some point, they feel
that when a regional peace settlement is going to come, they were
going to be brought to the table, and one of the cards they will have
is basically putting an end to Hizbollah operations. One of the key
things you have to understand is that when you speak to American
officials about Syria in Lebanon, well...One of the things they
invariably bring up is that really only the Syrians can eventually
put an end to Hizbollah. So I mean, Lebanon serves many purposes for
Syria and I think that it really isÖto be honest, maybe it is my
Lebanese tendency to think that Lebanon is the center of the
universe, but I really think that itís probably one of the most
important issues in this current Syrian thinking on Iraq.

DG: Alright, letís move ahead with another call to Wayland,
Massachusetts. Now Richard is on the line. Hi Richard.

Richard: Good Morning, an excellent panel, and quite essential to the
understanding here. You mentioned in your presentation that Egypt is
the key if war is to be waged, and I think that they are absorbed
with the Gamaa Al Ismailyyiah (sic), who might be, and I use the term
loosely, a think tank for the Al Qaeda operation, and that Syria is
the key to peace. Now do you think that Syria wants the Palestinian
peoples to be absorbed ultimately into Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon? Or
that they would be supportive of an independent Palestinian state
with leadership and an uneducated body politic that would perhaps
present a danger to them going forward?

DG: Murhaf Joueijati, do you want to start on that one?

MJ: Thank you for the question. You know, Syria has been in a
struggle with Israel in part also to defend the rights of the
Palestinian people, and Syria would like nothing better than to have
the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the West
Bank and Jordan. You have to remember, in the Syrian perspective this
is not only a Syrian-Israeli conflict, it is truly an Arab-Israeli
conflict, and Syria views itself as the defender of Arabism and it is
that role, that self-perceived role which really which is the guiding
thing of Syrian foreign policy. Again Syria would like the
Palestinians to have an independent homeland, and when that is done
then we will surely be on our way to peace in the Middle East. But if
I may, Dick, if I may go back to what Michael told us in Beirut, I
have two points of some contention here. We have to remind our
audience that Syria and the Syrian military presence in Lebanon is
not for money, and is not to export cheap labor, you have to remember
that in Lebanon in the mid-1970s there was a civil war and there was
a civil war that threatened to spill over into Syria. So it is in
large part out of strategic reasons that Syria went inside Lebanon in
order to separate the combatants. You have to remember that at the
time, the Palestinians were the allies of the Moslem left and their
victory threatened an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, something that
does not sit down very well with Damascus, which is extremely close
by. So we cannot underestimate the strategic reasons for Syriaís
presence in Lebanon.

Richard: Yea, but the Phalangists were also a factorÖin order to
achieve hegemony for the Arabs in the Middle East, the Phalangists
needed to beÖI think, they felt punished and controlled. So thatís
why Syria, I think, is using Lebanon as a puppet state. But, you
know, the wife of the king of Jordan is a Palestinian. Americans have
been told to leave Jordan now. Do the Syrians want to seeÖ you said
the West Bank and JordanÖDo you think the Syrians want to see the
Palestinians take over the nation, the Hashemite Kingdom, and
establish their supremacy in Jordan?

DG: Richard, Iím gonna thank you for the question, and refer it ahead
to after the break, because we have step away briefly here.
Connection listeners, we come back to continue our conversation about
Syria and the particular place that that country is in with the
possibility of war ahead. I take this moment to say thanks to Michael
Young for joining us. Thanks, Michael. Michael is a columnist with
the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut. Our number is 1-800-423-8255, 1-
800-423-TALK. We invite you to join us; Iím Dick Gordon. This is the
Connection from NPR.

BREAK

DG: Youíre listening to the Connection from National Public Radio, my
name is Dick Gordon. Our number is 1-800-423-8255, with me on the
program this hour is Murhaf Joueijati, heís a Professor of Political
Science at George Washington University and a scholar of the Middle
East Institute in Washington DC. Fuad Ajami is with us; heís a
Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Our
number is 1-800-423-TALK for you to join Fuad Ajami, and us, Iím
gonna start if I can with you in responding to the last little bit of
what Richard was asking. There is a pragmatic side to the Syrian
support for anything, which is where you began by saying the Syrians
will look up for themselves first.

FA: Exactly. It is a very very shrewd regime, and I think the thrust
of your questions and the thrust of the discussion has underlined
this. This is not a mad ideological regime. Iíll give you one
important distinction. When Saddam wanted to conquer Kuwait, he got
up on the morning of August 2nd in 1990 and decided it is time to
conquer Kuwait, thatís it, and make it the 19th province. When Assad
senior, Hafez Assad wanted to conquer Lebanon, it took him something
like two decades to work his way directly and subtly and relentlessly
into Lebanon. And there is a kind ofÖthis is a response to something
that Dr. Joueijati said about the Syrians having been invited to
Lebanon. I donít know which image I should use. Is it the image of
the fireman who comes in, puts out the fire and then claims the
apartment? Or is it the policeman who comes, is invited to adjudicate
a domestic fight, who comes in, throws the man out of the house,
stays with the wife and has the claim to the house? The Syrians have
been very shrewd in Lebanon. They came in in 1976, and have been
working their way deeper and deeper into that political system. Itís
a very different regime than the regime in Iraq. Itís much more
subtle, itís much more supple, it knows how to avoid trouble, it
knows how to make bargains, and they donít mind coming through the
back door at Langley, Virginia, to meet with the CIA. They know they
are not going to be invited to the Rose Garden at the White House.
They know we canít embrace them in public, they are willing to accept
this private embrace.

