TIMES ONLINE: A new US-led initiative to reshape the political landscape of the Middle East starts tomorrow with the first senior American envoys arriving in Syria after years of isolation.
Jeffrey Feltman, the acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East, and Dan Shapiro, of the National Security Council, are due to arrive in Damascus for preliminary talks with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, the first such high-level delegation since 2005.
With Iran on the verge of developing a nuclear capability, the West is moving swiftly to draw its main regional ally away and lure it into renewed peace talks with Israel, changing a dynamic in which Damascus is a central component of Iranian influence across the Middle East.
In the interlocking jigsaw of Middle East politics, Syria is a vital link between Iran and its affiliated militias in Lebanon and Gaza. It provides a hub for funds, men and weapons to be channelled into Lebanon for the vehemently anti-Israeli Hezbollah movement, while also supporting a base for Hamas’s most senior leaders in exile. It has also played a key role in allowing foreign jihadists to enter Iraq and attack the US forces and their Iraqi allies there, causing years of havoc.
However, it came close to securing a peace deal with Israel almost a decade ago, and hopes are rising again that ending the isolation of the Bush years and actively engaging the repressive Baathist regime might cause a detente with the West.
At a Gaza donors' conference in Egypt this week, Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, shook hands with Walid Moualem, her Syrian counterpart, a clear sign of a thaw in relations. Mr Feltman, who was Ambassador to Lebanon during the so-called Cedar Revolution, in which Syria was forced to end almost 30 years of occupation, also met the Syrian Ambassador to Washington last month. >>> James Hider in Jerusalem | Friday, March 6, 2009
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardcover – USA)
