On Peter Rodman, Lebanon and Syria

These are two items I originally wrote for Commentary's Contentions:
I can't call Peter Rodman - the public intellectual and former assistant Secretary of Defense who died August 2nd - a friend. I wish I could. But I only met him five or six times (and spoke to him over the phone a couple more). I'm not even sure if he was happy to have these talks. He started them as a favor to a journalist he really was friends with - the late Zeev Schiff, Israel's most prolific defense writer ever. Rodman and I had formal meetings at his Pentagon office, and some less formal discussions after he left.

People who knew him much better, among them Henry Kissinger and William Kristol, have already paid tribute to his great contributions to America.

After I read those articles detailing his achievements, I went back to my notebook to re-examine our last conversation. We had been talking about his testimony to the Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. "The idea of splitting Syria from Iran seems like a no-brainer. This is the most important strategic argument that is often made for trying to improve the U.S. relationship with Syria," he told the committee.

"Why do you feel the need to express such skepticism," I asked him. He said that he realized there are good arguments in favor of dealing with Damascus, but he wouldn't want false ones to have an impact on the discussion.

Rodman told the Subcommittee that a "grand bargain" between the US and Syria will not be an easy sell: "What else could we give them, apart from helping them recover the Golan? We can't 'give them Lebanon,' or seem to. In 1991, the inclusion of Syria in the Madrid peace process was seen by some (including the Syrians) as a green light to step up their bullying in Lebanon. That's not in the cards today." But in the conversation we had, he emphasized the benefits of Syrian-Israeli talks: 'Testing their intentions can be a good thing."

However, he kept warning me and others about falling into a trap hidden by dreams of peace waiting just around the corner. Syria does not change, he said, and Lebanon is still the big prize, not the Golan Heights. (Some Israelis, he said in a surprisingly uncharacteristic moment of impoliteness, "think that it's all about them, but it's really not.")
"Assad will be thinking strategically about his peacemaking efforts, and so should we," he said (I think by "we" he meant both the U.S. and Israel).

Rodman believed Lebanon cannot be put up for sale - a belief recently weakened in some circles following the glowing reception this emerging democracy has had for the child-murderer Samir Kuntar. But I don't think he would've changed his mind. Rodman?though he thought a free Lebanon would be better for the region than a more dangerous and cocky Syria - wasn't enthusiastic about the prospects for democracy in Lebanon. So no dreams of his could have been shattered by recent events.

Reading through the notes of our last conversation this morning, I realized that for Rodman the one key message was this: Israel's leaders (and the U.S.'s) should make sure that they not only "make the right decisions, but also they are making them for the right reasons." In other words: no self-delusion.

Following up on my tribute to Rodman, Martin Kramer sent me a link to Rodman?s latest assessment of the Israeli-Syrian dialog (Kramer's web site has a long list of useful links for those interested in reading more about Rodman).

As you'll easily be able to detect, Rodman became much harsher with time regarding this dialogue. The words he was using are those of not just puzzlement, but also anger - which might explain the "Israelis think it's all about them" quote I mentioned yesterday. Here is Rodman, from the 21st of May of this year:
It is easy to see how Syria gains strategically from a "peace breakthrough" with Israel. It gains in Lebanon; it breaks out of the isolation that the Gulf Arabs (and the United States) had sought to impose on it because of its unholy alliance with Iran. The Israeli strategic analysis is harder to discern.

As Rodman told Congress, he does not believe there's a chance of pulling Syria away from its alliance with Iran. Hence:

The bottom line is that the Israelis are short-sightedly playing here with American strategic chips, undercutting an American regional strategy toward Iran-which one would have thought they had an interest in.
Rodman was right: Syria is the one gaining more from the talks. But what are exactly those "chips"? What is the "regional strategy," that Israel should preserve by snubbing Syria?

Recent events in Lebanon might show that, whatever it was, it is now collapsing. The Israeli government is discussing, for the second time, the ?ramifications of a Lebanese cabinet policy statement giving Hezbollah the right of 'resistance' to 'liberate Lebanese territories'.

The Israel Air Force is warning that advanced anti-aircraft batteries in Lebanon may hinder its capability to continue over-flights in the area. Later in the week, the Lebanese parliament is expected to approve an agenda that essentially recognizes the right of Hezbollah to remain a weapons-carrying organization, in defiance of both UN resolutions and its commitments to the U.S. government.

All these developments lead to the conclusion that both Israel and the U.S. failed miserably in their assessment of the situation in Lebanon: Israel was the one failing during the war of 2006, and the U.S. was the one failing in the aftermath, believing that a weak Lebanese coalition can provide a stabilizing solution for the country. Both failed because they entertained the hope of achieving something in this country with the assistance of a UN and an "international community" that never fail to disappoint. The sobering results: a stronger Hezbollah, and an emboldened Syria and Iran.

One can imagine what the Israeli ministers are hearing from the chiefs of military and intelligence in those government discussions. But envisioning the possible solutions for this crisis is trickier. Can Israel launch another war in Lebanon? Doubtful. Can the U.S. curb the Lebanese government? Hezbollah has proved much more efficient than its western detractors.

So what's left? Some Israelis will argue that "playing with American chips" - namely, exploring the Syria-talks channel - is the only conceivable way to do something meaningful about Hezbollah. Wrong as they might be, the solutions provided thus far by the isolate-Syria camp weren't working much better.