Sunday, February 15, 2009
Why is everybody flying to the Middle East?
Richard Fernandez, proprietor of the Belmont Club, notices that John Kerry is not the only high-profile American headed to the Middle East and tries to make sense of it all.
Diplomatic efforts are afoot in the Middle East. What they are intended to achieve is unclear, but the tone is unmistakeable: let’s make a deal.
My question for your discussion while I totter off to bed: Are the chances for a deal between Israel and Syria, perhaps to include Lebanon, in fact greater now that the right is back in the game in Israel?
6 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Feb 16, 12:14:00 AM:
No. What possible reason would Assad have to make peace with Israel? So he can be assassinated by some radical Muslim group?
It's interesting how all this talk about Syria has to do with Lebanon or Iran or Israel and we hear very little reporting about Syria's internal politics. From the little I do know about it, I understand there's absolutely no coalition of competing interests within Syria that would support a peace deal with Israel. But many that would coalesce against the government if Assad ever made any serious movement in that direction.
By 
Georg Felis, at
Mon Feb 16, 01:07:00 AM:
I'll take C) Syria has made (yet another) insincere offer to the US, which the Dems are going to fall for hook, line and sinker. I give it a maximum of a month before it is obvious how much the Dems have given away, for how little in return.
Hopefully we don't sell the Israelis down the river (again). They're running out of river.
By , at
Mon Feb 16, 08:52:00 AM:
What's most interesting to me is the amateur hour "cloud diplomacy" going on, to borrow a term from computing. The Obama administration has encouraged so many players to enter the game that it's confusing. There are the Europeans, officially with Blair and unofficially with the French. Russia is all over the place, as is China. the US has Clinton and the State Department, the NSC through their own ambassador, George Mitchell, and the Congress (in force).
If the Iranians even wanted to make a deal, who would they talk to? Obviously the answer is "everyone", and like Scott Boras in talking to a baseball team GM, they would soon have us bidding against ourselves. They must be enjoying the spectacle of the west falling all over itself to give them the time to organize their bomb test at their new "Tel Aviv Test Site".
By , at
Mon Feb 16, 09:02:00 AM:
Heh. The Keystone Cops of diplomacy bent on a fool's errand.
By , at
Mon Feb 16, 11:22:00 AM:
I don't think it is so much the Israeli's being sold down the river.
The bargaining chip with Syria is usually Lebanon. That country is the one that the Syrians (and Iran) want influence over to advance their interim strategic influence. Look for the US to help torpedo the inquest into the (Syrian) assasination of Rafiki, among other things.
Change we can believe in!
-David
By Gary Rosen, at
Mon Feb 16, 02:47:00 PM:
It will never be in Syria's interest to make peace with Israel. Nor Saudi Arabia, Iran or any of the other oppressive states of the Middle East.
Think about it for a moment. Suppose you could wave a magic wand and bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians. They don't love each other but at least find some accommodation that gets them to live together, even if grudgingly, in peace.
What happens next? Without Israel handy for demonization, the people of the Middle East start looking at their own miserable regimes and wondering just what the hell is wrong with them. That will never do.
