Will Syria Take Israel’s Latest Offer?

Can Syria wiggle its way out of what seems like a tight stick-and-carrot trap?

Will the Golan sway Assad? (Photo credit: AFP)

Very few people would like to be in Bashar Al Assad’s shoes nowadays. The corner the regime has trapped itself in suddenly looks very suffocating. In Lebanon, Syria’s hands are tied. True it has managed to successfully prevent the election of a new President up till now, but that’s about as far as Damascus’ influence can go. The international Tribunalis getting closer by the day, and the ruling March 14 government headed by Mr. Seniora lives on to oversee it.

But Syria’s real problems are outside of Lebanon. Today, CIA officers will be briefing American lawmakers on “proof” that there was a cooperation between North Korea and Syria on a nuclear weapons program. The proof will include video footage of North Koreans working in the very facility Israel had bombed last September. This will be enough to guarantee a media onslaught on Syria and a perfectly neat excuse for a potential future strike by Israel.

Is there a way for Assad out of the potential repercussions? Turkey’s Prime Minister whispered in his ears that there is: The Israelis, he said, are ready to exchange the Golan heights for peace (withholding support from hardline groups). In normal circumstances, the Syrians would have played hard to get, pretended to go along and then backtrack. But these are desperate times in Damascus, and perhaps, just perhaps, things might be different this time.