Posted on 10/06/2004 6:57:33 PM PDT by wagglebee
WASHINGTON - Syrian President Bashar Assad is offering to make peace with Israel and says he is ready to cooperate with the United States in stabilizing Iraq, a former senior State Department official said Wednesday. "Something is going on in Syria and it is time for us to pay attention," said Martin Indyk, assistant secretary of state for the Near East and U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Clinton administration.
In a three-hour meeting with the Syrian president last month in Damascus, Indyk said he detected a "clear change" in Assad's views on a number of fronts.
On peacemaking, Assad offered to hold talks with Israel without preconditions, Indyk said, and had made several overtures to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that the latter rebuffed.
In the past, Indyk said, Syria had insisted that any peace talks should resume where they left off during the Clinton administration - with Israel offering to give up all of the Golan Heights, a strategic area Israel won in the 1967 Mideast war.
And, Indyk said, Assad had dropped a demand that Israel reach an agreement with the Palestinians before Israel could resume negotiations with Syria.
Need to Reform
On the domestic side, Indyk said, Assad spoke "about the need to reform the government."
"It's worth watching and it is worth testing," Indyk said at a seminar at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, of which Indyk is the director.
Indyk said Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa was not at his meeting with Assad, evidence the former American diplomat said that change was under way and that al-Sharaa "and others in the old guard are being systematically silenced."
On Monday, Assad shuffled his Cabinet. Ghazi Kenaan, 62, until two years ago Syria's top intelligence general in neighboring Lebanon, was named interior minister. Al-Sharaa retained his post.
Assad switches to cooperation with U.S. over Iraq On Iraq, Assad "figured out he was on the wrong side" and has switched to cooperation with the U.S. occupation forces in the country, Indyk said.
On support for terrorism, Assad was responding to U.S. demands by moving some leaders of militant Palestinian groups out of Damascus, Indyk said.
Last month, Syria was praised publicly by Secretary of State Colin Powell for dismantling military camps in the hills near Beirut, Lebanon.
Powell told reporters after a meeting with Al-Sharaa that the redeployment of Syrian occupation forces in Lebanon was "a positive step."
At the same time, the State Department has continued to call for a crackdown on terror. And Syria remains one of seven countries branded by the department as sponsors of terror.
Thousands of Syrian troops also remain in Lebanon despite passage on September 2nd of a UN Security Council resolution calling for a withdrawal and for Syria to respect Lebanon's sovereignty.
Also, President George W. Bush's administration has accused Syria of pursuing biological and chemical weapons programs as well as nuclear weapons.
Assad can't lose with this meeting, however. If he believes Bush will win, he's made an overture at a positive time for Bush. If he deals with Kerry, he's got a better deal than Willie ever offered.
But, if true, if Assad truely means to reduce tensions, then look at what Bush has accomplished. Bush has liberated Afghanistan and Irag, neutralized Libya and Syria, leaving only Iran on the area's axis of evil. And, if the Israelis take out Iran in the next couple of weeks and Egypt, Jordan and Syria don't attack, we got enough to win a democrat (not a Republican, of course) a Nobel Peace Prize!
"But, I don't think Israel should give up the Golan, other than that, let er rip"
Israel might indeed give up Golan, under the right conditions. I know Lebanon would like to get the Syrian army out of their country after 30 years. If so, it would give some assurance for Israeli security.
There may be pattern here.
Libya came around.
Now Syria?
It might be good timing.
Your right, this could be the October Surprise!!
Assad sees two things: 1) Bush will probably win in November and his Syrian regime is a phone-call away from having the props kicked out from under it; and, 2) Israel just knocked-off a Palie terrorist in downtown Damascus.
Ditto!
Think any of this might be due to the strong American presence in the region? Might these regimes be scared of having an Iraqi-style invasion done to them by the U.S. military? Look what happens when Washington D.C. is governed by a strong leader. You won't have that if Thurston Howell Kerry III and Opie Edwards steal their way into the presidency.
Funny---one hears nothing about Syria and Lebanon for weeks or months, and then twice in the same day, I hear
from two different fronts, some re-assertion of this region as an important political front: Today a rather eloquent and serious Lebanese -AMerican, who has lived here since the early 80s brought up this very subject in a call to Bob Grant's radio show,proposed it as something that should have some priority in the Bush Administration's MidEast policy (pressure on Syria) and nostalgically pined for the days of his youth in the 70s, when Beirut was not the occupied and oppressed place it is now, but was a center for excitement and culture....and this is about the third time I've heard that in the last few months, once from a limo driver who took me to Newark Airport. I never knew this about Beirut, because all my adult associations with it only start at about the time our Marines were carbombed there. Prague and Budapest were the same way before Commie tyrants made those cities their own.
most important news of the day bump
Israel, watch the knife--it's somewhere close.
They see the Ba'athists going down in Iraq and know they are the next domino. So they'll make peace.
Bush has taken on the incredible job of transforming the Middle East. Wow...what a man.
So Indyk was sent by Bush or Kerry?
Assad would rather make peace and keep his billions than end up like Saddam. I think he may understand that Bush is willing to take him down and he's scared. The mid-east leaders have been bluffing for decades and they are starting to realize the rules are changing.
The article says he is asst Sec of State for the Near East. Presumably that means he was sent by Bush.
How many times have they asked for peace while training and arming the terrorists? 6 Syrians were just found in Iraq. The Iraqis beat the hell out of them, and then they turned them in. I trust Syria as far as I can throw a stone from the Golan Heights. My arm ain't that good.
THat's what it's all about. One Word: Credibility.
"Trusting Iran is like trusting North Korea....."
Trusting Iran is like trusting Kerry!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.