MJ: This is assuming that Syria claims the apartment. But Syria has
not claimed the apartment.

FA (interrupting): Well they have a lease, a permanent lease.

DG: They got some keys cut. Come on, now.

FA: Yes, yes..so there.Ö(laughs)

MJ: But some people in Lebanon would love for it that the Syrians
have some keys. Letís not forget that Lebanon is scattered with
Palestinian refugee camps, and that in those refugee camps there is
any number of weapons that could destabilize Lebanon after even,
what, 15 years of civil war. So even to those sponsors of the Syria
Accountability Act that we talked about briefly earlier, they really
should come up with alternatives to the Syrian presence in Lebanon.
They should also convince us that Lebanon is not the fragmented
society that it has been for a long time, and that the Lebanese army
is able to take care, again, of those Palestinian refugee camps. In
the absence of any alternatives, those that ask Syria to do this and
that should really study Lebanon, I think, a bit further.

DG: Letís go back to our callers. Where are we headed to? To
Worcester, Massachusetts, and Nabil is joining us. Hi Nabil (N).

Nabil: Yes, hello! Hi everybody. I just have a little a couple of
comments I would like to make here. First of all, with the war on
terrorism, Syria does not have any right to put any demands to
cooperate with the war on terror. Itís a regimeÖitís a dictatorial
regime, that exports terror in the region and around the world. Itís
a regime that occupies Lebanon. Itís not just in there for protection
for anybody or any of the parties in Lebanon.

DG: But Nabil, if we look at it from a very cynical point of view.
The Syrians have all this valuable information which the Americans
want. Then canít they buy themselves a little bit of protection in
exchange for providing that information?

Nabil: Well, itís information that they justÖyou knowÖwhoever they
want to get rid ofÖthey can probably give the information to the
Americans. Anybody else thatísÖ that helps themÖlike all the training
camps they have in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, for all the groups,
they havenít turned anybody to the US, to usÖThey havenít dismantled
any of these training camps or anything like that. And on the other
side, the US administration, the President stood up and said, ìyou
are with us or against usî, so I donít see how the US Administration
can just turn a blind eye to the Syrian occupation in Lebanon, and
anything else that itísÖ

DG: So youíre saying that Damascus should be another target, just
like Baghdad?

Nabil: Well, itís not necessarily a military target, it should be at
least ñ and definitely, not just at least ñ a political target,
through the Syria Accountability Act and anything else that can force
it to give up a lot of concessions from withdrawing from Lebanon, and
which is, you know under a UN ResolutionÖ

DG: Wait just a second, Nabil, I want to go to Murhaf Joueijati on
this, because Murhaf you were saying earlier that if the US were to
tighten the screws on Syria the way Nabil is describing, the reaction
will be precisely the opposite from what America might benefit from.

MJ: Absolutely, what would entice Syria to cooperate with the US on
this issue of terrorism? What would entice Syria to try to pursue the
Middle East peace process? What would entice Syria to rein in those
groups that Nabil is, in an articulate manner, describing to us? It
would have the adverse effect, I think. I think the US on the
contrary should enter into a more intense relationship with Syria so
that the convergence of interests that now exist can blossom into
something that is more sustainable and more solid. Bombing Damascus
or putting political demands on Damascus and this and that usually
has the adverse effect. We saw this for example when the US entered
into a strategic alliance with Israel, well Syria entered into a
strategic alliance with the Soviet Union. There are many cases in
point to buttress this argument. Evidence is that Syria does not
simply knuckle, it runs in the other direction when it feels a threat.

DG: But, but..Nabil puts his finger on a contradiction here where
George Bush is saying, youíre with us or youíre against us, and in
effect, having all these high level conversations with a country
which is on record as supporting terrorist groups.

MJ: On the US record, as supporting terrorist groups. This definition
of terrorism is not shared by most in the international community.
The thing is not to blame Syria for terrorism; the thing that should
be done is to push Israel into withdrawing from the territories so
that these groups do not have a reason to exist.

DG: Well, well, letís just see whether in fact the definitions fit
here, because the recent activity of Islamic Jihad and Hamas and
Hizbollah is pretty widely considered to be basic terrorist tactics.
I donít think thatís just a US construct.

MJ: These acts, Dick, are reprehensible. There is no justification
for the taking away of innocent civilian lives. Absolutely not. I
think Syria would be very comfortable in denouncing those acts,
should for example the US denounce the Israeli acts and their
violations of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of civilians
under occupation, and so on. Once the US is courageous enough to come
forth and condemn Israel for its acts against Palestinian civilians,
Syria will come forth and denounce these activities against Israeli
civilians.

DG: But Fuad, whatís the likelihood of that happening?

