Dr. Christopher and His Patients : Secretary of state works to get Syria and Israel closer

Secretary of State Warren Christopher achieved no breakthrough in his four days of commuting between Damascus and Jerusalem this week, nor had he realistically expected to do so. The main point of his latest venture into shuttle diplomacy was to see whether he could find enough give in the positions of Israel and Syria to justify a further investment of his time in trying to nudge the two longtime antagonists into committed negotiating on specific issues. Not surprisingly, Christopher detected just enough flexibility to conclude that both sides want to keep the diplomatic option open. That minimal degree of encouragement is probably enough to send Christopher back to the region soon.

While all this falls somewhat short of qualifying as a triumph for American statecraft it does once again validate this country’s essential mediating role. At this stage in their prickly and suspicious relationship it’s clear that, left to their own, Israel and Syria would remain light-years apart in their approach to resolving their differences. So the job of American diplomacy is to try to round the edges of that difficult and combative relationship by communicating the ideas of one to the other purged of off-putting rhetoric and free of concerns about the political fallout of being publicly perceived as making the first concession. Lending great credibility and force to the U.S. role is the desire of both Israel and Syria to remain--in Damascus’ case, more accurately, to get on--good terms with Washington.

The central issues in the Israel-Syria talks are how much of the Golan Heights is Israel prepared to return, and how quickly; what the conditions of demilitarization for that strategic plateau will be; and the nature of diplomatic and economic relations that will accompany the making of peace. Resolving these concrete issues is the meat and drink of diplomacy. But before hard bargaining can do its work there has to be a preceding change in the psychological atmosphere, as there was as a prelude to actual negotiations between Egypt and Israel or between Israel and the Palestinians. Are the two sides ready to make peace? Once they are, much of the rest of the process could be largely a matter of mechanics.