The Bush administration changes its Middle East policy in its last days in office
The US gives regional powers a chance to deal with their own problems

Certain events, that at first seem completely unrelated, can attract our attention because of their timing and thanks to this, on closer inspection, we can see that actually, they complement each other.
The announcement that secret Syrian-Israeli peace talks have been held in Istanbul, along with the agreement reached by warring Lebanese factions at Doha, may seem coincidental, because the date of the Israeli-Syrian meeting in Istanbul was fixed a long time ago. The timing of the two events, however, shows us a link between them and the things they have in common.
The first common point between them is that both events led to the easing of political tensions in the region, which had reached a climax.
The most important common points are the absence of any direct American interference in the two events, despite their importance, and the sudden change in the American attitude toward events, from being hostile to just calmly accepting and supporting them.
The US welcomed the start of the Syrian-Israeli negotiations held under the hospitality of Turkey in Istanbul, despite the US's previous determination to isolate Syria, with their relentless application of pressure and their stance against Israel holding peace talks with Syria before they had fulfilled certain conditions. The US also blessed the Doha agreement that paved the way for the election of a President (nominated by the opposition and known for his respect and strong ties with Damascus), and guaranteed Hezbollah and the pro-Syrian opposition a third of the seats within a national unity government as well as the right to veto. This is surprising considering their insistence in the past on Hezbollah disarming and their refusal to allow peace talks with the Lebanese opposition.
Another common point between the two events is that they took place in two states that have a similar foreign policy, Qatar and Turkey. Both have a strong and special relationship with the US but dislike the scenarios of threats, escalation and the American blockade against Iran and Syria.
So has America given up its old Middle Eastern policy and attitude toward Syria?
It is impossible to say whether the American administration was the last one to know and give permission to what happened; it already knew about the start of secret negotiations between Syria and Israel - through the mediation of Turkey - one year ago, and did not object to the Doha agreement, it in fact pursued it. We are seeing a major shift in the foreign policies of the American administration with the presidency of George W. Bush coming to an end. It is a shift that can pave the way for a new calmer era, and shows signs of the American's starting to use wisdom instead of military tactics that have ruined the last seven years of the American administration and failed to get the results expected of them. It now seems that President Bush wants to try a different path; a path that he has bluntly refused in the past. Turkey suggested it three years ago and never gave up suggesting it even though they were fuelling the anger of the neo-cons in the American administration by doing so.
The left wing Turkish newspaper Radikal, in its coverage of the state visit of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied with the then Foreign Affairs Minister Abdullah Gul to Washington, said that when the Turks mentioned the word ‘Syria' to President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during the meeting between the Turkish and American delegations in the White House, a silence full of tension engulfed the room to the extent that even a fly buzzing past could be heard loudly by all the delegates in the room.
During that meeting, the Turks repeated their suggestion of easing the pressure on Syria in order to win it to America's side instead of pushing them towards the Iranians. They said that Syria was the key to the re-balancing of power in the region, as it was before the invasion of Iraq, thereby limiting Iran's influence. The Americans were far from trusting Damascus. They thought they had many winning cards in their hands to force Damascus into submission without giving it something in return, from the international trial for the assassination of the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Alhariri, to the threats of overthrowing the regime by backing the Syrian opposition in exile and the preparation for a military coup against Bashar al-Assad. Turkey remained convinced about its suggestions, arguing that using force against Syria would not get the required results and would not force it to abandon its backing of Hamas and Hezbollah. On the contrary, it would increase its reliance on them to defend itself from America's plans.
Visits by the Turkish President Ahmet Sezer in 2004 and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2006 to Washington were seen as challenges to the American policies of isolating Syria. Even though the Turks never insisted on making the visits to defy the American administration, they made them because they were convinced about improving relations with Damascus; firstly for the sake of the Turkish economy, and secondly in order to leave the door open for negotiations with Syria. The war in Iraq shifted the balance of power dramatically in favour of Iran due to the dissolution of the Iraqi army and the disappearance from the political scene of Saddam Hussein along with his powerful regime (which had formerly balanced Iranian power in the region from the Arab and Turkish perspectives). All of Washington's efforts to create a stable and powerful Iraqi state failed for many reasons. The Iranian President Ahmadinejad announced his triumph over America in Iraq; he even declared that Iran is the most powerful state in the world because it had defeated America. He started to claim his profits from the war in saying that Iran would be ready to fill the power vacuum in Iraq after the withdrawal of American troops.
