Shifting Sands
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/06/28/shifting-sands/
The U.S. position in the Middle East is quickly slipping as an image of Western weakness is convincing important actors that it is in their best interest to invest their future with the bloc of Iran and Syria. While some Arabs are choosing to embrace Israel backstage, this is because of the fear that an Israeli strike on Iran is their last hope before being forced to capitulate. If Tehran is viewed as the new dominant power, Israel will find itself alone and the West will have to contend with a region of countries too afraid to resist the demands of Iran and Syria.
Jordanian and Egyptian officials are anonymously complaining about the display of U.S. weakness, saying they can only conclude that they must oppose American policy in order to be treated properly.
“Only if you’re tough with America and adopt an anti-U.S. stance will the U.S. have a more flexible attitude and pay you,” an Egyptian official told WorldNetDaily.com.
“No matter what the Syrians do, how they declare all the time they are allied with Iran, the U.S. is trying harder and harder to attract Syria and offer them more,” a Jordanian was quoted as saying in the same report.
Members of the Syrian, Lebanese and Iranian democratic opposition movements affirm that they’ve been discouraged by the U.S. attitude since President Bush’s second term and even more so since the Obama Administration came into power. The Obama Administration has announced that it has chosen Robert Ford to serve as the ambassador to Syria, restoring diplomatic relations after Syrian President Bashar Assad openly laughed off reports of Syria exiting its alliance with Iran.
Iraq has actually taken a harder stance against Syria’s support for terrorism than the United States. Last fall, a crisis developed between the two countries when the al-Maliki government lost its patience with Syria’s support for terrorists in Iraq following massive bombings in Baghdad. The Iraqis tried to build support for a United Nations tribunal to prosecute insurgents and officials in Syria guilty of supporting terrorism. They won the backing of France, but the U.S. declared neutrality, calling it “an internal matter” that should be solved diplomatically.
An official from al-Maliki’s political bloc said their campaign for a U.N. tribunal was actually being resisted by the U.S. The Iraqi Foreign Minister publicly lamented that the U.S. was still sticking to the flawed theory that secular and radical Islamic terrorists won’t cooperate. More recently, the Obama Administration reportedly denied Israel permission to bomb a convoy delivering Scud missiles to Hezbollah.
Farid Ghadry, an Executive Member of the Reform Party of Syria, a U.S.-based group seeking to replace the Assad regime with a democracy, says that the Syrian opposition feels abandoned and demoralized.
“Because of the U.S. policy to engage Syria and neglect the democratic dissidents, the opposition living inside Syria spends its time in and out of jail and the Syrian opposition outside the country has been mostly Jumblattized,” he told FrontPage, referring to Walid Jumblatt, the Lebanese Druze leader who once opposed the Syrian regime but began embracing it in recent years.
Lebanon is a distinct example where the failure of the U.S. to staunchly challenge Syria and Iran has led to political leaders once dedicated to fighting them to switch sides. Dr. Joseph Gebeily, the President of the Lebanese Information Center in the U.S., says that a combination of selfishness and a realization that Hezbollah, Iran and Syria were the dominant players has caused key Lebanese leaders to defect.
Michel Aoun, a Maronite Christian, was once a major opponent of Syrian influence in Lebanon. He was even talked about a potential U.S.-backed President of Lebanon and labeled Hezbollah a terrorist group and Syrian proxy. In 2006, he allied with Hezbollah and visited Syria in 2008, saying “the rivalry has ended.” Dr. Gebeily says Aoun was acting purely out of self-interest and went to what he perceived as the winning side.
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