Barbara Walters chats with Forward Syria
Swaying between art and seduction
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08/01/2009 - Issue 0
Air Force One in Damascus?
by Sami Moubayed
Last month, President Bashar al-Assad invited his US counterpart Barack Obama to visit Syria, extended via Sky News where the Syrian leader said, “I would like to welcome him to Syria.” When asked on when the meeting would take place, President Assad said, “It is up to him!
Talk of a Syrian-US summit has been in the air for several months. Last February, many speculated that the two men would meet in Istanbul, along with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Speaking to Forward Magazine this issue, veteran US journalist Seymour Hersh noted: “If Obama met with Assad, it is very likely that they would like and respect each other. Both are young, self-confident, and widely admired by their people.” Earlier, Hersh had written an article for The New Yorker, also advocating a Syrian-US Summit, saying: “Obama said that he would be willing to sit down with Assad in the first year of his presidency, without preconditions.” If President Obama were to live up to his promise, he still has five more months, for either a visit to Damascus, or a Syrian-US summit.
More than ever before, a Syrian-US summit can help solve a bundle of Middle East problems, all left behind by the many years of Israeli occupation and eight-years of George W. Bush: the situation in Iraq, after the US withdrew its forces from towns and cities last June; the status of Iraqi refugees in Syria, counter-terrorism on the Syrian-Iraqi border; the humanitarian crisis in Gaza; the Iranian nuclear file; and the political process in Lebanon.
Leftover advisors from the Bush Era, however, are advising against a Syrian-US Summit, and also calling on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to avoid making a Syrian trip. They believe that because of the June 7 elections in Lebanon, Syria is weaker in regional affairs than before. The fact that the Hezbollah-led opposition did not win, they argue, means that they lost the elections, and this loss should be used by anti-Syrian personalities in the US to extract more concessions from the Syrians. They’re in the minority, however, and are strongly overruled by both Obama and Clinton, who believe in positive engagement with the Syrians. Much can be accomplished if Obama follows in the footsteps or those who made the Damascus trip, and a tremendous boost can be given to Syrian-US relations.
History of Syrian-US Summits
Quwatli-Roosevelt
The first Syrian-US summit was supposed to be in February 1945, bringing Syria’s Shukri al-Quwatli with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since travel to the US was logistically difficult and time consuming for Syrians, Roosevelt decided to come to Egypt to meet with the president of Syria, the kings of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and the Emperor of Ethiopia, wanting to settle outstanding issues related to Allied operations in the Arab world. Roosevelt made the trip – and famously met with Saudi King Abdul-Aziz—but had to travel back to the US before meeting Quwatli, because of his deteriorating health, dying less than two months later.
Zaim-Truman
With a last minute cancellation of the first summit, Syria’s first military ruler General Hosni al-Zaim tried – in vain – to meet President Harry Truman in 1949. He stayed in power for no more than 137 days, however, making a Syrian-US Summit impossible. He did nevertheless send Truman a king-size portrait of himself, in full military uniform, wearing a monocle on his left eye, white gloves, carrying a Marshal’s cane. The photo, which had Zaim’s signature scribbled on the bottom, was shipped to the US and addressed to the Oval Office. Truman gasped when he saw the new military strongman of Syria, who the Americans had helped to power in March 1949. “I told you to change the regime of Shukri al-Quwatli,” he growled, “not to bring a Mussolini to Damascus!”
Assad-Nixon
The first meeting to ever materialize between a Syrian and US leader was in 1974, when Richard Nixon came to Syria on June 16 to meet with President Hafez al-Assad. Large and friendly crowds greeted him in Damascus and his visit was seen as an end to many years of US bias towards Israel. Nixon’s Secretary of State Henry Kissinger did not welcome the Syrian visit, fearing that President Assad would discuss regional affairs directly with the US President, bypassing Kissinger’s authority. Kissinger had based his entire Middle East policy on saying one thing to Israel and another to the Arabs. As Assad started asking questions, on the final borders of Israel and UN resolutions related to the occupied Golan Heights, and just before Nixon was about to reply, Kissinger interrupted: “Mr. President. We have to leave. The plane is waiting.” Again Nixon tried to answer Assad, but interrupted once more by Kissinger he asked: “Henry, don’t you want me to speak?” Less than one month later, under the threats of impeachment, Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency on August 8, 1974 and was replaced by Gerald Ford.
Assad-Carter
The thirty-ninth US President came to Syria numerous times after leaving office, most recently in the summer of 2009, but met twice with President Hafez al-Assad during his years in the White House. Writing in his memoirs years later, Carter recalled: “Little was known about his personal or family life, but former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and others who knew Assad had described him to me as very intelligent, eloquent, and frank in discussing the most sensitive issues. I invited the Syrian leader to come and visit me in Washington, but he replied that he had no desire ever to visit the United States.” Carter then added, “During subsequent trips to Syria, I spent hours debating with Assad and listening to his analysis of events in the Middle East … he seemed to speak like a modern Saladin—as though it was his obligation to rid the region of foreign presence while preserving Damascus as the focal point of modern Arab unity.”
Assad-Bush
Although President George Bush did not visit Syria during his years at the White House, he had an excellent working relationship with President Assad, as did his Secretary of State James Baker, who built bridges with the Syrians in preparation for the US-led coalition to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s Army in 1991. Baker said, “Its very important, in [this] situation … that we cooperate with a major Arab country [Syria] who happens to share the same goals as we do." Throughout the years of the Reagan administration, relations with Damascus had been cold, with US officials grabbing at every occasion to harangue Syria for pursing policies very different from those of Washington DC. Bush came to the White House with a new mentality, viewing Syria as a potential ally for any future peace settlement or war effort the region might face. Baker met with President Assad in Syria, and one-month later the Syrian president met with President Bush in Geneva. The US President requested Syrian support for the liberation of Kuwait, in exchange for an international peace conference that would make the occupied Golan a high priority for the US. In October 1991, as planned, Syria attended the Madrid Peace Conference, shortly after the liberation of Kuwait, yet the Bush administration ultimately did not succeed in securing the launch of proper Syrian-Israeli talks as planned.
Assad-Clinton
The forty-second US President also visited Syria in 1994 to meet with President Assad. The Syrian and US Presidents were heavily involved in peace talks regarding the occupied Golan Heights. They had met first in Geneva in January 1994, then again at the funeral of King Hussein of Jordan in February 1999, and a final meeting that also failed to produce a peace deal in March 2000, less than three months before the Syrian leader’s passing. In his book “My Life,” Clinton wrote: “I was impressed by his [Assad’s] intelligence and almost total recall for detailed events going back more than twenty years.”
