[A-List] The Guardian

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Over on PEN-L we've had a debate (of sorts) regarding the role of the UK
media in the great scheme of things. The Guardian has a reputation as an
outlet of liberal/left opinion, and, true enough, you can find
occasional voices of reason there, such as Paul Foot, Gary Younge,
Melissa Benn, Seumas Milne and Larry Elliott. Tory Geoffrey Wheatcroft
also makes regular, readable and interesting contributions,  tellingly
critical of the status quo. Even John Pilger gets a look-in
occasionally. But for every one of these there is a multitude of
Blairites who can be relied upon to relay the true thinking of the UK
permanent government and its natural party, New Labour. Thus the article
below. Anyone watching BBC World last night would never have known of
Blair's embarrassment, although his discomfort was plainly visible (arms
flailing manically in frenzied gestures of conciliation). News domestic
to Britain requires a more  sophisticated gloss, however, and this is it
-- a farrago of propaganda and disinformation aimed at discrediting the
very person/regime that, 24 hours earlier, was so crucial to *Blair's*
strategy. Now it can be written off as the contradiction "at the heart
of Bush's worldwide war". Never mind that Syria, like Iraq, has one of
the most religiously pluralistic regimes in the region, unlike, say,
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, allies of the west. Syria and Iran are, of
course, heavily implicated in the 1988 Lockerbie disaster, but their
cooperation was needed for Desert Storm in 1991 so Colonel Gaddafi was
wheeled out to serve as the convenient whipping boy. And on it goes...


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 resis tance 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."

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

Michael Keaney
Mercuria Business School
Martinlaaksontie 36
01620 Vantaa
Finland

michael.keaney@xxxxxx