Syria’s Assad Remains Unswayed by Baker’s Peace Initiative : Mideast: The Arab leader wants a conference under full U.N. authority, which Israel opposes.

Nothing moves quickly in the withering summer heat of the Syrian capital, and, somewhere in the halls of government, the latest U.S. peace initiative lies prostrate.

This is the way it works with Syrian President Hafez Assad. His tactic of tortuously prolonged diplomacy has tested a succession of U.S. envoys over the past 20 years.

The latest is Secretary of State James A. Baker III, whose four trips to the region since the Persian Gulf War ended has set a mark for determination.

But as previous administrations have learned, Syria’s calculating leader will not be pushed to a decision. For years, until the collapse of the Soviet empire took away his political leverage, Assad simply said no--no deals with Israel. Long, arduous hours of face-to-face negotiations--often filled with excruciating silence, according to American participants--failed to budge the 60-year-old strongman.

In the last two years, the Damascus regime has patched up its feud with Egypt, joined the allied coalition in the war against Iraq and attempted to re-enter the Arab mainstream despite a dark record of repression and dubious connections with terrorist organizations.

But its line on Israel remains unbending.

“Many months have passed since the announcement of the American initiative and the first visit of . . . Baker,” Tishrin, the government newspaper, said in a recent editorial. “The American initiative did not achieve any progress, and it will never make progress unless it is accompanied by practical pressure on Israel.”

In an earlier interview with Newsweek magazine, Foreign Minister Farouk Shareh was more specific, demanding that Washington pursue, with the same vehemence it showed against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the two key U.N. Security Council resolutions pertaining to the occupied territories, which include the Syrian-claimed Golan Heights.

He said of the Arab-Israeli peace conference proposed by the Bush Administration: “We are looking for guarantees that the United States will ensure the success of the conference by enforcing the implementation of U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, whether Israel agrees or not. We are not certain the United States will be in a position to enforce these resolutions. We want to attend a peace conference in the daylight--not in darkness. We want to see light at the end of the tunnel.”

According to diplomats here, the ball now is in the Damascene court. In Washington’s dogged efforts to form a consensus, at least on a forum for talks, President Bush sent letters to key leaders, including Assad, late in May proposing, among other things, a U.N. presence at the talks on the diplomatic level of observer.

It was an attempt at compromise. Syria wants a peace conference under full U.N. authority, which implies that the land-for-peace formula of Resolutions 242 and 338 would be on the table. Israel opposes a U.N. presence, convinced by past votes that the world body is tilted heavily against the Israeli position. In fact, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s rightist government favors only a perfunctory opening conference, then head-to-head Israeli negotiations with those Arab countries, including Syria, still technically at war with Israel.

Shamir promptly rejected the White House proposal for a U.N. presence. Assad has yet to deliver his answer to Bush. The process is on hold over what appears to be a technicality. Once again the old Middle East adage is likely to prove out: You can’t make peace without Syria and the question remains whether either side is prepared to take the step.

“There’s a great sense of disillusionment with the peace process here,” said a Damascus-based diplomat. Remarked another of Assad’s predicament: “He wants to say yes, but what if it (a peace conference) falls apart? Just by going, he has recognized Israel and given away his ace.”

According to these analysts, neither Damascus nor Jerusalem wants to be the one that torpedoes the U.S. initiative, not in a post-Cold War world where Washington and its Western allies hold powerful cards. They will keep their doors ajar. “The game,” said a European diplomat, “is to put the blame on the other side for the failure.”

Assad has seen it all before, beginning with the post-1973 shuttle diplomacy of Henry A. Kissinger in the Nixon Administration. Between Assad in Damascus and Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho at the Paris peace talks, Kissinger received an education in the Asian art of wear-them-down diplomacy, as have his successors at the State Department who made the trek to Syria.

But this time the situation has changed for Assad, a taciturn former air force officer whose revolutionary Baath Arab Socialist Party--a rival wing of the ruling party in Baghdad--is still firmly in control here.

Now the onetime “Mr. No” of Arab diplomacy, the leader of the rejectionist front opposing peace with Israel, stands politically allied with Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd and Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, the two most influential mainstream players. Egypt made peace with Israel more than a decade ago and the Saudis are prepared to send a representative to the U.S.-proposed talks.

If Assad decides to talk peace--Syrian officials and diplomats insist he will never cut a separate deal for the return of the Golan Heights--the motivation will come from a mix of developments:

* The Syrian economy. Trade with the Soviet Union and the former Communist states of Eastern Europe went bad years ago, with the Syrians having little to offer but barter goods. Damascus ran up an onerous military debt with Moscow, spending up to half its revenue for planes and tanks. Development of oil fields in the northeast near the Iraqi border has brought in some hard currency but not enough to support the semi-Stalinist structure of Syrian industry, in which the state owns all the heavyweight factories.

The government is trying to turn to the West for trade. It recently adopted a new investment code. But foreign businessmen here say the changes fall short and that the investment climate is still cool. Added a Syrian businessman from the north: “Any investment here will be siphoned by corruption anyway. This is our biggest problem. It’s a scandal. These guys (the Baathists) have been in too long.”

Would peace with Israel solve the economic problems? It would help Syria’s image in the West and probably encourage development loans from foreign governments. But if the economy moves away from the socialist model toward more private enterprise, diplomats here say, the idea of decentralization might spread to the political sector, as well, threatening Assad’s hold on power. Arab strongmen resist Western influence--even through trade--for the democratic infection it sometimes carries.

* Regional influence. While outside attention was focused on the Persian Gulf, Assad reasserted Syrian influence in Lebanon, toppling Christian strongman Michel Aoun last December, and, more recently, signing a treaty of friendship with the Damascus-backed government in Beirut that coordinates foreign policy. With U.S. support, the Beirut government is now attempting to extend its authority into the militia battlefields of southern Lebanon. Israel is watching the development closely, doubtful of Lebanese claims that Palestinian units in the south will be disarmed. A peace treaty between Damascus and Jerusalem could formalize the unofficial “red lines” that keep the two sides and their proxy militias apart in Lebanon.

Alternatively, if Syria wants to remain a regional player it must support the Palestinians against Israel. Despite the personal animosity between Assad and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, a high-level PLO delegation recently visited Damascus, and the Syrian president is believed to be currying favor with a variety of Palestinian factions.

“It was not normalization, but an important step in that direction,” the European diplomat said of the PLO mission.