Is Trump Working on a Syria Deal That Includes Normalization With Israel?

T. Belman.  I have postulated a number of times in recent months that Syria will board the Arab peace train. Secondly I am of the opinion that Russia and US will form a new détente. I am expecting a comprehensive agreement for Syria in which Russai and the US get along.

New Omani ambassador is a sign that the Arab League position could be softening on Assad, while White House dealings with Syria spark a flurry of speculation

By Zvi Bar’el, HAARETZ

About three weeks ago, the new Omani ambassador to Syria, Turki Bin Mahmood al-Busaidy, presented his credentials to President Bashar Assad. Busaidy is the first gulf state ambassador to take up his post in Damascus since Syria was ejected from the Arab League in November 2011.

About two years ago, the United Arab Emirates broke through the diplomatic siege when it opened an embassy in Damascus and posted a charge d’affaires there; one day later, it was joined by Bahrain. At the time, Syria seemed poised to return to the Arab fold: The Arab League looked likely to reconsider its membership; and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi even declared he would be prepared to send a shipment of weapons to help the regime fight the rebels.

Currently however, the Arab League’s position seems clear: Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit recently said that Syria’s return to the organization is “not on the table.” But circumstances might change: Syria is the subject of growing interest, especially because it has become a focus of diplomatic rivalry among a number of countries.<
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Russia very much wants to grant Assad’s regime the Arab legitimacy it needs to rejoin the international community and receive much needed donations and assistance from international financing bodies. The Russians, Saudi Arabia and the UAE share an interest in stopping the spread of Iranian influence, and perhaps more importantly, to raise a defensive wall against Turkey’s presence in Syria particularly, and in the Middle East in general. Turkey still considers Assad an illegitimate ruler, outwardly because of the mass killings he perpetrated on his own people. Ankara also has more prosaic reasons: Arab legitimization and Russian backing could push it to leave Syrian territory and take away its ability to take the fight to Kurdish rebels.

Turkey can still depend on the support of U.S. President Donald Trump. Although Washington is a strategic ally of the Kurds, Trump has not lifted a finger to remove Turkey from the Kurdish districts that it has taken over. Washington’s main involvement in Syria has been limited to imposing draconian sanctions on the regime, like those imposed in June as part of the so-called Caesar Act, which penalizes any company, state or individual that maintains any kind of relationship with the Assad regime, except for humanitarian aid.

At the same time, it has emerged that the White House itself has dealings in Syria. According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump sent a letter to Assad in March, offering to negotiate for the release of two U.S. citizens – Austin Tate, a freelance journalist who disappeared in Syria back in 2012, and Majd Kamalmaz, who was arrested at a Syrian roadblock in 2017 and has been held ever since. A few weeks ago, Trump even sent his senior advisor for the war on terror, Kash Patel, to Damascus to talk it over — with little results. Assad conditioned their release on the departure of all U.S. forces from Syria and the lifting of sanctions.

The very fact that these negotiations took place generated a series of guesses and assessments regarding Trump’s attitude toward with Syria. Arab commentators wondered whether Syria is “on the way to normalization of ties with Israel in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against it,” and whether “talks over the release of the American detainees is the first salvo in a larger ‘deal’ that Trump is planning.”

The appointment of the Omani ambassador to Damascus could, some Syrian pundits say, attest that this move was welcomed by Saudi Arabia and was a continuation of the strengthening of ties between the UAE and Assad.

Assad himself was quick to pour cold water on the chance of normalization with Israel. “Normalization will be only in exchange for the return of lands that Israel conquered from Syria,” he said simply in an interview with Russian television in early October. At present, he said, “Syria is not conducting negotiations with Israel.”

Assad did not touch at all on the Palestinian problem, and on the terms set back at the time of the Arab Peace Initiative, under which Israel must withdraw from all the territories and not only from the Golan Heights. Nor, by the way, did Assad officially condemn the normalization agreement between Israel and the UAE: He made do with a critical statement issued by the Baath Party. Syria did not even officially respond to the rare direct negotiations Lebanon is holding with Israel over the marking of their maritime boundary.

These hints and signals probably will not evolve any time soon into direct or indirect contacts between Israel and Syria. Even if the nightmare comes true and Trump is re-elected with a proposal in his briefcase for a new deal with Iran, under no circumstances will Israel be withdrawing from the Golan Heights. The Israeli consensus leaves not even a crack for talks of withdrawal, and this was only reinforced after Trump himself recognized Israeli sovereignty over the area. Democratic presidential Joe Biden, if elected, is not expected to change the diplomatic foundation Trump has laid in Syria. He will not demand Israeli withdrawal from the Golan, and he probably won’t lift sanctions. This time, a turning point for ties with Syria would have to come from Arab countries themselves.