Do Loose Lips Really Sink Ships?

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's tight-lipped position on the September 6, 2007, Israeli bombing of a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor has conveyed a sense of resolve that Israel will act in its interests without asking permission or defending its actions. At the time, it also raised his approval rating from 25 percent to 35 percent, according to a poll by the Dahaf Research Institute.

However, after eight months of responding to questions with "there are things that a prime minister doesn't speak about," as he did in a series of pre-Passover interviews, the silence regarding Syria was broken, but not by Israel. In Washington, details of the September attack were revealed to Congress and the press last week by U.S. intelligence officials. Those officials declared that a North Korean funded nuclear reactor on Syria's border with Israel was within weeks of completion before Israel preemptively destroyed it.

The reemergence of the nuclear story came amid reports that Olmert and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have been communicating, through Turkey, about the possibility of restarting a peace process. On this, Olmert has been more forthright recently. In his Yediot Achronoth pre-Passover interview with Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer, Olmert affirmed that "I am very interested in a peace process with the Syrians, I am working on this and I hope that my efforts will ripen into a significant move."

Assad has also been talking about a possible resumption of a peace process begun by his father and three former Israeli prime ministers: Rabin, Netanyahu, and Barak. On the same day that the Bush administration submitted evidence of the Syrian nuclear reactor, Assad confirmed the existence of an Israeli-Syrian back channel and said, in an interview with the Qatari newspaper al-Watan, that U.S. involvement was crucial for that process to succeed. He went on to note, however, that this involvement would not be possible with the Bush administration. "Maybe with a future American administration-we can talk then of direct negotiations. This administration doesn't possess a vision, or a willingness for a peaceful process."

Assad is not alone in this assessment. In testimony Thursday before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East, former ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk testified that "the Bush administration is unwilling to encourage Israeli-Syrian peace negotiations out of concern that this would reduce Syria's isolation," and expressed the view of many Mid-East analysts that progress on the Syrian-Israeli front will have to wait for the next administration. While the chairman of that subcommittee, Rep. Gary Ackerman, was unconvinced that Syria would easily reorient itself away from Iran and toward the United States, he argued that the next president would have to engage Syria in some way, at least, to assess the chances of a new Syrian line. He stressed that "engagement is not synonymous with capitulation," but that a deal with Syria means "some kind of purposeful and principled engagement." The next president, Ackerman hopes, will move away from the current non-policy on Syria, saying that, "yet again the Bush administration has chosen hope and prayer as an alternative to strategy."

Israeli analysts have been particularly critical of the U.S. release of intelligence that Israel had long kept quiet. In Sunday's Yediot Achronoth, military affairs analyst Alex Fishman argued that while some Israelis originally wanted the United States to release the pictures of the Syrian nuclear site, they now realize "that it was an irresponsible intelligence strip tease act . . . which exposed Israel's intelligence capabilities." Releasing sensitive information, Fishman noted, exposes Israeli abilities, Syrian intelligence gaps, and possibly Israeli sources.

Releasing that information, however, will not likely lead to war with Syria as some have worried. (Or, as Israel's sketch comedy Eretz Nehederet joked following the Imad Mugniyah assassination: "Israel is worried about Hizballah's response to the Mugniyah assassination, Syria is worried about Israel's response to Hizballah's response, which may cause Syria to respond, and then will come the Israeli response to the Syrian response to the Israeli response to the Hizballah response to Israel.") Some observers believe that Olmert and Assad may have actually decided to publicize their recent communication in order to defuse fears stemming from the release of the nuclear information.

Criticism of the disclosure was also voiced in Washington. But much of it-notably by the Chairman of the House Intelligence committee, Silvestre Reyes, and its ranking Republican, Peter Hoekstra-focused on the fact that sensitive intelligence information had not been revealed earlier.

Following all the chatter and accusations at home and abroad, President Bush himself responded in a press conference on Tuesday. The information was released, he explained, "to advance certain policy objectives through the disclosures, and one would be to the North Koreans, to make it abundantly clear that we may know more about you than you think." "And then we have an interest," he went on, "in sending a message to Iran, and the world for that matter, about just how destabilizing nuclear proliferation would be in the Middle East."

Secretary of State Rice also weighed in, saying that "Syria is like Iran's sidecar," and referred to "Syria's nuclear program." She also made clear her own skepticism about Syria's willingness to make peace with Israel.

Olmert and Assad both understand the importance of U.S. involvement in any peace process. Nonetheless, Olmert has decided to begin the conversation. For him, the first step is not so much convincing the Americans as his own people. And the process of convincing them might very well extend into the next American administration (which could be more open to Israeli-Syrian negotiations). In the past, polls have shown Israelis sometimes supportive of, and sometimes opposed to, trading the Golan for peace. Right now, they are quite skeptical.

That will probably remain the case so long as the Gaza situation remains hot. It's hard for Israelis to take Syrian overtures seriously when Syrian-backed forces are lobbing missiles at Sderot and its environs. A prime minister, however, has to take a broader view which is what Olmert appears to be doing.