At his blog, George Ajjan has a good article on what the U.S. should with respect to Syria that originally appeared in Quarterly Review.  In it he has many important points, but this one stood out for me:

 Expending whatever remains of America’s regional credibility on behalf of the unproven Saudi stooges currently governing Lebanon must come to a halt, because it is simply not in the interests of the United States.

George also argues that negotiating a peace between Israel and Syria would help to detach Syria from Iran, which seems to me the most practicable way of limiting Iranian power short of full rapprochement with Tehran (which would, in any case, much more difficult). 

The accompanying piece that replies to George’s article, written by one Jillian Becker, does not seem terribly persuasive.  So much of it is the usual, bankrupt, unimaginative stuff you’ve seen a thousand times before.  Ms. Becker makes no attempt to distinguish between the retaliation for 9/11 of the Afghan War and the unprovoked invasion of Iraq that certainly did come about in no small part because of neoconservatives and Mr. Bush’s “hopes and wishes,” to use her phrase.  This makes everything else she has to say suspect.  She makes no attempt to distinguish, because I assume she does think there is any real separation between the one and the other. 

Her claims about Israeli public opinion seem surreal in light of this old story, which reports that 10% of Israelis favour full withdrawal from Golan and 40% favour partial withdrawal, with 44% opposed to any kind of withdrawal.  The same report confirms that most Israelis do not trust Assad, but it simply isn’t true that there is not much “public enthusiasm for conceding land.”  There is evidently some support for conceding some land.  The word “enthusiasm” does a lot of work here, as it is meant to discredit claims that there is some significant public support for some kind of “land for peace” arrangement with Syria. 

Ms. Becker notes that the Kadima government of Ehud Olmert is horribly unpopular, neglecting to mention that it was Olmert’s disastrous entry into and handling of the war in Lebanon that destroyed his government’s credibility.  It was hardly his government’s most recent drive to negotiate with the Syrians that has undermined him; Olmert has not exactly erred on the side of being too irenic.  Speaking of public opinion, we should remember that Kadima had earlier been elected on a peace platform.  The very existence of Kadima as a viable party, before the war ruined its reputation for competence, stemmed from public support for some settlement with the Palestinians.  If, as George correctly argues, the Golan Heights have less religious and symbolic significance, it is hardly so strange to think that the public that voted Kadima in would be willing to consider peace with Syria at the price of the Golan.