FA: Well, I think, Dick, I just want to zero in on something you said
on the ìyouíre either with us or youíre against usî, and I suppose
there is this other third category, which are the silent
accommodations, where the enemy of my enemy is my friend. It applies
to Iran, theyíre against the Iraqi regime, and we have a covert
understanding with them as indeed we had a covert understanding with
them on the war against the Taliban. And in the case of the Syrians
we have the same covert understanding, but I think we should not
exaggerate the leverage of the Syrian regime. I just want to
sympathize with Nabilís point. This is a police state, itís a
decrepit regime, itís very poor, itís bankrupt, and in many ways it
is a decaying country, and eager in some way to join the march to
modernity outside this Ö thisÖthis black hole itís been in for many
many years. And we donít really have to go to war against the Syrian
regime. We just have to underline that in this new order, post-Iraq,
post-Iraq, there is no room for a Syrian presence in Lebanon because
the Syrians came into Lebanon allegedly to check the power of Israel.
The power of Israel has been checked. Israel is out of Lebanon.
Completely out of Lebanon. And has been since the year 2000. So I
think part of the logic of Syria and Lebanon is this colonial logic
that tells you that the Lebanese cannot govern themselves. These are
very very defective arguments.

DG: Nabil, what do you think? We are hearing from the professors
that, that perhaps the President has oversimplified the world for his
own purposes with his ìwith us or against usî, and that there have to
be these sorts of relationships.

Nabil: Well, maybe these sorts of relationships sometimes can work
with some things, and with other things they donít work. We donít
have to tie the Syrian presence in Lebanon every time we talk about
it with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the Middle East
conflict, you know, Syria is an occupying force in Lebanon. This
isÖit should be a separate issue. Itís always been, and it has always
been used as one issue of the whole Middle East. If, you know, Syria
withdraws from Lebanon, Lebanon can govern itself. Lebanon was a
democracy in the Middle East; itís not anymore. It should be returned
to a democracy, because you know, the more democracies you have in
that region, the better it is to solve the conflict. Itís not always
a tie between Israel and the Palestinians in the Middle East
conflict, and the Syrian presence in Lebanon. They never came in to
help anybody. All they came in to do is to occupy the country because
they do not believe in an independent and separate Lebanon.

DG: Nabil, let me if I can just go back to my two guests for some
concluding remarks at this particular moment for Damascus. I was
actually in that city in the late winter of 2001, a time the people
are even looking back to now as a sort of Damascus Spring. The first
opportunity that Bashar had to open things up, to make telephones
work in the city, if you want to be really practical and simple about
it. And yet, ever since that time, itís been the military leaders in
Damascus who have in effect been calling the shots, because of all
the Intifada in Israel. What about the moment that Damascus faces
now, Murhaf, the war with Iraq, the opportunity to take some of the
modernization of Bashar. Could this actually create some new
relations, some peace in the Middle East?

MJ: Well, youíve raised many points here, and so did Professor Ajami.
There was the emergence of a Damascus Spring last year, there has
been a regime clamp down against this Damascus Spring. What this
tells us really is that Syria is in a period of transition. You know,
it would take a miracle for an old guard after 32 years of
authoritarian rule not to appear and not to try to call the shots.
What we have here, really, in Syria is a foot forward - foot back.
And this is normal. It has only been two years that this young Bashar
Al-Assad has been in power. In the meantime, the economy has somewhat
opened up. Syria is trying to catch up. Unfortunately, it is unable
to do so because it truly lives in a very violent neighborhood and it
has to contend with a very powerful Israeli enemy. It also has to
contend with another fire to its back, and it is in Iraq. So given
all the circumstances in which Syria finds itself in, it is truly a
miracle that Syria has been able to achieve what it has thus far
achieved, with very limited resources.

DG: Fuad Ajami, is this a moment for Damascus?

FA: I think it is reckoning time for this regime. It has these
chances, because these two wars that we have been talking about, the
war on Iraq and the war on terror, are coming to its doorstep. It can
make an accommodation with the wider world. The Syrians are close to
the French, the Syrians are beginning to understand that this
authoritarian regime, this (inaudible) economy, this Securitate
regime, more in the traditions of Rumania and Ceauscescu and so
onÖthat the time is up and you have to really reform this regime. And
at some point down the road, believe you and me, down the road, the
presence of the Syrians in Lebanon will come up. And a combination of
both Lebanese pressure from within asking the Syrian friends and
neighbors to retreat across the border, and a global pressure led by
the United States will eventually force Syria out of Lebanon. It
canít stay there permanently, because the age of satellite states is
over.

DG: Fuad, thanks so much for your time. Fuad Ajami, Professor of
Middle Eastern studies at the School for Advanced International
Studies at Johns Hopkins University. And Murhaf Joueijati, thank you
as well for your time, Professor Joueijati from the Political Science
Department at George Washington University, and a scholar at the
Middle East Institute in Washington DC. And a little earlier in the
program, we also chatted with Michael Young; heís a columnist with
the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut and editor for Reason magazine
here in the United States.

Tara Murphy is our Senior Producer. I am Dick Gordon, and this is The
Connection.

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