August 31, 2009
No Peace Without Syria
“No war without Egypt, no peace without Syria.” — Henry Kissinger
Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, flew to Damascus this weekend to cajole Syria into re-entering peace talks with Israel. He’s going to go home disappointed, if not now then later, just as every other Western diplomat before him has failed to put an end to the perpetual Arab-Israeli conflict. Bashar Assad couldn’t sign a peace treaty with Israel even if he wanted to — and he doesn’t want to.
Assad and his late father and former president Hafez Assad have justified the dictatorial “emergency rule,” on the books since 1963, by pointing to the never-ending war with the state of Israel. Many Syrians have grown weary of this excuse after more than four decades of crisis, but Assad would nevertheless face more pressure to loosen up his Soviet-style system without it.
An official state of war costs Assad very little. His army does not have to fight. His father learned the hard way in 1967 that Israel could beat three Arab armies, including Syria’s own, in six days. Assad can only fight Israel through proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, but that suits him just fine. Gaza and Lebanon absorb Israel’s incoming fire when the fighting heats up.
Assad gains a lot, though, by buying himself some legitimacy with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Syria’s fundamentalist Sunnis have long detested his Baath party regime, not only because it’s secular and oppressive but also because its leaders are considered heretics. The Assads and most of the Baathist elites belong to the Alawite religious minority, descendants of the followers of Muhammad ibn Nusayr, who took them out of mainstream Twelver Shiite Islam in the 10th century. Their religion has as much in common with Christianity and Gnosticism as it does with Islam, and most Syrians find it both bizarre and offensive that the Alawites are in charge of the country instead of the majority Sunnis.
In 1982, the Muslim Brotherhood took up arms against the regime in the city of Hama. The elder Assad dispatched the Alawite-dominated military and destroyed most of the old city with air strikes, tanks, and artillery. Rifaat Assad, the former president’s younger brother, boasted that 38,000 people were killed in a single day. Not once since then have the Muslim Brothers tried to rise up again.
In his book From Beirut to Jerusalem, Thomas Friedman dubbed the senior Assad’s rules of engagement “Hama Rules.” They are the Syrian stick. The carrot is Assad’s steadfast “resistance” against Israel. No Arab government in the world is as stridently anti-Israel, in both action and rhetoric, as Assad’s. There is no better way for a detested Alawite regime to curry favor with Sunnis in Syria and the Arab world as a whole than by adopting the anti-Zionist cause as its own.
Read the rest in Commentary Magazine.
Posted by Michael J. Totten at August 31, 2009 9:30 AMThere is no war between Israel and Syria.
Or better yet, there is peace between Israel and Syria.
36 years in a month or so and counting.
I cannot imagine Israel giving away Golans.
Posted by: leo
at August 31, 2009 7:57 PM
Leo, that's like saying there is peace between North Korea and South Korea.
Posted by: johnchen at August 31, 2009 10:10 PM
on a total sidetrack
and not that I like fox news
I'm wondering how to get this excellent example more out there...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,545043,00.html
Posted by: A-Squared at August 31, 2009 11:01 PM
"that's like saying there is peace between North Korea and South Korea"
Isn't there?
Posted by: leo at September 1, 2009 5:05 AM
leo,
This is called a ceasefire or an armistice. The duration is irrelevant for the definition of the current situation.
Posted by: marek at September 1, 2009 9:10 AM
Leo, you just gave me a glimpse into the probable mindset of those who accuse Israel of warmongering when it rejects Hamas's offers of ten-year truces.
Posted by: johnchen at September 1, 2009 10:09 AM
marek and johnchen,
Let me help you:
peace is the state prevailing during the absence of war
www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=LfC&ei=9FWdSo32O43xnQe6qKyABA&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=define%3Apeace&spell=1
Posted by: leo at September 1, 2009 10:14 AM
Leo, you singled out the one definition on that list which suits your purposes, and ignored the rest. And even that one is questionable, since Syria aids terrorist groups which do fight against Israel.
Posted by: johnchen at September 1, 2009 10:58 AM
johnchen,
I singled out the only one definition I was arguing for from the very beginning that peace is absence of war.
If you wish to argue something else, please let me know. I am open.
As to those Syria supported groups, they are no longer fighting Israel - peace again. And Syria does not fight Israel still.
Posted by: leo at September 1, 2009 11:44 AM
I singled out the only one definition I was arguing for from the very beginning that peace is absence of war.
I'm not sure what people are arguing about here, but there is an existing state of war between North Korea and South Korea, as well as between Syria and Israel. Ceasefire agreements are merely a temporary cessation of hostilities, no matter how long they are in effect. It takes a peace treaty to end a war. If you want to argue that peace is the absence of FIGHTING, I'm not sure that's a valid definition.
Posted by: programmmer_craig at September 1, 2009 12:57 PM
Desire to avoid a war worth more than paper peace treaty is written on. Otherwise any signed paper is good only for toilet use. Molotov/Ribentrop rings a bell.
I suspect, you a confusing peace with love, which I personally do not require.
at September 1, 2009 1:35 PM
Molotov/Ribentrop is probably too distant.
How about multiple ceasefires between Israelis and Palestinians, which did not last.
Posted by: leo at September 1, 2009 1:41 PM
leo,
Thanks for help - but first you help thyself.
Your argument is based on on idea that there must be an actual shooting going on in order for war to exist. In essence you say that when the shooting stops peace starts.
Well, the break in shooting is a ceasefire. Whether it lasts an hour, a day, a month or 40 years it is still a only ceasefire. Whether you like or not peace has more attributes than just a ceasefire. As a matter of fact peace can even co-exists with a sporadic shooting.
Whether such peace is better than a ceasefire is a different issue altogether.
at September 1, 2009 2:00 PM
marek,
I am not going to play this semantics game.
36 year of ceasefire suits me just fine. Many more to come.
If you do not wish to call it peace I accept.
at September 1, 2009 7:25 PM
