American involvement in Israeli-Syrian negotiations since Madrid has been essential for progress. It was the Americans who made the Madrid Conference possible and who later mediated the May 1995 security Non-Paper. Most of the meetings between the parties took place in Washington; senior Administration officials and American Secretaries of State undertook dozens of shuttle missions between Jerusalem and Damascus. During the negotiations, the Americans relayed messages, raised questions on the issues under negotiation, and even expressed readiness to play a role in monitoring the agreement and in strengthening its components through economic aid to the parties. The Americans also signaled to both Israel and Syria that, on the bilateral level, the agreement would have positive implications for their relations with the U.S.

Looking at American regional interests, it is clear that an Israeli-Syrian peace accord would be a major achievement. It could contribute to the weakening and isolation of the radical Arab-Moslem states (Iran and Iraq), promote regional stability, bring a lull to the Lebanese theater and reduce terror. It would also strengthen the American position in the regional periphery, with the emphasis on the Gulf.

It is important to stress that despite the American aid and close involvement in the negotiations, Washington never once deviated from its mediating role and always worked at a pace and in a style dictated by the parties themselves. The U.S. never saw itself bound by tight time frames. With the Golan front quiet since 1973, Israel often gave priority to other tracks; Syria, never overly eager for a breakthrough, often acted against America’s regional interests. (Terror, proliferation, Iraq, Lebanon).

It seems to me, that in order to achieve more significant negotiating results, the Americans will have to undertake more intensive and substantive involvement, including at the highest (presidential) level. This would entail taking an active part in determining the contours of agreement on various issues, creating the links between them, implementing the security arrangements and creating a new set of relations with both countries that would help reinforce the deal between them.

I have no doubt that the agreement between Israel and Syria will stand or fall on the Syria-Israel-U.S. triangle. However, it is important to point out that other international players may seek a place in the negotiating picture, and even attempt to help where they believe they can. France, for example, has a traditional interest in the Levant and is a member of the committee monitoring the 1996 Grapes of Wrath understandings between Israel, Lebanon and the Hezbollah. The European Union is developing an independent common foreign policy and has a view on the Golan issue. The economic aspects of future Syrian and Golan development might interest the Europeans. The Russians too have long-standing relations with Syria, and could play a role in some aspects of the process, including, for example, in an international force on the Golan, if the parties agree to station one there. That said, I still believe President Clinton is the key figure for future negotiations, with the decisive factor his desire to crown his second term with a diplomatic success that will help him leave his mark on history as a statesman, and help eradicate some of the previous damage to his image.

In this chapter, I will touch on things the U.S. can do to help the parties in the Israel-Syrian dialogue move forward.

ISRAELI EXPECTATIONS FROM THE UNITED STATES

Coordination and prior understanding with the United States has always been the cornerstone of Israel’s negotiations on the various Middle Eastern tracks. Israel believes agreements with the Arab world must be accompanied by a system of supportive American relations, designed to stabilize the agreement and to strengthen the traditional ties between the two countries. Israel needs the United States to balance and finance the security risks involved in conceding strategic and territorial assets. In fact, maintaining and strengthening Israel’s special relationship with Washington, which has no equal in the Middle East, are an important card the Americans could use to influence the decision-making process in Israel too.

A thawing in Syria-U.S. relations would not necessarily run counter to Israel’s interests, as long as the U.S. finds the correct balance between its encouragement of Syrian flexibility by putting bilateral incentives on the table and giving Damascus significant achievements before it carries out its part in the negotiations. Israel and the U.S. will have to hold a preliminary dialogue on this.

