On the whole, it still beat the heck out of being on the midterm campaign trail. Like many of his predecessors, Clinton found in even the most arduous foreign travel a welcome respite from the assaults and indignities of domestic politics. He basked in the glow of peace as Israel and Jordan signed a treaty ending a 46-year state of war. In time for the morning news shows on American television, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin thanked Clinton for his “tremendous support,” while Jordan’s King Hussein called the president “our partner and our friend.” On the last day Clinton was cheered by U.S. troops who had been deployed in Kuwait to face down Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Some of the GIs shouted: “When are we going home?” Clinton replied with an impromptu hint: “Don’t forget to do your Christmas shopping.”
Clinton’s peacemaking trip could help to set off a burst of business activity in the Middle East (following story). But it also served as a reminder that the “peace process” is only about half-finished–and that the second haft may turn out to be the hard part. The status of Jerusalem is a potential peace wrecker that the parties have not begun to address. Arafat objected to the new treaty because it recognizes Jordan’s “special role” in the Muslim shrines of East Jerusalem, which Palestinians regard as their future capital. The next day Clinton had to call off a sightseeing tour of Jerusalem’s Old City when the Israeli mayor insisted on accompanying him into areas annexed by Israel but still officially regarded by the United States as Arab turf. Along its northern border, Israel exchanged artillery fire last week with Iranian-backed Islamic extremists who oppose the recent moves toward peace. And when Clinton took his earnestness and good will to Damascus, Assad gave him little to show for it.
After three hours of private meetings, Clinton was sure Assad would publicly condemn terrorism, denouncing both the bombing of a Tel Aviv bus by the extreme Islamic group Hamas two weeks ago and the slaughter of 29 Palestinians in Hebron by an Israeli zealot last February. That would have been a welcome step, considering that the State Department still lists Syria as a sponsor of terrorism. But instead, Assad merely insisted that Syria had not committed “a single terrorist act.”
Assad endorsed the idea of peace with Israel, but he didn’t show much eagerness for it. Syria refused to admit two Israeli journalists who had been invited into the White House press pool for Clinton’s Damascus trip. David Makovsky, an Israeli-American who works for publications in both countries, said he got into Syria only after Secretary of State Warren Christopher interceded for him. And when Makovsky asked Assad to reassure Israelis about their security concerns after a withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights, the Syrian leader seemed annoyed. “There is nothing we have that proves our design for peace, except our saying that we want peace,” Assad snapped, unwittingly echoing a charge often made by Israeli hawks.
Like Talmudic scholars looking for proof of an abstruse theory, U.S. officials pored over Assad’s utterances, seeking signs of flexibility. They pointed out that in his prepared remarks, he mentioned Israel by name in two key places; Christopher said his usual practice was to talk opaquely about other “peoples in the region.” Clinton aides also thought Assad had changed his definition of “comprehensive peace.” Instead of demanding full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, southern Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza Strip and parts of Jerusalem, this time he only mentioned the Golan and southern Lebanon. “We had some advances that were not insignificant,” Clinton told reporters. “We did some goody With the agreement of both sides, Christopher will play a stepped-up role in the negotiations. But after hearing from the Americans about their mission to Damascus, Rabin’s government wasn’t impressed with the results. If there was progress at all, it was incremental, Israeli officials argued. “Assad is feeding us with a teaspoon,” complained Rabin.
Despite Clinton’s intercession, Israel and Syria seemed far from a deal on the Golan Heights. There may have been a little progress on the timetable. The Israelis want a slow, staged withdrawal, to ensure that Syria can be trusted, and last week Assad reportedly indicated some flexibility on that point. The two sides are even considering the use of U.S. troops as a tripwire on the Golan, though that would violate Israel’s longstanding policy against asking American soldiers to defend the Jewish state.
Some Israeli analysts thought getting the Golan back was not even Assad’s top priority; they said he seemed more interested in maintaining his vise grip on Lebanon, while forcing Israel to withdraw from its “security zone” in the south. Arabs who have studied him say Assad wants to keep militant Iran on his side, in order to avoid problems with his own fundamentalists. Assad can see that the Middle East has changed. Arab governments are coming to terms with Israel. The Soviet Union is no longer there to be played off against the United States. But Assad also sees the threat from fundamentalism. A victory for that movement in a key country, such as Eygpt, could change the Mideast balance once more.
So he facilitates the operations of llamas and other Iranian-backed groups, and he won’t give up his ties to terrorism until the United States and Israel convince him it will be safe and profitable to do so. Assad is an intensely cautious man; he fears becoming a Mideast Gorbachev–losing power by liberalizing. At the moment, he seems to want neither war with Israel nor complete peace. Instead, Assad watches and waits, and the only people getting hurt are the innocent victims of artillery bombardments and terrorist atrocities.
