It took 15 years after Egypt broke the ice with its 1979 peace treaty for Jordan to follow. King Hussein, who has never sought be first in these diplomatic stakes, was also helped by last year's agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization outlining a rocky road toward peace.
That leaves only Syria and Lebanon. Lebanon has all but lost its independence since its civil war led to a virtual Syrian military occupation of the eastern part of the country, countered by Israeli influence over southern Lebanon through surrogates.
The first statements out of Damascus after U.S. President Bill Clinton's talks with President Hafez al-Assad were not encouraging, coming just one day after the historic Jordan-Israel agreement was signed.
Assad repeated the line that his country wants "full withdrawal for full peace," a reference to his demand that Israel return all of the Golan Heights captured in the 1967 war. Perhaps that was understandable since Assad did not want to appear in a generous mood after Hussein ignored Syria's wishes in signing a separate peace deal.
It seems unlikely, however, that Clinton would have given Assad, whose government is on a U.S. list of countries that support terrorism, the embrace of the first visit by a U.S. president in 20 years without some advance assurance of movement in the Syrian-Israeli talks.
The time would seem right. Jordan's signing emphasizes the defeat of Assad's policy of maintaining a unified Arab stance against Israel. The demise of the Soviet Union also deprived Syria of its key arms supplier.
Time seems to be working in Israel's favor too. Although only 64, Assad is reported to be in poor health. Getting credit for a peace settlement and ending Syria's pariah status must be appealing to him after 23 years in power. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's Labor Party government, which faces elections within two years, is far more inclined toward a settlement than the opposition Likud coalition.
Clinton's diplomacy, which obviously has a domestic component, seems designed to take advantage of that opening. As with North Korea, he is gambling that a U.S. embrace and economic assistance can be enticing enough to surmount the last major hurdle to peace, in this case in the Middle East.
Assad should seize the moment, and make his own peace with Israel. The alternative profits nobody.
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