Clinton on Israel-Syria peace prospects

Bill Clinton, with all due respect, needs to think before he speaks:

Former US president Bill Clinton said that peace between Israel and Syria could be achieved within 35 minutes, if Iran would stay out of the matter.

In an interview with London-based Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, Clinton said that the two states were on the verge of reaching a peace agreement in 1998, adding that negotiations behind closed doors and without media intervention, such as those conducted in Oslo in 1993, were the only way to solve the conflict. — YNet

This may well be true in the sense that if there were no Iran, Israel and Syria could reach an agreement. But no matter what Iran does in the future, Hezbollah and the Syrian military buildup are facts that won’t go away quickly. Today it would be suicidal for Israel to give up the strategic advantages of the Golan.

The US is anxious to make this happen, hoping to gain influence with Syria so that she will tighten up her border with Iraq. I’m not sure that the leverage will work in that direction.

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