Wednesday, September 11, 2013
The Shortest Path to Peace in Syria
By Nicola Nasser*
Because “defensive alliances which have fixed and limited
objectives are often more durable,” the “Syria-Iran alliance has survived” more
than three decades of unwavering and insistent US – led military, economic,
diplomatic and media campaign to dismantle it, but it is still enduring
“because it has been primarily defensive in nature” and “aimed largely at
neutralizing … Israeli capabilities and preventing American encroachment in the
Middle East.”
This was the conclusion of the professor
of International Relations at Webster University Geneva, Switzerland, Jubin M.
Goodarzi, in his 2006 book, “Syria and Iran: Diplomatic Alliance and Power Politics
in the Middle East.”
Professor Goodarzi’s conclusion is worth
highlighting amid the thick smoke screen of “chemical weapons,” “civil war,” “responsibility
to protect” and the “dictatorship – democracy” rhetoric of the US – Israeli
propaganda, which is now misleading the world public opinion away from the core
fact that the current Syrian conflict is the inevitable outcome of the 45 - year
old Israeli occupation of the Syrian Arab Golan Heights in 1967.
Israel, protected by what President Barak
Obama repeatedly describe as the “unshakable” support of the United States, is
still maintaining its military occupation of the Golan as a “bargaining chip”
to enforce upon Syria, irrespective of the regime and who is ruling in
Damascus, the fait accompli which was created forcefully by the creation of the
State of Israel in Palestine in 1948.
The US support to dictating the resulting
fait accompli to Syria manifested itself first by empowering Israel by US arms
and tax payer money to gain the “bargaining chip” of the Golan Heights, then by
protecting the ongoing Israeli occupation of this Syrian territory.
The “bargaining chips” of the Sinai
peninsula and the West Bank of River Jordan proved successful by dictating the
Israeli terms on the signing of the “peace” treaties with Egypt in 1979, with Jordan
in 1994 and the Oslo peace agreements with the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) in 1993, but failed so far to produce similar results with
Syria and Lebanon, which remain in a “state of war” with Israel, mainly because
Damascus still insists on making peace according to international law and the
UN resolutions.
Instead of building on al-Assad senior’s
constructive approach, Washington made every
effort to pressure him to accept the “Israeli” terms of peace: US sanctions were imposed on Syria
Only months after its invasion of Iraq,
the US concluded it was very well positioned -- and Syria very well cornered
between US occupation in the east, the Israeli occupation in the west, the
Jordanian, Palestinian and Egyptian peace accords with Israel in the south and
the Turkish NATO member in the north - - to pressure Syria into submission.
On December 12, 2003 the Congress passed
into law the “Syria Accountability Act,” the main purpose of which was to
disarm Syria and deprive it
of all its defensive means and “resistance” allies, long before the eruption of
the ongoing current conflict in Syria
The act demanded the withdrawal of the
Syrian forces from Lebanon ,
ignoring the fact they were there upon the official request and blessings of Lebanon and the US
themselves and the Arab League to secure Lebanon
Their withdrawal has become indispensable
only after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon
in 1982, in the hope the invasion will dictate a peace treaty to Lebanon , which would have left Syria a peace pariah among the Arab immediate
“neighbors” of Israel Syria –
Iran US invasion of Iraq
More importantly, the act banned Syria’s
engagement “in the research, development, acquisition, production, transfer or
deployment” of “weapons of mass destruction,” “biological, chemical or nuclear
weapons” and “medium and long range surface – to - surface ballistic missiles,”
of course without any reference to Israel’s acquisition of the same and more.
Egypt’s signing of its “peace” treaty
with Israel in 1979 deprived Syria of its regional strategic Arab partner in
the 1973 war and the collapse of the former Soviet Union deprived it of its
international one a decade later, leaving the country off balance.
To strike a defensive alternative
“strategic balance” with Israel
has become the overriding strategic goal of Syria Iran Syria – Iran
Until Syria
finds an Arab strategic defense alternative to Iran
or until the United States
decides to mediate unbiased peace making between Syria
and Israel , the bilateral
Syrian – Iranian alliance will endure, unless Washington
decides to repeat in Syria
its failed invasion of Iraq
To end the Israeli occupation of the
Golan Heights and other Arab Israeli – occupied lands is the shortest US – Israeli
path to dismantling the Syria
– Iran alliance and to peace
in Syria
That only would ensure that Syria will shift its outward focus strategically
from looking for strategic balance with Israel
Ending decades of confusing the “national
interest” of the United States as one and the same thing as that of Israel will
for sure lay a solid ground not only for a Syrian but as well for an Arab - US
constructive and just relationship built on mutual respect and common interests
within the framework of international law and the UN charter.
This is the only and shortest path to
peace in Syria and the Middle East , the time saving recipe and the less
expensive in human as well as in economic resources. Herein the US
Peace and injustice cannot coexist.
* Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Birzeit,
West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. nassernicola@ymail.com
