“A Not-So-Odd Mideast Couple”
The New York Times OP-ED
August 25, 19_ _
By Stephen P. Cohen
Montreal
Like it or not, Middle East peace is in the firm grasp of the same tough and idiosyncratic characters we have hated and distrusted in the regional conflict. Our ambivalence about these Arab leaders is becoming a major obstacle in managing the transition from war to peace – especially the implementation of the Palestinian-Israeli agreement and efforts to produce a Syrian-Israeli peace, which would transform the region.
Yasir Arafat makes all the decisions for the new Palestinian Authority. This frustrates many Palestinians, the Israelis and virtually all foreigners and world economic institutions.
President Hafez al-Assad is, of course, the supreme authority in Syria. We so much emphasize this fact that we have trouble believing that he has political constraints other than his own inhibitions and rigid positions.
Both leaders are determined to pursue peace by using the very ideas and methods that they have exploited to retain power in the long years of the conflict. They are convinced that their mastery of internal political complexities and of inter-Arab rivalries, and their careful modulation of the conflict with Israel, have enabled them to survive to this watershed. Their peoples, including their harshest critics, share their basic assumption that only they can bring about peace to their nations.
Israeli and American officials are convinced that these leaders are essential. With Mr. Arafat, this acceptance is grudging and contemptuous; with Mr. Assad, it is grudging and respectful, but wary. In light of Syrian and Palestinian Liberation Organization terrorism, public opinion, understandably, shares the grudges more than the acceptance.
These Israelis and Americans believe that peace can succeed only if Mr. Arafat and Mr. Assad abandon their old methods and concepts. Thus, while they acknowledge that Mr. Arafat is the decision-maker, they prefer to deal with his politically weak advisers. That is often a mistake, because the advisers – angry over Mr. Arafat’s habit of using money, jobs and threats to control them – can and do provide advice that is more misleading than helpful.
President Assad is admired for his strength, but his critics think his conceptual world is rigid and outdated. His emphasis on a comprehensive peace is seen as empty rhetoric, with a touch of a dream of Syrian hegemony. At most, it is accepted as a euphemism for Syrian influence in Lebanon. It is not seen as a shrewd, practical strategy for managing conflict, either within Syria, or with Arab rejectionists. Mr. Assad’s talk of popular support is dismissed by the West as a code word for iron-fisted control and intimidation. The politics of an autocratic state are certainly not the politics of a democracy, but there are political processes nonetheless. Not only does Mr. Assad seek to maintain his monopolistic control over the multiplicity of military and security forces, he also strives to balance rival ethnic groups and regional interests against one another.
Most of all, Mr. Assad’s politics are the politics of maintaining the rationale for rule. Regimes can become captives of their own dogmas and claims. If Syria is the “beating heart” of the Arab world, as Syrians always say, and is pre-eminent in the struggle against Israeli dominance, then Mr. Assad must explain his peace initiatives to cadres of activists who have followed that dogma. The cynical are not as hard to deal with as those who believe too fiercely or those who have built their lives and their livelihoods around the maintenance of the security state and the conflict.
Middle East peace is not arriving through the excitement of popular upheaval and overthrow of regimes, as in Easter Europe. On the contrary, peace is a central part of a calculated policy to prevent such upheaval and chaos. It is a strategy of change to preserve the leaders’ rule and to reinforce it as the barrier to extremism and internecine warfare.
Popular upheaval would mean that extremist anti-Western movements that invoke Islam would come to power. It would mean the eruption of ethnic and political rivalries that could tear the societies apart and wreak revenge against the former ruling groups. There would be no wave of democracy and pluralism led by enlightened critics of the regime and supported by emerging Western-oriented middle classes. These forces are not yet politically strong enough to win a no-holds-barred struggle for succession.
The West’s desire is to see authoritarian rule replaced by democracy and respect for human rights. We want state socialism and corruption superseded by open-market economies. But to condition our diplomacy in any way on the prospect of such transformations may slow the peace process and bring to power the most bitter enemies of peace and Western values.
Like it or not, the two key figures for the removal of the ideology of hatred toward Israel are Mr. Arafat and Mr. Assad, who pursued that enmity with great effectiveness and ruthlessness. In Washington in July, King Hussein of Jordan provided a respite from this hostility. His formal agreement to end 46 years of enmity to Israel produced a wave of good feeling in Israel and America. His benign image is due in part to his Western manners and style, which contrast sharply with Mr. Arafat’s deliberately provocative image.
But the other side of King Hussein’s image is his weakness as an enemy of Israel. This heightens the contrast to President Assad’s insistence on military strength and unabashed willingness to use force. Still, the King has played a weak hand with panache, dignity and determination. Now that he has played it, we must hurry to strengthen it.
Mr. Arafat exploits his own weakness by masterly and maddening brinksmanship, his unique brand of guerilla diplomacy. He uses his one credible threat, again and again – that if he fails, the extremists on the left and right will rise and chaos will ensue.
Mr. Assad flaunts his ability to make war while seeking peace. But he can deliver peace. The burden is on him to show that it can be done comprehensively, rather quickly and with Israel as a full partner.
We should listen with close attention to President Assad’s analysis. He has led Syria and the forces of rejection almost throughout the period since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. No one knows better than he how the logic and emotion of that rejection can be put to rest. He says he is determined to make peace. He is very convincing to those who hear him (as I did on Aug 16 in Damascus a part of a delegation) and to those who overhear him.
Mr. Arafat is determined to build his Gaza-Jericho rump entity into a Palestinian state that lives in peace with Israel. He has already staked his life on that belief and has maneuvered his people into that gamble. Perhaps we should be a little more reticent in denouncing his strategies for controlling Hamas terrorism and building Palestinian institutions. Maybe we can be more creative in developing economic strategies that fit his style of governing.
Israel’s leaders are dealing with Arab leaders as they find them. Mr. Assad and Mr. Arafat have decided to make peace. There will be a time for different leaders with other values and practices that are closer to ours. But we will never get to that promising next generation if we undermine today’s leaders by burdening the present with our too lofty hopes for the future.
