It is important to place Assad in context before discussing his strategies toward the peace process with Israel. Domestically, Assad is extremely vulnerable. With his eldest son dead, and his middle son neither prepared nor trained to take over the country, the question of succession weighs heavily on Assad's mind. His first priority is to retain power, for himself, his family, and his people - the Alawis. All other issues, including peace with Israel, are secondary.
Today Assad is faced with a dilemma. On the one hand, after twenty-five years in power his natural inclination is to maintain the same brutal, totalitarian policies that have sustained the regime for so long. However, the Soviet Union's demise and Israel's military dominance require him to establish good relations with the West as a form of protective umbrella; a new relationship with the West will ensure that no Israeli government would take advantage of his weakness and that his ethnically-torn regime would not be doomed to a Yugoslav, Romanian, or even a Rwandan fate. The problem is that turning to the West requires making peace with Israel as well as a certain amount of opening at home. Assad would prefer to follow the Chinese model, of welcoming Western capital but not Western ideas, but this is proving a difficult balancing act.
Given this dilemma, Assad's formula is to participate in the peace process but not to achieve peace itself. Participation wins him the understanding and sympathy of the West without actually having to make substantive, historical concessions to Israel. This approach allows him to be flexible on side issues (permitting direct negotiations with Israel, for example) but adamant on core issues (such as the extent of withdrawal).
This approach worked quite well when the Likud Government was in power because [Yitzhak] Shamir could be counted on not to press the issue of a peacemaking too far; in Assad's view, however, the Labor-led government has proven especially problematic because [Yitzhak] Rabin has made considerable concessions that call Assad's bluff. On the key negotiating issues, the situation is as follows:
- The extent of the withdrawal. Assad initially demanded withdrawal to pre-1967 lines. Israeli leaders have publicly agreed to a withdrawal to the international border - which has small but significant differences from the 1967 lines - and Rabin himself has repeatedly intimated that Israel could not keep "a single inch" of the Golan if it wanted peace. In effect, the Israelis have agreed to a "full withdrawal."
- The time-table for withdrawal. Israel has reduced the withdrawal period from an eight-year to a four-year time-table, while Assad has moved from an initial six-month to an eighteen-month period. It should not be too difficult to narrow the gaps in this disagreement since both sides have made compromises.
- Security arrangements. Syria originally wanted strict equality in the geographic depth of demilitarized and forced limitation zones, while Israel presented a nine-to-one ratio in Israel's favor. Assad has apparently now conceded to a ten-to-six ratio, accepting the principle of disproportionality.
- Normalization of relations. Israel originally wished to normalize relations after implementation of the first stage of withdrawal. Syria, however, was only willing to normalize after a full withdrawal had taken place. Syria has now apparently agreed to low-level diplomatic relations after the first stage, thus conceding the principle.
Assad's problem is that progress is being made despite his best intentions; because Israel has largely called Syria's bluff on key issues, virtually all the components of a deal have been worked out in principle even though Assad does not truly want to make peace with Israel. As a result, Assad has decided to slow down the process, which now suffers from long droughts between rounds of talks and frequent impasses. The explanation for the current impasse is that Assad is likely to hold out until after the U.S. and Israeli elections, to see if the urgency for peacemaking is as strong then as it is now.
If the United States believes that peace is attainable, it has the potential for changing Assad's calculus by raising the cost of stalling. Already there are considerable carrots that Assad expects to receive in exchange for a peace agreement; now is the time to inject a series of sticks into the relationship to underscore the price of failing to take advantage of this peacemaking opportunity.
