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Syria-Israel peace failure raises Lebanon danger

March 27, 2000
Web posted at: 5:36 PM EST (2236 GMT)

By Tony Karon

ISRAEL (TIME.com) -- An Israel-Syria peace deal is now unlikely to come on Bill Clinton's watch, perhaps not even on President Hafez Assad's. President Clinton left empty-handed from a Geneva encounter with the Syrian leader Sunday, in which he'd hoped he could jump-start a new round of Israel-Syria talks. The President, like many who've tried before, found that the disagreement over the extent of Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights remains too fundamental to allow any movement. And while the two neighbors have for 26 years managed to avoid a war despite the absence of such an agreement, the latest impasse, together with the Israeli decision to withdraw from southern Lebanon -- a promise that helped Barak get elected -- has the potential to spark a new round of hostilities.

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"This could become very dangerous now because Israel will quickly press ahead with a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon," says TIME Jerusalem bureau chief Lisa Beyer. "And, of course, if Israel comes under attack from Hezbollah in the course of that retreat, or after, it has made clear that its response will be a lot harsher than in previous exchanges. And that, in turn, could potentially spark a new war with Syria."

Israel -- and the U.S. -- had hoped to conclude a land-for-peace deal with Syria before the ailing, 71-year-old Assad leaves office, for fear that a successor may lack the strongman's authority to make security concessions to the Jewish state in exchange for the return of captured territory. But Sunday's failure to secure any agreement means that it might well be left to Syria's next leader to chart the way to peace with Israel. Chances of an early breakthrough may be diminished by Israel's Lebanon withdrawal -- which deprives Syria, with its substantial military control over Lebanon, of a key bargaining chip -- as well as by Bill Clinton's imminent departure from the Oval Office. Despite the dangers created by a power vacuum in southern Lebanon, both Israel and Syria are likely to be careful to keep any escalation of hostilities within manageable limits. "Assad appears uninterested in peace on the terms Israel has offered," says Beyer. "But that doesn't mean he wants a war, and he'll work as hard as the Israelis will to avoid being drawn into one."

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