deep focus

Only a year ago, this country’s government was being vilified as a dangerous pariah. The United States and its Arab allies mounted a vigorous campaign to isolate Syria, which they accused of sowing chaos and violence throughout the region through its support for militant groups like Hezbollah and Hamas.

Today, Syria seems to be coming in from the cold. A flurry of diplomatic openings with the West and Arab neighbors has raised hopes of a chastened and newly flexible Syrian leadership that could help stabilize the region. But Syria has its own priorities, and a series of upheavals here — including Israel’s recent war in Gaza — make it difficult to say where this new dialogue will lead.

So says the nytimes in a recent Memo From Damascus. Syria has gained much by an alliance with Iran, proving that an enemy’s enemy makes a useful partner, if not friend.

At the root of these changes is Syria’s alliance with Iran. Saudi Arabia and the other major Sunni Arab nations once hoped to push Syria away from Iran through isolation, and now — like President Obama — they appear to be trying sweeter tactics. For the Syrians, the turnabout is proof that their ties with Iran are in fact useful, and accord them an indispensable role as a regional broker. Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries “have great stakes in maintaining good relations between Syria and Iran, because at difficult times they will find Syria helping them,” said Faisal Mekdad, Syria’s vice minister of foreign affairs, during an interview here.

Syrian and American officials are moving slowly, and have been careful to tamp down any expectations of sudden or significant change. The Arab reconciliation is partly dictated by the Arab League summit meeting scheduled to start Monday in Qatar, where the Saudis and others want to create an impression of unity and avoid embarrassments. Still, one thing seems clear: Israel’s recent war on Hamas in Gaza generated a tremendous popular anger that has shifted the ground of Arab politics. Even more than Israel’s 2006 war against Hezbollah, it put Saudi Arabia and its allies on the defensive and strengthened Syria, which hosts the Hamas leadership.

(Well, the more recent war doesn’t have a ton to do with Iran, but let that slide, the region’s issues are all pretty interconnected.)

And we finally get down to it, straight from Syria’s vice minister of foreign affairs (and/or propaganda). Though really, it’s not so much Iran, but the most recent war that has given Syria the chance for reconciliation:

Mr. Mekdad even hinted that Syria might have hopes of turning the tables and driving a wedge between the Arabs and the United States on the question of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

“I think the West is more concerned about the Iranian nuclear file than the Arabs,” Mr. Mekdad said. “I think our brothers in Saudi Arabia understand that the threat is not Iran, it is the Israeli nuclear capability. This policy of double standards is making all Arabs angry.”

Those sentiments are not likely to be welcomed any more warmly in the Saudi capital than they are in Washington. But for the moment, the Syrian leadership is not feeling any real pressure to detach itself from Iran.

(It’s funny, the Israelis say the exact opposite, as do most countries in the Gulf. I suppose that’s to be expected though.)

So perhaps Iran has more to gain than Syria, from their relationship? Syria has done a much better job on capitalizing on populist anger.

Even more problematically than a faulty thesis that relies on a high-level Syrian diplomat for an assessment of the balance of the power in the region, is that the nytimes piece pays almost no attention to Syria’s meddlesome role in Lebanon.

For more on that , see this great piece in the Atlantic a few months ago about the UN investigation of the assassination by car bomb of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. In essence, Syria’s growing ability to become a bastion of regional stability means that the US and other Western governments have been suppressing the investigation and its outcome, since the assassination implicates the circle around the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad–so any charges or arrests would be highly destabilizing to a country that the West wants… to stabilize the region.

The nytimes completely fails to note this:

Nevertheless, there may be real opportunities for diplomatic progress, in part because some of the issues that divided Syria and the United States in recent years appear to have subsided. Last year’s Doha accord resolved the political crisis, at least for now, in Lebanon, where the United States long accused Syria of playing a destabilizing role. Syria and Saudi Arabia are also said to have reached an agreement not to interfere in the Lebanese parliamentary elections in June, and Syria and Lebanon have established formal diplomatic ties.

So in the meantime, the only thing that could divide Syria from Iran is Iraq:

“Syria increasingly sees an interest in Iraqi stability,” said Peter Harling, a senior Damascus-based analyst with the International Crisis Group. “It has borne the brunt of the Iraqi conflict’s spillover effect. It covets potentially huge economic benefits, posing as an outlet for Iraqi oil-products and a supplier for Iraq’s emerging markets. Beyond that, a key objective for Syria has been to keep Iraq in the Arab rather than the Iranian fold.”

The United States, with its military presence in Iraq and elsewhere, might be a useful partner in this respect. Asked what he expected from the new Syrian-American dialogue, Mr. Mekdad, the vice minister, replied, “Very good cooperation” on counterterrorism issues.

Hopefully this cooperation in counterterrorism includes the investigation of a state-sponsored assassination of a neighboring country’s political leader.