In the Lion's Den_ An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle With Syria - Andrew Tabler [8]
Thus began what, to this day, remains the most succinct—and sober—depiction of US-Syrian relations I have ever heard. Daniel explained that since Syria’s independence in 1946, US policy toward Syria oscillated between isolation and engagement. Damascus broke diplomatic relations with the United States when it sided with Israel against Syria during the Six-Day War of June 1967. Syria lost its highest peak in the conflict: the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau overlooking the plains of Israel’s Galilee.
I knew from my study of modern Middle Eastern history that the first watershed event in US-Syrian relations was following the next regional war in October 1973. Egypt and Syria counterattacked, inflicting heavy Israeli casualties. While the United States agreed to resupply Israel, US secretary of state Henry Kissinger used active American mediation to broker a ceasefire. Kissinger helped conclude a disengagement agreement the following May between Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan that remains in effect to this day. A much lesser-known part of the story was that the United States had offered Syria economic and military aid to conclude peace treaties with Israel. The strategy, dubbed “constructive engagement,” was based on the assumption that the ability of the United States to reward “good behavior” far exceeded its capacity to punish “bad behavior.”1 A similar approach worked with Egypt, paving the way for the conclusion of both the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.
Syria, however, was a different story. At first things seemed to be going well. In 1976, the United States brokered the Red Lines Agreement—a tacit understanding between Syria, Israel, and the United States that facilitated Syria’s military intervention in Lebanon as part of the Arab Deterrent Force to end that country’s civil war.
Damascus opposed Camp David, however, by forming the “rejectionist front” of countries opposed to peace talks with Israel. As part of that policy, Syria continued to host a number of radical Palestinian groups opposed to Israel that had carried out a series of hijackings and other terrorist acts against US targets. In response, Washington added Syria to its first list of state sponsors of international terrorism in 1979. Because US law bans economic assistance to nations on the list, Washington terminated constructive engagement with Damascus. Washington also leveled trade sanctions against Syria, including restrictions on US exports of “dual-use” materials.
Relations between Damascus and Washington quickly turned frosty. In June 1982, shortly after the last photo on the waiting room’s wall was taken, US ally Israel invaded Lebanon to uproot fighters of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). During the three-month onslaught, Syrian forces fought pitched battles against the Israeli Army. Tensions increased between the two countries after Damascus and the Palestinian groups that it hosted opposed a UN-brokered evacuation of the PLO from Beirut.
The massive truck bombings of the US embassy and marine barracks in Beirut the following year was a further watershed event in US-Syrian relations. While Damascus was never directly accused of involvement in the attacks, the Assad regime openly opposed US policy in Lebanon at the time and helped Washington’s nemesis, Iran, form Hezbollah—a Shiite Muslim group originally set up to fight Israeli occupation of Lebanon. The attacks were widely believed to have been organized by Imad Mughniyeh, a senior Hezbollah operative. As relations continued to sour, the walls outside the US embassy were heightened and fortified.2
Despite often tense US-Syrian relations, the United States kept an ambassador in Damascus. The only exception occurred in 1986 when Washington