Syria’s Assad Seems to Be Edging Toward Making Peace With Israel : Mideast: Observers point to the mild reaction from Damascus to the Jewish state’s just-concluded agreement with Jordan.

The haggling over details will go on for months, but there is growing evidence that Syrian President Hafez Assad has decided to make peace with Israel and end the longest and bitterest conflict in the Middle East.

Arab, Israeli and U.S. officials all point to the remarkably mild reaction from Damascus to this week’s nonbelligerency agreement between Israel and Jordan as a clear indication that Assad has passed a psychological barrier and now is ready to make peace, provided he can get acceptable terms.

The most telling evidence was the live coverage that Syria’s state-owned television service provided of the ceremony on the White House lawn ending the technical state of war between Israel and Jordan. The event was carried without critical commentary, even though Syria had long demanded that no Arab state make peace with Israel until all were ready to do so.

Syria’s broadcast of speeches by President Clinton, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel and King Hussein of Jordan was “a good omen,” said Jawad Anani, a Jordanian minister of state and coordinator of the kingdom’s participation in the peace process. Mordechai Gur, Israel’s deputy defense minister, agreed that the telecast showed that Assad is getting ready for serious peace talks.

“I believe the Syrians are using what is happening on the Jordanian track to prepare their people for what is coming,” Anani said Thursday at a breakfast sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

He added that there has been very little official Syrian criticism of Hussein’s peace policy, a stark contrast to earlier years when Syria was vehement and sometimes violent in its opposition to any Arab country making a separate peace.

The Syrian government daily newspaper Al Baath denounced the Israel-Jordan agreement Thursday and warned that peace will not last unless it is comprehensive. But the criticism was relatively mild and was delayed for three days after the ceremony.

U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who plans to visit the Middle East in about a week to resume efforts to broker an Israel-Syria deal, is uncharacteristically optimistic about his chances for success.

“It is certainly true that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not over yet, but today I think we can say with more confidence than ever before that it is on the road to resolution,” Christopher told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday.

He said that Assad and Rabin are tough and meticulous negotiators but “both are determined, I believe, to find a way to a political settlement.”

A U.S. official cautioned that long and detailed negotiations will be required before Israel and Syria reach agreement. But he said that the Syrian television coverage of the Rabin-Hussein handshake was “good news in itself.”

Hussein’s decision to take a lead in peacemaking after decades of hiding behind the Arab consensus has been interpreted as a bold act by the normally cautious monarch. But it seems likely that Hussein sounded out Assad’s attitude in advance and was assured privately that the Syrian president would not make trouble.

Assad’s own position clearly is weaker than it was during the Cold War, when Damascus was one of the most important Soviet clients in the Middle East. The collapse of the Soviet Union ended Assad’s dream of gaining military parity with Israel.

Nevertheless, Syria maintains a formidable army that could inflict major casualties in any war with Israel. For this reason, neither the Israeli government nor the Clinton Administration wants to push Assad into a corner where he might become more dangerous.

“There are some who suggest that we should not chase after President Assad, that we should perhaps leave him out in the cold and then he will recognize that his only interest is to come in from the cold and engage in negotiations,” a senior Administration official said. “It’s not a question of chasing after Assad. It is our sense that President Assad is seriously engaged, is committed to achieving what he refers to as the peace of the brave.”

Geoffrey Kemp, the National Security Council’s Middle East expert in the Ronald Reagan Administration, said that Assad “is very nervous and definitely has watched this with great caution.” But he said the Syrian leader may just be trying to hedge his bets while waiting to see how Israel’s agreements with Jordan and the Palestine Liberation Organization develop.