VZCZCXRO0348
OO RUEHROV
DE RUEHDM #0132/01 0431426
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
O 121426Z FEB 09
FM AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5977
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHAM/AMEMBASSY AMMAN PRIORITY 7513
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA PRIORITY 5699
RUEHLB/AMEMBASSY BEIRUT PRIORITY 5065
RUEHTV/AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV PRIORITY 2309
RUEHJM/AMCONSUL JERUSALEM PRIORITY 1641

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 05 DAMASCUS 000132 
 
H PASS 
NOFORN 
SIPDIS 
 
H PASS FOR MACDERMOTT AND RICH//DEPARTMENT FOR 
NEA/ELA//PARIS FOR WALLER//LONDON FOR TSOU 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/11/2019 
TAGS: PREL ETRD ECON PTER PREF PAUM PARM KWBG LE
IZ, SY 
SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR CODELS CARDIN, BERMAN, AND KERRY 
VISITS TO DAMASCUS 
 
Classified By: CDA Maura Connelly for reasons 1.5 (b) and (d). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary:  Chairman Cardin, Chairman Berman, and 
Chairman Kerry, Embassy Damascus is looking forward to your 
mid-February visits.  You should expect an enthusiastic 
reception by government officials of the Syrian Arab Republic 
(SARG) and from the media, who will interpret your presence 
as a signal that the USG is ready for enhanced U.S.-Syrian 
relations.  Your visits over the course of February 17 - 22 
form a trifecta that Syrians will spin as evidence of the new 
Administration's recognition of Syria's regional importance. 
The Syrians will look for your assessments on the possibility 
of reversing U.S. sanctions policy, and they will gauge your 
views on the probability of returning a U.S. ambassador to 
Damascus.  The SARG may also seek your views on a U.S. role 
in the Golan track with Israel.  While we hope the SARG might 
reveal a tangible side to their positions, our recent 
experience (and that of the French) has shown that the Syrian 
government's positive rhetoric yields little result over 
time.  Already, the SARG has begun to link potential movement 
on issues of operational importance to the Embassy -- like 
identifying a plot of land for a new Embassy compound -- to 
major bilateral issues, including their fervent desire to see 
U.S. economic sanctions lifted.  On Syria's relationship with 
 Hizballah, Hamas, and Iran, we expect President Asad to 
defend the necessity of ties to these actors because of 
Israel's continuing occupation of Arab land.  We view your 
visits as an opportunity to educate senior Syrian leaders on 
Washington priorities in the region and how Congress views 
Syria in the context of the United States Government's new 
policy of engagement.  (They are not always clear on the 
difference between Congress and the Administration.) End 
summary. 
 
 
----------------- 
What Syrians Want 
----------------- 
 
¶2. (C) We anticipate that the Syrian public, to the extent 
that they focus on these things, will greet your visits with 
enthusiasm. Indeed, many will interpret your engagement as a 
tacit admission that USG isolation of Syria has not worked, 
and the SARG will seek to reinforce this perception.  We 
expect the regime-controlled media to spin your visits as 
evidence of a clear break with past USG policies and 
vindication of Asad's defiance of the previous 
administration.  Led by Syrian Ambassador to the U.S. 
Moustapha, the SARG has been inviting members of Congress to 
visit Syria. In fact, your visits represent something of a 
personal coup for Moustapha, who is, from time to time, 
rumored to be on the outs with the Syrian leadership and in 
jeopardy of losing his job. 
 
¶3. (C) The SARG endeavors to leverage contacts with Congress 
to jump-start Syrian-U.S. relations.  Given your respective 
positions as Chairman of the Commission on Security and 
Cooperation in Europe, Chairman of the House Committee on 
Foreign Relations, and Chairman of the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee, you can expect intense interest from 
Syria's state-controlled media about Congressional readiness 
to re-visit the terms of the Syria Accountability Act (SAA). 
Additionally, the SARG will want to gauge your views on the 
possibility of the USG sending an Ambassador to Damascus. 
(As you may already know, the Syrian media is rife with 
speculation that an appointment is imminent.)  Prior to the 
Gaza incursion, the Syrians had been vocal in their call for 
Americans to engage on the Golan track with the Israelis, and 
they may attempt to use your visit to send further signals to 
the Administration to this end. 
 