Israel would like to see the U.S. playing a role on a number of issues. For example:

1. To help get flexibility in the Syrian position on security arrangements on the Golan, including demilitarization, depth of the "relevant areas," and limitations on offensive forces deployed near these areas.
2. To back, at the very least, Israel’s minimum demands on normalization, the trappings of peace and diplomatic relations, and having them implemented before the IDF’s final withdrawal from the Golan.
3. To strengthen the comprehensive dimension of the peace by creating the conditions for the opening of peace negotiations with Lebanon, and by taking action to promote reconciliation between Israel and the entire Arab world.
4. To put together an extensive international aid package that would promote bilateral (Israeli - Syrian) and regional projects for the benefit of both parties. On this, the Americans will have domestic constraints, expressed through the attitude of Congress; there would also be Syrian constraints stemming from a fear of western economic penetration; and problems of funding can be expected. In other words, the parties’ expectations of economic aid may turn out to be beyond the U.S.’s capacity to come up with the funds, and American action vis a vis Europe and Japan may be necessary to get them to join the international effort.
5. To channel the discussions on water to practical solutions based on the needs of the parties to retain existing allocations, while promoting projects that would enable Israel to overcome shortages, for example through internationally financed desalination plants. This is a subject that properly belongs to the category of national security, and which has major strategic significance.
6. To help in finding an agreed formula on the deepest differences, with the border issue at the top of the list.
7. To play a role in verification and supervision of the agreement, and in preventing violations, including the possibility of an American military presence on the Golan, mainly to resolve the question of early warning.
8. To insist on the severing of all connections between Syria and the terror organizations, in Lebanon as well, as a clear condition for Syria’s "legitimation" in the international arena, and for Israel’s agreement on wider cooperation between Syria and the U.S., in all aspects.
9. An American commitment to enable Israel to maintain its strategic defensive capability, and to protect it from demands, Syrian or other, to reveal or undermine that capability.

Over and above all this, Israel will have a clear interest in bringing about a "qualitative leap" in the upgrading of its strategic relationship with the U.S. Israel will probably seek understandings with the U.S. in the following areas:

1. Understandings and commitments pertaining to the peace agreement with Syria and Lebanon, including American guarantees of Israel’s territorial integrity within the new borders; sanctions against Syria if it violates the agreement; civilian aid to finance or at least ease the burden of the cost of withdrawal; a military aid package in compensation for giving up the Golan and the lost strategic advantage that would entail.
2. Commitments pertaining to strategic cooperation between Israel and the U.S. including maintaining Israel’s qualitative technological edge vis a vis any potential Arab coalition; maintaining and strengthening Israel’s intelligence capacity, especially in the realm of early warning; and cooperation in civil defense against missiles and unconventional weapons’ threats.

If it is decided to station an international force on the Golan to keep the peace, Israel will have a clear interest in the American component of that force being central, in order to deter violations and ensure the stability of the force for whatever period the agreement stipulates.

SYRIAN EXPECTATIONS FROM THE UNITED STATES

Syria sees in the agreement with Israel not only fulfillment of its aim to retrieve the Golan Heights, but as a central anchor in:

1. Building the foundations for a new and more meaningful, qualitative relationship with the US, which will bring in its wake an improvement in Syria’s international image and status.
2. Strengthening the American interest in preserving the Asad administration, as a pragmatic secular regime that could serve American interests in the Middle East.
3. Strengthening Syria’s economy by attracting foreign investment and developing infrastructure.
4. Providing aid to the Syrian army, which is in need of modernization.

But, after almost a decade of negotiations between Israel and Syria, there has been no significant progress in Damascus’s relations with Washington, with the Americans still deeply suspicious of the Asad regime. It seems that for various reasons, including recognition of domestic constraints, the U.S. will prefer to hold back the rewards it intends to provide Syria to the later stages of the process, as bait or compensation for the Syrians, that might lead to a breakthrough in the negotiations.

At this point, at least, the Americans are legally bound to oppose any arms deals with Syria, given its definition as a terror-supporting state. It was in this light that the Americans opposed the recently projected Russian arms deals with Syria. But in conditions of peace and after the removal of Syria from the list of terror-supporting states, the Americans will no longer be able to oppose such deals, and it is reasonable to suppose that a new of set of relations will develop between Washington and Damascus.

