WASHINGTON — The Bush administration should pressure Israel to
withdraw from the Golan Heights as part of a U.S. effort to win
Syrian cooperation on Iraq, the Iraq Study Group report said.
A major portion of the report was devoted to an Israeli withdrawal from
the Golan Heights as a U.S. gesture to Syria. ISG said the Bush
administration would be unable to achieve its goals in the
Middle East without direct efforts to end the Arab-Israeli conflict,
including discussing the Arab demand for millions of Palestinians to settle
in Israel.
ISG also called on the administration to support the Hamas-led
Palestinian
Authority and discuss the Arab demand to settle
millions of Palestinians in the Jewish state.
ISG, co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker
and Rep. Lee Hamilton, called for an immediate U.S. diplomatic offensive
that would seek to end the Arab-Israeli conflict through incentives to
Syria, including a pledge not to seek regime change.
As part of the proposed U.S. peace drive, Syria would respect Lebanon's
territorial integrity and cooperate with the UN investigation into the
assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, ISG
said. Syria was also urged to halt aid to Hizbullah and persuade Hamas to
recognize Israel.
"In exchange for these actions and in the context of a full and secure
peace agreement, the Israelis should return the Golan Heights, with a U.S.
security guarantee for Israel that could include an international force on
the border, including U.S. troops if requested by both parties," the report
said.
The report said the United States
should take the lead to consolidate a ceasefire called by the PA in November
2006. The ceasefire has been violated by Palestinian missile attacks on a
nearly daily basis.
As additional inducements for their cooperation, Iran and Syria would be offered
membership in international organizations as well as enhanced diplomatic
relations with Washington. ISG also called on the administration to pledge
not to destabilize the regimes in Iran and Syria, regarded by the State
Department as terrorist sponsors.
The report said the administration must be prepared to
offer Israel security guarantees as part of the transfer of the Golan
Heights to Syria.
"Although the U.S.-Syrian relationship is at a low point, both countries
have important interests in the region that could be enhanced if they were
able to establish some common ground on how to move forward," the report
said. "This approach worked effectively in the early 1990s. In this context,
Syria's national interests in the Arab-Israeli dispute are important and can
be brought into play."
[Israel did not respond to the report. On Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Tsipi Livni was scheduled to
arrive in Washington for talks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
their second meeting in a week.]
The bipartisan report urged the United States to seek a new
international consensus for stability in Iraq and the Middle East by 2007.
ISG called on the administration to bolster the regimes in Iran and Syria in
an effort to win their cooperation on Iraq.
"You cannot look at this area of the world and pick and choose among the
countries that you're going to deal with," Hamilton told a news conference
on Wednesday.
"Sustainable negotiations leading to a final peace settlement along the
lines of President Bush's two-state solution, which would address the key
final status issues of borders, settlements, Jerusalem, the right of return
and the end of conflict," the report, which marked a rare U.S. endorsement
for Palestinian demands to resettle Israel, said.
Such an effort, ISG said, must focus on a comprehensive peace that would
include Lebanon and Syria. The report said most Israelis are tired of war,
and that the only basis for the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict is
the "principle of land for peace."
"This effort should include, as soon as possible, the unconditional
calling and holding of meetings, under the auspices of the United States or
the Quartet [the United States, Russia, European Union, and the United
Nations], between Israel and Lebanon and Syria on the one hand, and Israel
and Palestinians — who acknowledge Israel's right to exist — on the
other," the report said. "The purpose of these meetings would be to
negotiate peace as was done at the Madrid Conference in 1991, and on two
separate tracks — one Syrian/Lebanese, and the other Palestinian."
Baker, secretary of state in the administration of Bush's father and who
helped the current president win the 2000 election, arranged the Madrid
Conference after the first U.S. war in Iraq in 1991. The diplomatic effort
led to strained U.S. relations with Israel.
The report did not cite calls by Iranian leaders for the destruction of
Israel. ISG recommended that the United States avoid a separate drive to
stop Iran's nuclear program and focus on efforts in the Security Council. On
Dec. 5, Robert Gates, a former ISG member and confirmed by the Senate as the
next defense secretary, said Iran has sought nuclear weapons to counter
those produced by Israel, and pledged that the United States would not
attack either Damascus or Teheran.
"Our most important recommendations call for new and enhanced diplomatic
and political efforts in Iraq and the region, and a change in the primary
mission of U.S. forces in Iraq that will enable the United States to begin
to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly," the report said. "We
believe that these two recommendations are equally important and reinforce
one another."