---------------------------------------- 
U.S. Sanctions and Syria's Economic Woes 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶4. (C) While the SARG's public line has been that USG 
sanctions are easily circumvented and have no real effect on 
the Syrian economy, individual interlocutors readily refute 
this claim.  The truth is that the Syrian economy does suffer 
as Syrian businesses and the SARG itself are unable to obtain 
 
DAMASCUS 00000132  002 OF 005 
 
 
critical software upgrades, spare parts for aviation and 
industrial machinery, and other durable and consumable 
products.  What's more, USG sanctions deter foreign 
investments, tarnish the prestige of the regime, and on this 
point the SARG remains vulnerable. 
 
¶5. (C) Additionally, the effects of the global economic 
downturn on Syria's economy are building.  The SARG recently 
announced a series of measures to bolster the Syrian 
industrial sector, which has been hard hit by the declining 
purchasing power of Syrian consumers, slowing demand for 
Syrian exports, and by an influx of inexpensive, Chinese 
goods trans-shipped through Gulf states under the GAFTA.  A 
number of high-profile bankruptcies, particularly in the 
textile industry, have left the Syrian commercial sector on 
edge.  Though difficult to quantify, rumors abound that 
Gulf-state investors are putting large construction and 
development projects throughout Syria on hold.  The Office of 
the Prime Minister has commissioned a group of Syrians, 
including well-known economist Samir Seifan, to analyze the 
effect of a prospective mass-repatriation of Syrian workers 
from abroad, including both white collar workers and 
laborers, on the Syrian economy and social stability. 
 
¶6. (C) Last week, Syria's Deputy Prime Minister responsible 
for economic development, Abdallah al-Dardari, admitted that 
the sharp decrease in Syria's 2007 oil export revenues (the 
SARG figures put it at 8.7 percent) exceeded government 
projections.  Inflation is rampant in Syria; even 
upper-middle class Syrians are having trouble putting food on 
the table and paying rising utility and fuel bills.  The true 
rate of inflation, which we estimate at over 30 percent in 
2007, is never acknowledged by the Syrian government. 
According to Dardari himself, however, the average Syrian is 
now spending 42 percent of his income on food.  Syrians are 
feeling the pinch, and this puts pressure on the SARG to 
address the issue of U.S. economic engagement. 
 
---------------------- 
Spinning the Sanctions 
---------------------- 
 
¶7. (C) You will find Syrians somewhat uninformed in their 
understanding of U.S. sanctions policy.  There is little 
comprehension, even among educated Syrians and European 
observers in Damascus, of the broad spectrum of measures that 
are currently in place.  A case in point is the recent 
issuance of export licenses that will allow Boeing to 
overhaul the airframes of Syrian Air's two aging 747s.  While 
issuance of these licenses for safety of flight reasons 
followed an established procedure and had been in the works 
for some time, Syrian state-run media (and some international 
stories) have effectively portrayed license issuance as both 
an early overture by the Obama administration and proof that 
the USG can arbitrarily change the terms of our economic 
sanctions policy.  (Comment:  Because the Boeing licenses 
were the first Safety-of-Flight exemptions granted in several 
years, we are hoping to see positive gestures from the SARG 
to show its readiness to establish better relations.) 
 
¶8. (C) The difference between acts of Congress, executive 
orders against individual entities, and Department of 
Commerce export control functions will be, for the most part, 
lost on most Syrians and on some of your interlocutors.  Even 
among SARG representatives with a more sophisticated 
understanding of our multi-pronged sanctions policy, you will 
encounter a firm belief that the SAA can be quickly 
"reversed".  Ambassador Moustapha has not helped his 
government to understand the political process in Washington. 
 Your visits present an excellent opportunity to educate 
President Asad and the Syrian leadership on USG concerns, and 
on how the Washington decision-making process works. 
 
-------------- 
Engaging Syria 
-------------- 
 
¶9. (C) The SARG are adept at renegotiating any terms of 
engagement.  The recent French experience in Damascus is 
instructive.  President Asad has yet to honor his personal 
 
DAMASCUS 00000132  003 OF 005 
 
 
commitment to Sarkozy to dispatch an Ambassador to Lebanon 
before the end of 2008.  At the same time, they have greatly 
benefited from their initial engagement with the French:  The 
Syrians have achieved some forward movement on the EU 
Association Agreement, and are enjoying the optics of EU 
officials lining up to visit Asad and his advisors. 
 