It also appeared that Iran's influence now stretched to the Mediterranean through Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria, so the Arabs started to moan about the results of America's interference in the region. Saudi Arabia and Jordan even went on to warn of the danger of the Shiite crescent.
The Iranian ‘danger' was not anticipated at the beginning of the occupation of Iraq. The well-known political analyst and journalist Muhammad Hasanein Heikel said in a program on the Al-Jazeera channel at the end of 2005 that he predicted there would be competition between Israel and Turkey for the rule of the Middle East due to the absence of the Iraqi regime - which was a key player there - from the political scene. As well as this, the weakness in Arab regional power after Syria left its conventional Arab allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and got closer to Iran, contributed to his prediction.
Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt tried afterwards to form a political alliance that could fill the Iraqi gap and equal Iran's power. The three countries tried to strengthen themselves by inviting Turkey to join in to be the military power force in this political alliance. Ankara refused the proposal despite its concerns over Iranian influence in the region and Ahmadinejad's territorial expenditure ambitions. Turkey refused to show the issue as a sectarian one between Shiites and Sunnis, because on the one hand, Iran would have an advantage if all Shiite Arabs were seen as a fifth column thus forcing them into the Iranian arm, and on the other hand no Arab country has control or influence over the Sunni minority in Iran. The Turks insisted on considering it a political issue; they suggested that returning the balance of power as it was before the invasion of Iraq was the only way to limit Iranian influence in the region.
The defensive alliance between Syria and Iran did not appear out of nowhere; it was the result of the American administrations threats against the two regimes following the apparently quick and easy success of the invasion of Iraq.

It seems that playing the threats down will bring the situation back to the way it was before and not the opposite. Ankara remembers how Syria stood with the US and its international allies in 1991 and how it sent its troops to get the Iraqi army out of Kuwait, and how it participated in reaching the Ta'ef agreement that brought stability back to Lebanon following civil war. The problem started after Washington - and in particular, its neo-cons - threatened to overthrow the Syrian and Iranian regimes using ‘the war on terror' as a pretext.
The American invasion of Iraq was unjustified from the Arabs point of view. Many high officials in Syria were thinking until the last minute that Washington's threats to invade Iraq would not materialise. This is because Al-Qaeda was not in Iraq, and Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction was a weak and even laughable justification. However, the invasion of Iraq by 140,000 American troops in 3 weeks, and the threat of them marching towards Syria sent a chilling message to the Iranian and Syrian regimes. They concluded that only an American failure in Iraq could save them. The danger would be far away from them if the Americans were busy in Iraq. The Turks think that if the American threats to Syria disappear, then Damascus would re-consider its political position.
The American way of putting pressure on Iran and Syria had been a failure during the last 3 years because the Chinese and Russian stance on the Iranian nuclear issue did not help Washington to impose heavy sanctions on Tehran, and the Hariri trial was full of legal and executive obstacles, which eased the pressure on Syria. The exiled Syrian opposition leader also failed to make an impact inside Syria. Then followed the war of July 2006 between Israel and Syria, which confirmed that military intervention could not be used to achieve America's goals. Israel entered the war, pressed by the Americans who thought that it could destroy Hezbollah and thereby break the Syrian and Iranian military arm in the region, but that did not happen. The Israeli army received a huge blow, and its image was shattered in the eyes of the people in the region. Hezbollah wrecked the image of the invincible army in just 4 weeks.
