Word: syrians
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...news that the embassy is set, for the first time in five years, to have a resident ambassador is a sign that the can't-live-with-'em-can't-live-without-'em U.S.-Syrian relationship is about to enter a new phase. The State Department has presented the credentials of Robert Ford, former U.S. deputy ambassador to Iraq, to the Syrian government for approval as ambassador in Damascus, according to the Syrian government. The ambassador's residence in Damascus has been empty ever since the George W. Bush Administration accused the Assad regime of orchestrating the 2005 assassination...
...partial cooperation from Damascus. Since the waning days of the Bush era, Syria has helped tighten its border with Iraq to prevent jihadists from crossing; it has for the first time recognized Lebanon's sovereignty by opening an embassy in Beirut (Damascus has traditionally regarded its neighbor as a Syrian province illegitimately turned into a separate entity by France in the wake of World War I); and it has regularly called for direct peace talks with Israel. The reappointment of an ambassador would be of a piece with the Obama Administration's strategic policy to engage its adversaries, and with...
...indeed take the road to Damascus, he will want more than just Arab hospitality when he gets there. He'll expect Syria to distance itself from its old friends in Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hizballah and will hope to coax Assad away from his alliance with Iran. But the Syrians aren't in such a hurry. While Damascus might be ready to recognize Israel if it hands back the Golan Heights region captured from Syria in 1967, it reserves the right to support Palestinian and Lebanese militants as long as Israel occupies Palestinian and Lebanese territory (the latter being...
...peace front. Having separated themselves from an ever hostile Palestinian population by withdrawing from Gaza and walling off the West Bank, the Israelis have lost interest in land-for-peace deals. So not only are Israeli-Palestinian peace talks largely moribund, but the Netanyahu government has dodged Syrian requests for direct talks, calling instead for indirect talks whose goal would be to agree to a cessation of hostilities rather than a return of the Golan Heights. That's a nonstarter for Damascus; no Syrian government could make peace without recovering the Syrian territory Israel occupies...
...Merely talking about peace will only last so long, however, until discussion turns again to war. And that's exactly what's happened over the past few days as Israeli and Syrian ministers have traded threats, with hard-line Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Thursday threatening to topple the Assad regime. "When there is another war, you will not just lose it, but you and your family will lose power," said Lieberman. So as the U.S. moves to restore relations with Damascus, its first order of business may be crisis management: to calm rising Israeli-Syrian tensions...