¶10. (C) To take another example of how the Syrian government 
negotiates, in December meetings with visiting U.S. 
delegations, President Asad suggested that he was considering 
authorizing the re-opening of the American School and the 
construction of a new Embassy compound.  In a subsequent 
meeting with a visiting U.S. delegation in late January, 
President Asad and FM Muallim suggested that the re-opening 
of the American School should be linked to a repeal of the 
Syria Accountability Act.  Clearly, for us, the bar is 
already rising. 
 
-------------------------- 
Iran, Hizballah, and Hamas 
-------------------------- 
 
¶11. (C) Syria's central geographic location and its potential 
as a spoiler in the region continue to threaten Israel's 
security and Lebanon's fledgling democracy.  Through 
dangerous liaisons with Iran, Hizballah, and 
Hamas/PIJ/PFLP-GC, Syria compensates for its relative 
political-economic-military weakness by supporting surrogate 
militias that it plays as cards to block U.S. regional 
initiatives.  President Asad has grown fond of saying "Better 
relations with Washington cannot mean bad relations with 
Tehran", and appears smugly confident that his regime's 
strategy -- maintaining ties to Iran, Hizballah, and Hamas 
while attracting European engagement with low-cost gestures 
toward Israel and Lebanon -- has worked to erode Syria's 
isolation and bolster the regime's prestige and credibility. 
 
¶12. (C) Syria would like to be viewed by Western governments 
as a regional power broker, and to this end it increasingly 
acts as a conduit for Iranian influence in the region. In 
recent meetings with CODELs and other visiting Americans, 
Asad defended Syria's ties to Iran, Hizballah, and Hamas as 
necessary responses to Israel's continuing occupation of Arab 
land.  Syria and Israel were "words away" from moving to 
direct negotiation before Gaza, and Syria remains interested 
in returning to peace talks with Israel once an Israeli 
government is formed, he asserted.  You can press him to 
recognize the strategic opportunities that lie before him. 
U.S. engagement with Syria can bring greater economic 
prosperity to the Syrian people, a chance to heal Syria's 
rifts with Arab countries, and an opportunity to regain the 
Golan.  But achieving these objectives will require Syria to 
demonstrate that it is willing to be a credible partner in 
peace and can deliver changes to its policies that currently 
are undermining peace and stability in the region. 
 
------- 
Lebanon 
------- 
 
¶13. (C) We are carefully watching Syrian actions in relation 
to both the upcoming Lebanese elections, and to the upcoming 
tribunal on the Hariri assassination.  As we noted earlier, 
Syria has yet to fulfill its commitment to Sarkozy to send an 
Ambassador to Lebanon by the end of 2008.  Lebanese observers 
are carefully watching the pace and level of USG contacts 
with the SARG, and there is some concern on their part that 
Syria will use a re-engagement with the U.S. to undermine 
U.S. support for Lebanon's sovereignty. 
 
---- 
Gaza 
---- 
 
¶14. (C) During the Gaza conflict and current recent efforts 
to consolidate the fragile unilateral cease-fires, Asad has 
used his regime's relationship with Hamas to promote Syria as 
the leading voice of Palestinian resistance, often at the 
expense of more moderate Arab regimes in Egypt and Jordan. 
The Syrian leadership defends its relationship with Hamas by 
 
DAMASCUS 00000132  004 OF 005 
 
 
pointing to the group's 2005 electoral victory and its 
popularity among Palestinians.  Yet, even prior to the most 
recent Israeli incursion, Syria helped Hamas undermine the 
Palestinian Authority's legitimacy by providing Hamas 
Politburo leader Khaled Mesha'al a platform to denounce the 
PA's negotiations with Israel.  In a meeting with CODEL 
Smith, Asad acknowledged the contradiction between Syria's 
secular society and the long-term, theocratic ambitions of 
Hamas.  He maintained, however, that such disagreements 
should not prevent dealing with them.  In truth, Syria's 
relative weakness had made the SARG dependent on these 
groups.  Our objective is to press Syria to use its influence 
to promote reconciliation and stability rather than 
confrontation. 
 
