http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/story/0,1320,584591,00.html

How Blair's Syria gamble failed

Attempt to rein in 'rogue state' proves disastrous

Ewen MacAskill and Patrick Wintour in Damascus
Thursday November 1, 2001
The Guardian

Tony Blair visited the tomb said to contain the head of John the Baptist which is housed in the main mosque of Damascus's Old City. He might look back on it as an omen: hours later it was Mr Blair's head that was being served up on a plate.
Downing Street officials had not expected much in the way of results from Mr Blair's first meeting with the young Syrian leader, Bashar al-Assad. But they did not anticipate that Mr Assad would reject Mr Blair's overtures in such a public and abrupt way. Mr Assad, dispensing with the usual diplomatic niceties, used a joint press conference to rebuff Mr Blair over the bombing of Afghanistan and Syria's policy of providing a haven to anti-Israeli groups classified by both the US and Britain as terrorists. Diplomatically, it was a disaster. Mr Blair has not looked as uncomfortable in the presence of a foreign leader since an outburst on Chechnya by the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, during a joint press conference in London last year.
Both Downing Street and the Foreign Office knew beforehand that Mr Blair was taking a risk in going to Syria, a country that is a dictatorship with an abysmal human rights record, and which is still engaged in fighting Israel by proxy.

The decision was influenced mainly by a trip made to Syria a fortnight ago by Lord Powell, Lady Thatcher's former foreign affairs adviser. The recommendation to the prime minister was that Syria was ready to come in from the cold and that he should go. It now looks a blunder. The Syria trip joins the list of growing diplomatic setbacks since Mr Blair and the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, embarked on a series of whirlwind tours after the September 11 attacks. Mr Straw ran
into trouble in Iran and Israel and Mr Blair was snubbed by Saudi Arabia two weeks ago.
Mr Blair might have hoped for better from Mr Assad, who was being educated in Britain last year when his father died and he was called home to take over, and whose wife is British.

But Syria represents the contradiction at the heart of George Bush's worldwide war against terrorism. Syria provides a home and cash for groups such as Hizbullah, one of the most disciplined and powerful groups of fighters in the Middle East, which forced Israel to leave the Lebanon and which continues to snipe at Israel along its border. Until this year Damascus had also been the headquarters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and still provides a haven for its members. The PFLP assassinated an Israeli cabinet minister a fortnight ago.

During his discussion with Mr Blair in private, Mr Assad argued that these groups had a legitimate right to fight Israel. Giving the impression his hands were tied, Mr Assad said that he had to listen to the Arab street just as Mr Blair had to listen to his "street".
But in the press conference, Mr Assad was much more outspoken and less emollient than Downing Street had been prepared for. He won applause from Syrian reporters for condemning the bombing of Afghanistan and reiterated that resistance on the part of the anti-Israeli groups was legitimate.
The Foreign Office would have told Mr Blair the visit was high risk. Mr Assad is no respecter of visitors: he used a press conference in Damascus in May to mark the Pope's visit to engage in an anti-semitic rant, which left the Pontiff embarrassed.
Vulnerable president

Hopes that Mr Assad would turn out to be a reformer after the tough dictatorship of his father have so far been misplaced. He is in a vulnerable position, surrounded by vested interests, unable to make the compromises that would bring reform. Political opponents, journalists and others are
regularly thrown into jail.
He is too weak to negotiate a peace settlement with Israel, which still occupies Syria's Golan Heights from the 1967 war.

A Foreign Office source, making the most of the visit, said: "We were not going to brush the differences under the carpet. We want to have a debate with them about what constitutes terrorism."

Mr Blair had twin objectives: one was to look for a way of weaning Syria away from its support for Hizbullah and other groups, and the other was to try to get Syria to re-enter talks with Israel on the return of the Golan Heights. He secured neither.
Since Labour came to power, Britain has been pursuing a commendable policy of trying to bring the so-called "rogue states" or "states of concern" into the in ternational community. In contrast to the United States, it has restored diplomatic ties with Libya and Iran. Opening up a good relationship with Syria was the next obvious step.
Downing Street and the Foreign Office shrugged yesterday at the suggestion that the visit had been a mistake and insisted that the test of whether the trip was worthwhile remained to be decided. If the visit marked the start of a dialogue between Syria and Britain, it would have been worthwhile.
Even though the visit will not ease his talks with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, today, Mr Blair concluded: "You can either stay out of the dialogue, or you can try to get into it and build a bridge of understanding for the future.


