Obama Talks, Syria Mocks

The Obama administration has from the start seen Syria as a leading case for engagement. Barack Obama said so during his presidential campaign (announcing he would meet Bashar al Assad without preconditions) and repeated this policy view again last summer: 

We’ve started to see some diplomatic contacts between the United States and Syria. There are aspects of Syrian behavior that trouble us, and we think that there is a way that Syria can be much more constructive on a whole host of these issues. But, as you know, I’m a believer in engagement and my hope is that we can continue to see progress on that front.

The engagement with Syria continues apace. Here are the key elements.

* High level envoys have been sent to Damascus: Under Secretary of State William Burns visited Syria in mid-February, the highest ranking U.S. official to set foot there in more than five years, and Middle East envoy George Mitchell has visited three times. High-ranking Central Command officers have been sent to Damascus to discuss cooperation against terrorism.

* President Obama has now nominated an ambassador to Damascus, the first since Margaret Scobey was withdrawn in 2005 after the murder of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in Lebanon (which was widely blamed on the Assad regime).

* The president has also removed the American block to Syria’s attempt to join the World Trade Organization.

* The United States has eased some export licenses for Syria, mostly in the area of aircraft.

* Syria’s deputy foreign minister was invited to Washington in October, the first such visit in several years.

So there is certainly “progress on that front,” to use the president’s words. But when does “engagement” become “appeasement”? The case of U.S. policy toward Syria suggests that, here at least, the two approaches may not be far apart.

“Engagement” constitutes “appeasement” if it fails to change Syrian conduct, and the failure to change is overlooked while the “engagement” continues and accelerates. This would not just be fooling ourselves but condoning, rewarding, and thereby inducing even more bad conduct by the Assad regime.

Which is precisely what has happened during this year of American engagement.

* Syrian support for terrorism continues. Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas, the DFLP, and the PFLP continue to be housed and protected in Damascus. Last August Iraq actually withdrew its ambassador from Damascus in protest over Syrian involvement in deadly explosions in Baghdad. Our commanding general in Iraq, Raymond Odierno, stated as recently as November that Syria continues to facilitate the movement of jihadists and explosives into Iraq.

* Syria continues serving as the route for Iran’s rearmament of Hezbollah, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions prohibiting such trafficking in weapons into Lebanon. And Syria’s activities in Lebanon remain aimed at diminishing that nation’s sovereignty, even though Syrian troops were forced to leave Lebanon in 2005.

* Internal repression in Syria remains as vicious as ever. Human Rights Watch reported that “Syria’s poor human rights situation deteriorated further in 2009.”

In fact, however the Obama administration views its overtures to Syria, the best evidence that these steps now constitute appeasement is found in Syria’s response. On February 25, Assad hosted an Axis of Evil party, meeting with Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Washington Post reported that “the presidents of Iran and Syria on Thursday ridiculed U.S. policy in the region and pledged to create a Middle East ‘without Zionists,’ combining a slap at recent U.S. overtures and a threat to Israel with an endorsement of one of the region’s defining alliances.” More striking was the headline the Post put on the story: “Iran, Syria Mock U.S. Policy.”