Let Us Count the Reasons : Syria’s leaders need not be puzzled over why U.S. is cool to them

Syria’s leaders complain that their country doesn’t get enough respect from the United States. There’s a good reason for that--President Hafez Assad’s regime has done little that entitles it to respect--and Washington shouldn’t be shy about saying so.

The view from Damascus, as Times staff writer Kim Murphy reported the other day, seems to be that because Syria made a modest contribution to the coalition that last year rolled back Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and because it has shown up at the U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace conference, it’s entitled to substantial political favors from Washington.

Often, of course, this is the way the game of nations is played. Good deeds are rewarded, current cooperation is allowed to induce an expedient amnesia about past transgressions. A Syrian official, professing hurt over the U.S. attitude, says “there’s very strong disillusionment” in Damascus. The only mystery is why there should be.

The fact is that whatever Syria has recently done that coincides with American wishes was done above all to suit Syria’s interests. Its barely visible military contribution to the anti-Iraq coalition earned it a reported $2 billion in thank-you payments from Saudi Arabia, while giving it a chance to thumb its nose at its longtime ideological enemy in Baghdad. Its participation in the Mideast peace conference at least offers a chance for a political settlement of its conflict with Israel. So it hasn’t really been doing the United States any favors. It has simply been helping itself, a process that hardly merits applause.

Neither does any of this erase the Assad regime’s sordid record. Syria remains a police state with a population as brutally repressed as Iraq’s. So far as can be seen, it has done nothing to sever its links to international terrorism. It continues to dictate the political destiny of Lebanon, while controlling the lucrative drug trade coming out of the Bekaa Valley. The catalogue of Assad’s crimes can be extended. The point is that Washington owes Damascus no particular gratitude. When Syria truly changes, when it respects human rights and responsible international behavior, then it will be time to begin thinking about rewards.