---- 
Iraq 
---- 
 
¶15. (S/NF) Syria has maintained relations with former Iraqi 
regime elements and sought to deepen ties to Jaysh al-Mahdi 
leader Muqtada Sadr and Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council chief, 
Abdul al-Hakim.  At the same time, Damascus has signaled to 
PM Maliki's government a desire to improve ties. 
Nonetheless, Syria remains an outspoken critic of the 
recently ratified SOFA/SFA, calling the accords "instruments 
to legitimize the illegal U.S. occupation of Iraq."  Syria 
denies any collusion with foreign fighters transiting its 
territory en route to Iraq, even as senior security officials 
confide to UK and French counterparts that some foreign 
fighter facilitators mysteriously were released after being 
arrested.  Syrian officials dismiss our continuing concerns 
about foreign fighters, noting (as FM Muallim told CODEL 
Specter in December) "this is an old story".  Syria detained 
some 1,200 Al-Qaeda jihadis and is exercising greater 
scrutiny of Arab males seeking entry into the country.  But 
Syria may be doing too little, too late, only to realize that 
these extremists regard the country as more than a point of 
transit.  We have seen recent signs the SARG is worried about 
the extremist threat, and this may be an area to explore for 
future cooperation. 
 
-------- 
Refugees 
-------- 
 
¶16. (C) Recent cooperation with the SARG on Iraqi refugee 
programs has expanded.  In FY08, we were able to hit our 
targets and resettle over 5,000 Iraqi refugees from Syria to 
the United States.  The SARG's continued issuance of visas 
for visiting DHS interview teams and its cooperation on 
allowing additional DHS team members into Syria mean we are 
likely to reach our goal of resettling nearly 12,000 Iraqis 
from Syria in FY09.  Furthermore, for the first time in 
Syrian history, the SARG consented to the presence of 
international NGOs (including three U.S. NGOs) serving the 
Iraqi refugee population.  In just over a year, nearly a 
dozen NGOs have been able to establish a presence here and 
continue to provide much-needed support to the beleaguered 
Iraqi refugee community. 
 
 
------------------- 
Nuclear Aspirations 
------------------- 
 
¶17. (C) Concerns linger over Syria's presumed intent to 
establish a covert nuclear weapons program.  Syria allowed an 
IAEA inspection team to examine the al-Kibar site in June 
¶2008.  The SARG adamantly claims that soil samples that 
yielded traces of enriched uranium were the result of Israeli 
bombs containing depleted uranium.  IAEA has sought follow-up 
visits to Damascus, to no end.  In the meantime, the Syrians 
have waged a somewhat successful campaign within the IAEA for 
preliminary assistance in establishing a civil nuclear 
program, securing a Board of Governor's (BOG) decision to 
more forward with technical cooperation.  The Syrians read 
the BOG decision as a sign that they can continue to evade 
IAEA requests for further inspections.  We seek to convince 
them that cooperation with IAEA offers a preferable choice 
 
DAMASCUS 00000132  005 OF 005 
 
 
than following the Iranian model of denial. 
 
------------ 
Human Rights 
------------ 
 
¶18. (C) Syria's human rights record remains abysmal.  Syrian 
courts sentenced 12 leaders of the Damascus Declaration 
National Council to two and a half-year terms in October 
¶2008.  While granting an early release to economist and 
political reform advocate Aref Dalila, who was sentenced in 
2001, Syrian courts rejected a petition on December 15 -- 
just one day after the EU Association Agreement's initialing 
ceremony -- to grant early release to prominent Syrian 
journalist Michel Kilo.  Of equal concern is the case of 
Kamal Labwani, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison after 
returning from a 2005 trip abroad that included meetings with 
White House officials.  Syria's security services launched a 
widespread crackdown earlier this year and rounded up 
hundreds of would-be activists, many of whom were Kurds. 
Meanwhile, severe overcrowding, mistreatment of prisoners and 
perceived regime persecution of Syrian Islamists led to at 
least two uprisings at the maximum-security Seidnaya prison 
in 2008, one with prisoner fatalities estimated as high as 
¶50. 
 
---------- 
Conclusion 
---------- 
 
¶19. (C) In summary, your CODELs will be the second, third, 
and fourth of four Congressional delegations to visit 
Damascus over a three-week period.  Syrian officials and 
opinion-makers are eager to hear your thoughts on the new 
administration's foreign policy approach and whether Syria 
can expect any near-term deliverables.  President Asad and 
Foreign Minister Muallim will be ready to parry U.S. concern 
about Syria's relationship with bad actors with 
well-rehearsed talking points.  Embassy Damascus looks 
forward to your visits. 
CONNELLY