In the Lion's Den_ An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle With Syria - Andrew Tabler [107]
Less than a week after Moubayed’s article, the IAEA put Syria on the agenda of its November 19 board of governors’ meeting. Among the environmental samples taken during its June 2008 inspection of the Al Kibar site, the IAEA had found traces of uranium that were not part of Syria’s declared inventory of nuclear material. Damascus later blamed the presence of uranium on Israeli depleted-uranium munitions that might have been used to destroy the facility, but nuclear experts doubted that the kind of uranium found at the site—anthropogenic, or man-manipulated, uranium—was in any way similar to depleted uranium. In subsequent reports, the IAEA said that it found the same type of particles at Syria’s declared research reactor outside Damascus as well. While the Syrian regime stopped answering questions on Al Kibar in September 2008, it continued to allow inspectors access to Syria’s research reactor and provided two sets of explanations for the presence of the particles. The IAEA rejected both explanations, and in June 2011 the IAEA board announced publicly what was known privately: Syria appeared to have constructed a nuclear reactor. As of the time of writing, the investigation was still ongoing.8
With tensions between the two countries mounting and Damascus anticipating high-level engagement with the incoming Obama administration, the regime began a comprehensive crackdown on journalists in Syria, forcing them to toe the regime’s line. Given what I knew about Syria’s recent behavior, investigations by the Syrian authorities into my political beliefs, and my inability to obtain a visa, I accepted a new fellowship with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy—a think tank that had been critical of Syrian policies during the Bush administration. My fellowship dealt with how to engage Syria and maintain US national-security interests. In the United States, I visited Leila, who had left Syria in May 2007 to study journalism. While Leila didn’t like the Washington Institute’s position on Syria and was critical of my work, she understood that I was leaving Syria behind.
Those advocating a quick rapprochement with Damascus pointed to rumors that the indirect peace talks between Israel and Syria under Turkish auspices in Ankara were getting tantalizingly close to a deal. The specifics of the talks were not officially announced, but by spring 2009, some details had emerged.
Syria was rumored to have asked Israel for clarification regarding six points along the “line of June 4, 1967”—the line of separation between Israeli and Syrian forces before the former captured the Golan Heights two days later. Syria was also rumored to have agreed to cede its riparian rights to the Sea of Galilee, though not of the Jordan River, and to the immediate exchange of ambassadors and the “normalization of relations” with Israel while Israeli forces disengaged from the Golan Heights in stages over three to eight years. The Golan would be demilitarized and turned into a “peace park,” which would allow Israelis access without visas. This was an idea first developed by Frederic Hof—a longtime Levant observer and a close associate of Senator George Mitchell—whose report on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 2001 had recommended rebuilding the Palestinian Authority following the al-Aqsa intifada, ending all Israeli settlement activity and Palestinian violence. Last but not least, Syria had apparently agreed to allow Lebanon to pursue its own negotiations with Israel.
These hopes for progress were dashed on December 22, 2008, however, when Hamas refused to renew the ceasefire with Israel and began shooting hundreds of rockets per day into Israel. Israel responded with a massive incursion into Gaza, code-named Cast Lead. Syria then broke off the indirect talks in Ankara. When the conflict ended in early January, Israelis had become increasingly cynical about the benefits of returning territory for peace. In elections on February 10, 2009, the Kadima Party, led by Tzipi Livni, earned one more Knesset seat than Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud