VOA标准英语2009年-Syria Profits from Regional Diplomatic Upheaval

（单词翻译）

Syria appears to be profiting from the recent Gaza conflict and is emerging from several years of diplomatic isolation¹ to become a key player, again, in the Middle East's diplomatic arena². President Bashar al-Assad's support for Hamas is bringing Syria extra clout³ in the aftermath of an inconclusive conflict, which has diplomats⁴ scrambling⁵ to find a resolution.
　
A Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) photo of Pres. Bashar al-Assad heading a meeting in Damascus, 02 Feb 2009

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has won a newfound popularity with the Arab "man in the street" for his recent stand in support of Hamas, as this recent pop-tune called "Bashar the Lion" reveals.

Hamas' top leader, Khaled Meshaal, along with other key Palestinian opposition⁶ figures, is based in Syria, giving the country extra muscle in diplomatic negotiations⁸.

Syria's political and logistical support for Hamas, along with Lebanon's Hezbollah, won kudos⁹ with the Arab public, and has European and Arab diplomats knocking on Syria's door.

President Assad's fiery¹⁰ speech last month at an emergency Arab summit in Qatar, drew applause in the Arab press after he decried¹¹ Israel's military operation in Gaza, and called for revenge.

He said, "Arabs are a people with a long memory and will be sure to remind our children of the 'massacre¹²' in Gaza" ... President Assad said Arabs will preserve pictures of the children of Gaza, spattered with blood and maimed and will teach the Israelis about an "eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" ... And he said that what was taken by force can only be returned by force.

Gaza a Political Win for Damascus

Syrian political analyst¹³ Marwan Kabalan insisted Damascus stands to reap a political windfall from its position in supporting Hamas.

He argued that in Gaza there was an oppressed people, and Syria took their side, so necessarily it will reap the popular and regional gains ... For now, Kabalan concluded that everyone on the side of the 'resistance' in the Arab world has been strengthened ... and that it has become imperative¹⁴ to negotiate with Syria.
　
Israeli army officers look toward Syria from an observation post in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights (file photo)

Syria's exact position towards negotiating with Israel remains¹⁵ murky¹⁶, after President Assad pronounced the 2002 Arab peace initiative towards Israel "clinically dead," following months of indirect talks with the Jewish state using Turkish mediation¹⁸.

Arab states, President Assad said, must retaliate¹⁹ by closing Israeli embassies and boycotting²⁰ Israeli products, and Syria has also cut off indirect talks with Israel, indefinitely. The 2002 peace initiative, Mr. Assad added, is dead and buried because Arab concessions²² have repeatedly been met by Israeli arrogance²³.

Professor Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins' School for Advanced International Studies believes Syria cleverly exploits its ambiguous political position towards Israel.

Sitting on the Fence

"But the Syrians, in a way, they are the perfect fence-sitters. They swing both ways. They can swing with Egypt and Saudi Arabia and be a status-quo player or they can swing the other way, and I think increasingly they have joined the opposition. I mean, they have joined the renegades, but they are very careful, because they are shrewd enough that they know that a ride with the renegade is very dangerous, so I think they are both brutal²⁴ and smart," he said.

A Role for President Obama

University of Oklahoma Professor Joshua Landis, who runs the well-known Syria Comment website, painted a dire¹⁷ picture of Syria and the Arab's strategic positions, suggesting that Damascus wants the new Barack Obama administration to step in and save the situation.
　
US Pres. Barack Obama speaks to reporters during a meeting with Democratic and Republican leaders at the White House on 23 Jan 2009

"There has been an outpouring among Western analysts²⁵, and analysts in the region, of analysis claiming that Barack Obama cannot fix the Arab-Israeli conflict, that it is too late, the Palestinians have lost. The Gaza invasion punctuates²⁶ this loss, that the likely winner of the elections in Israel will be [Benjamin] Netanyahu, who does not believe in a two-state solution, who wants to expand settlements ... So, that leaves Syria," he said.

So, if peace is impossible, where can you actually do something that will be a success rather than just managing a disaster? And that is Syria, and everybody agrees that Syria is pragmatic and that Syria will do a deal," he added.

The Message from Mr. Assad

Professor Landis thinks that President Assad wants to strike a global bargain with the new U.S. president, but is demanding guarantees and concessions, before he will make any himself.

"[Assad] has got a dual²⁷ message: there will be no more direct Syrian-Israel negotiation⁷, unless America steps in and offers some guarantees. In many ways, Western analysts believe that they have scared the Arab world. They have shown that they can thrash them, and therefore they want concessions out of the Arabs before they will go to peace talks, and the West wants Syria to make Hamas renounce²⁸ its violence and to accept overtly²⁹ the State of Israel. You see, it is about who won, and the Arabs are saying that 'you did not win,' we are not going to make these concessions," said Landis.

The biggest concession²¹, according to Landis, is for the United States and President Obama to stop treating Syria as a "pariah³⁰ state," and to send a new U.S. ambassador to Damascus for the first time since 2005.

President Assad, Landis concluded, has Mr. Obama "over a barrel," because the only place the new administration can make progress towards peace is in Syria, and Damascus has a price for making that happen.