In the Lion's Den_ An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle With Syria - Andrew Tabler [85]
Othaina suddenly looked uncomfortable and began fidgeting in his seat. Sensing that he thought he would lose his eight-hundred-dollar fee if he failed to find a convert himself, I assured him that he would be my translator. This statement helped, but it didn’t resolve whatever was on his mind. Despite his unease, the next day we met the Syrian, Bilal—a thirty-four-year-old recent convert to Shiite Islam. Bilal said that he had converted to obtain spiritual freedom through the practice of ijtihad—individual interpretation of the Koran and the sayings of the prophet Muhammad. But at the same time, Bilal said that he had converted shortly after Hezbollah’s summer war with Israel. When I asked him if the timing had anything to do with the conflict, he didn’t indicate one way or the other.6
Whether for his own reasons or the fact that Othaina—a Syrian he didn’t know—was beside me, his vagueness made it clear to me that the Syrian regime preferred some kind of tactical ambiguity on this story. It also helped me understand the limits of reporting in Syria. While I had great access to the country (and could therefore sell stories to the outside world), this was mitigated by Syrians’ reticence to fully explain their relationship with Iran. While Syria was seemingly accepting of Iran’s spreading influence, it didn’t want anyone to measure it.
The Democratic Party leadership, which was now in full control of the US House and Senate, rejected Bush’s Iraq plan. Prominent Democratic politicians, including Ted Kennedy and Harry Reid, rejected the surge proposal almost immediately, while a number of White House hopefuls, including the then favored senator Hillary Clinton, as well as Barack Obama and Joe Biden, voiced opposition to the plan.
Obama, in a televised interview at the Capitol, said, “I am not persuaded that an additional twenty thousand troops will solve the situation there. In fact it could do the reverse, as it takes pressure off the Iraqi parties to arrive at the political solution every observer believes is the solution to the problems we face there.”7
The alternative, as outlined the previous August in what became known as the “Biden Plan,” advocated “maintaining a unified Iraq by decentralizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis their own regions.” While this solution would be underpinned by guaranteeing minority Sunnis a share of Iraq’s oil revenue, promoting a jobs program, and convening an international conference that would produce a “regional non-aggression pact,” the plan’s cornerstone was the rapid withdrawal of US forces by the end of 2007. The plan intended to tap into a groundswell of opposition to the war, as poll numbers at the time indicated that up to 60 percent of Americans opposed the surge and an even higher percentage opposed the war. As a rapid withdrawal from Iraq would require cutting a political deal with Syria and Iran, Democratic Party White House hopefuls advocated engagement with Damascus and Tehran without preconditions.8
Finally, on March 31, the new House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, dropped the diplomatic bombshell that Syria was waiting for. When she arrived in Jerusalem on the first leg of a tour of the region, Pelosi’s office released a statement saying, “As recommended by the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan delegation led by Speaker Pelosi intends to discuss a wide range of security issues affecting the United States and the Middle East with representatives of governments in the region, including Syria.”9 The delegation included a number of senior House officials, including Democratic representative Tom Lantos, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee; Henry Waxman of California; Louise Slaughter of New York; Nick Rahall of West Virginia; Keith Ellison of Minnesota; and Republican representative David Hobson of Ohio. The Bush administration immediately dubbed the announcement “a really bad idea.”10
In Damascus, however, Syrians began to prepare for the first of what they hoped would be many visits by US officials to break Syria out of its diplomatic isolation.