 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/story/0,1320,584651,00.html

Blair gets a public lecture on the harsh realities of the Middle East

Syria's Assad humiliates PM with attack on west and Israel

Patrick Wintour in Riyadh
Thursday November 1, 2001
The Guardian

Tony Blair's drive to strengthen the anti-terrorist coalition and the Middle East peace process yesterday suffered a very public rebuff at the hands of the leader of Syria.

President Bashar al-Assad gave Mr Blair a dressing down, condemning the bombing of Afghan civilians and praising Palestinian armed groups as freedom fighters. The prime minister had to stand and listen as the Israelis were described as state terrorists and the west was accused of double standards and an inability to distinguish terrorism from self-defence.

The diplomatic rebuff came at a joint press conference in Damascus during which Mr Blair looked distinctly uneasy and pleaded for both sides to bridge their "fundamental misunderstandings".

He was forced to describe their meeting as a "candid discussion", diplomatic speak for a row, and at one point applause broke out in the audience as the Syrian leader condemned the bombing of Afghanistan.

Mr Blair will seek to restore the momentum of his Middle East tour today when he holds talks with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, in Jerusalem and then with the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat.

The chasm between the west and Muslim states over the definition of terrorism and the role of Israel showed the daunting scale of Mr Blair'smission, however.

President Assad told the press conference the military action in Afghanistan was mistaken. "We cannot accept what we see every day on our televisionscreens - the killing of innocent civilians. There are hundreds dying every day."

He condemned terrorists, he said, "but we should differentiate between combating terrorism and war. We did not say we support an international coalition for war. We are always against war."

The US and Britain have for many years been concerned about Syria's support for armed militant groups fighting Israel - including Hizbullah, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Mr Assad defined these groups as freedom fighters. "We, and I personally, differentiate between resistance and terrorism. Resistance is a social,
religious and legal right that is safeguarded by UN resolutions."

Likening the Palestinian groups to resistance fighters seeking to liberate their lands, he argued that in Europe the great symbol of resistance had been De Gaulle. "Can anyone accuse De Gaulle of being a terrorist? No way."

He then turned his ire on Israel: "Israel is proving every day it is against peace, and the desire for peace cannot co-exist with a desire for killing. The list of assassinations cannot be an expression of a desire to bring peace and
stability in the region. Israel is practising state terrorism every day."

He accused the west of reducing terrorism to the personality of Osama bin Laden. "Terrorism works as a network. It does not have a certain head, either as a person or in terms of an organisation."
The British delegation remained hopeful that Mr Assad, eager to join the international community after decades of isolation, will still use his influence to restrain the Palestinian hardliners. Mr Blair himself said later
in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: "There was a far greater understanding than might have appeared at the time."

The British recognise Mr Assad had a domestic audience to address and claimed that in private he had been more conciliatory. The British pointed to his private acceptance of the right of Israel to exist, as well as his
condemnation of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Mr Blair later told friends: "I was saying to him, you have to help to renew the Middle East peace process. He was saying to me, if you want moderate Islam to defeat Islamic fundamentalists, I also need your help."

Mr Assad pointed out that Syria had been calling since 1985 for an international conference to combat terrorism, and that the west had come to the subject late - though "better late than never", he said.

Mr Blair argued that Northern Ireland showed that a peace process would work only if there was an end to violence by all sides. The two fixed principles for peace in the Middle East were "Israel's right to exist, confident of its own peace and security within its borders", and a Palestinian
state.

Mr Blair later flew to Saudi Arabia for talks with Crown Prince Abdullah in Riyadh. On the way to his overnight stopover in Jordan, the Prime Minister's spokesman accepted that he had won no direct support in Saudi Arabia for the bombing campaign. He said there had been unanimous
condemnation of the terrorist attacks and the need to end terrorism. But he went on: "Of course there was discussion about the means. People come with different perspectives."