In public, the Syrians pretend they don’t have great expectations of direct American aid. They want to avoid giving the impression that they can be bought. But my assumption is that as the negotiations progress, the Syrians will seek economic and military incentives from the Americans to balance what they see as asymmetry in American aid to Israel, which could help it achieve regional hegemony at the expense of Syria and the Arab world.

At present, I do not believe there is any mature and systematic Syrian thinking about the rewards Syria could get or demand from the United States. But it must be clear to the Syrians that such rewards would be forthcoming if there is a genuine sense in the American administration, in Israel and among American Jewry that the Syrian military threat to Israel has been removed.

This feeling could be created, for example, if the security arrangements between Israel and Syria are deep enough, and if in peace-time Syrian offensive forces are deployed at significant distances from the border with Israel. It is clear that only a complete severance of Syria’s ties with the terrorist organizations, including Hizballah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and perhaps also a cooling of ties with Iran, would enable the development of American good-will.

In the event of progress towards a peace agreement, and especially once it is signed, a string of American rewards to Syria may become possible. For example:

1. Encouragement of investment by the private-business sector in the Syrian economy.
2. Giving a green light to international financial institutions, like the IMF, to provide credit and technical assistance to Syria.
3. Removal of Syria from the list of states that support terror.
4. Technical and economic aid from the United States for investment in infrastructure - oil, gases, water, electricity, banking and tourism.
5. Assistance in waiving Syria’s debt to a number of key countries on the international stage, including Russia, Germany and Japan.
6. Recognition of Syria’s role and status in Lebanon.
7. A guarantee that the U.S. will not support regional pacts aimed against Damascus, with the emphasis on what is perceived by Syria as a strategic alliance between Israel and Turkey.
8. Development of basic military ties, perhaps as part of the action around the American forces stationed on the Golan. For example, mutual visits by army personnel, invitation of military observers to maneuvers, and intelligence cooperation to prevent terror.

If the agreement between Israel and Syria is kept and relations between them evolve in a positive way, and if Syria severs its ties with the radicals, it seems to me that Damascus can expect an upgrading of its relations with the U.S. The American quid pro quo would have to be coordinated with Israel and subject to Israeli approval, after joint assessment of Syrian intentions.

THE AMERICAN POSITION

The Americans throughout the past few years have shown an interest in renewing negotiations between Syria and Israel. After the elections in Israel in May 1999, Administration officials expressed the hope that conditions might now be ripe for taking the negotiations forward. The predominant messages expressed by the Americans today are:

1. The questions at issue - including the Golan Heights - are difficult and complex, and will necessitate tough decisions by both sides.
2. It is hard to believe that without American involvement in the negotiations, the parties will be able to make progress. It might be easier for them to take tough decisions if America’s consistent support for the process is clear.
3. The United States should not impose solutions on the parties. Its traditional role is to facilitate and to play the role of honest broker. It is up to the parties themselves to reach agreement.
4. The "window of opportunity" on the negotiating track will be open at least until the American presidential elections in November 2000.
5. Serious negotiations must include secret channels.
6. An agreement will produce a positive change in Syrian-U.S. relations.
7. The U.S. will be ready to provide security guarantees, and will raise its own proposals in the negotiations, because vital U.S. interests are at stake, which affect the entire region.

My assumption is that the Americans are indeed true to their word and ready to invest much energy in promoting the Israeli-Syrian negotiations, which, they believe, might lead to security arrangements in Lebanon and reduce the danger of regional friction and escalation. But before they undertake intensive diplomatic moves, including direct presidential involvement, the parties themselves will have to prove the seriousness of their intentions. It seems to me that the days of an American Secretary of State going to Damascus 25 times (a fact which incurred harsh criticism of the administration) without results are over. The "moment of truth" for Israel and Syria has arrived.