The U.S. Syria Democracy Program

In a meaningful step, the U.S. has decided to aid Syrian democracy groups through announcing Syria Democracy Program (SDP) UNDER its Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) established by President Bush in 2002 to promote reform in the Middle East.

I can read this move as a qualitative step in the U.S. policy toward the Syrian Ba'athist regime, which got furious by this move.

This U.S. offer, I believe, has symbolic nature rather than practical. It has been intended to be a clear message to the Syrian regime and a reminder of the many U.S. options still unemployed. The regional implications and context must not be absent in reading this U.S. step.

The U.S. has successfully applied the isolation and pressure policy toward the Syrian regime for long months. In spite of the short period, this policy was effective and fruitful at many fronts including the 'semi-liberation' of Lebanon. Nevertheless, the U.S. policy toward Syria, in general, is similar to  crisis-management rather than a comprehensive, integrated and coherent policy based on defined goals and available means.

In the current complicated regional situation in the Middle East through the conflict between the old regional system before the Iraq liberation, backed by totalitarian and authoritarian forces, and the new geopolitics of the Middle East after the liberation of Iraq and the continuing liberation of Lebanon, backed by the change in the American policy and vision of the region derived from the Bush's Forward Strategy of Freedom. I do not think that the same U.S. policy toward Syria would be productive and constructive as regards the U.S. and the Syrian people's interests and the regional wellbeing and stability.

At this stage, the intentions and inclinations of the U.S. policy must be turned into definite goals in a coherent and deliberate policy. The continuation of the current deal by the U.S. would cause counterproductive results through more regional instability and insecurity besides the destructive consequences inside Syria―think carefully about the post-Gulf War ΙΙ Iraq.

For the United States, it is decision time. The U.S. must define what is required from the Syrian regime or from/for Syria and should work seriously on that. The choices of the U.S. are limited now to the showdown or the compromise if possible. For settling the Syrian issue, the current regional and international situation is appropriate and I doubt that the regional situation would be more suitable in the future.

While the U.S. is waiting for prospective events and results, we are loosing our country, which is already ruined enough. Moreover, if the current ambiguous and incoherent U.S.-Syria policy persisted for some years, we will see another Iraq we could avoid, I believe.

May history teach us?

Feb 2006