After the failure of the American scenarios of military threats and blockade to force Syria and Iran, it is a probability that Washington is now trying the path of dialogue suggested by Turkey, especially now that the Bush administration has no time left to go into new military adventures. Bush has to leave a calmer Middle East to his successor, especially when the ongoing tensions in the oil-rich Middle East are starting to have a negative impact on the American economy. However, it was impossible for America to suddenly change its policies towards Iran and Syria without guaranteeing the success of these new policies; therefore asking regional powers to carry out these tasks seemed the best option, as in the case of Qatar and Turkey. The two countries have always called for calm in the Middle East and favoured engaging in talks rather than making threats. They also remained neutral in the conflict between the two alliances, and never took sides, unlike the moderate states (an American term for Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan) that allied themselves with the Americans.
Engaging the Syrians in the peace process will bring stability to the region; returning the Golan Heights to Syria and the Shabaa farms to Lebanon will finish the enmity between Damascus and Tel Aviv. Pretexts used by Hezbollah to keep its arsenal will have no value as it will eventually turn itself into a political party and put its arsenal into the hands of the Lebanese army. Peace between Israel and Syria will lead to another one between Israel and Lebanon that will in turn lead to a stable Lebanon; the nature of the relationship between Hamas and Damascus will therefore change.
It is important to note the important change in Hamas's view regarding peace with Israel, as Khaled Meshaal announced - just 48 hours before the Syrian President's admission of holding secret and indirect negotiations with the Israelis - that he is ready to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders. It seems that Ankara played a big role in persuading Meshaal to change his strategies based on new events to avoid being left out in the cold.
It is right for Damascus to be cautious about reaching peace with Israel. Peace negotiations between the two warring countries occur only when the two sides become aware of two facts, firstly that their differences cannot be put to an end by military means, and secondly that they are equally placed for winning. Israel's power comes from its army, nuclear arsenal and America's military aid. Syria's power comes from its relationship with Hezbollah, Hamas and the different Palestinian groups, so it cannot give them up before getting full and strong guarantees of peace and getting back the Golan Heights. This is because Israel will hold on to its winning cards even after the peace agreement; it will maintain its military supremacy, nuclear arsenal and American support. So asking the Syrians to give up supporting Hezbollah and Hamas before the start of peace negotiations is like putting the horse in front of the chariot and asking the Syrians to sit naked around the negotiating table.
By holding secret negotiations for one year, the Turkish role was important to get over the lack of trust between the two sides, and there is no doubt that the emergence of Turkey as a neutral and respectable mediator made it eligible to play this role and other roles in the region to bring back stability. Qatar in its part invited the Iranian President to attend the Gulf summit in December 2007 and it is unlikely that it happened against the will of the American administration. Despite the conviction of Arab countries - and maybe Turkey - that talking to Ahmadinejad will be an impossible task, lenience towards easing the tensions with Iran may change the balance of power inside Iran. This was seen in the results of the last Iranian parliamentary elections and the loss of the conservatives who back Ahmadinejad in parliament to the more moderates, led by Ali Larijani, who calls for more comprehensive talks with the international community about the Iranian nuclear issue and Iraq.
With Syria engaged in the peace process, and the possible consequences of this on Hezbollah and Hamas, Iranian ambitions in the region will shrink with the weakening of its hand. The balance of power may return to the way it was before the American war in Iraq if the Arabs follow this with a more rational policy toward Shiite Arabs in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait, a policy that is built on trust, and not rush into branding them as traitors.
We must also mention here the efforts made by Turkey in the strengthening of ties with Shiite Iraqis by setting up a Turkish consulate in Basra and establishing a conjoint industrial zone near the Kuwaiti border.
It is clear now that whenever Washington minimises its direct interference in the region of setting conditions, and issuing warnings and threats, the way to solving political issues or reaching an agreement becomes easier, as the example we saw recently with the Lebanese issue. It seems we are witnessing some calm final days for this American administration. What is happening now is not a prelude to alienating Syria in order to bomb Iran next autumn; it is an attempt to outweigh dialogue over military options. Iran must seize this important chance to solve its political issues calmly, and not consider it as an Iranian victory on America and its policies in the region.
We may also witness in the coming days the emergence of some regional and local states that will play a role in paving the way to reach political agreements or make them happen, which can enforce the opening of a new page in relations between Washington and the Middle East with the arrival of the new American President.