Getting Congress on Board
Jonathan Broder / Washington

(January 17, 2000) Clinton and Barak advised to win early Republican support for deal

For President Clinton, as great a challenge as securing Israeli-Syrian peace may be convincing Congress to pay for it.

Administration officials are careful not to mention figures, but no one doubts that it will be staggeringly expensive to redeploy the Israeli army, to monitor security arrangements and to relocate Golan settlers. And any aid package will include economic incentives for Syria. Some Middle East experts are talking about an initial price tag of $20 billion.

Those numbers would make anybody blanch - but especially the Republican congressmen who have repeatedly shown a distaste for foreign aid and a readiness to turn aid into a domestic partisan issue. In last year�s budget battles, Republicans unhesitatingly used the $1.8 billion in aid for the Wye accords as a political football, delaying it for months.

Clinton provided a preview of the argument he will employ to win congressional support for the money when, flanked by Ehud Barak and Farouk a-Shara, he addressed the press in the White House Rose Garden on December 15: "Tensions in the region can escalate," he noted. "The escalations can lead to diplomatic, financial and, ultimately, military involvement far more costly than even the costliest peace."

AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobbyists are eager to see the administration take that message to Capitol Hill in sustained meetings with Republican lawmakers. They are aware of the bad blood between Clinton and the Congress that impeached him last year, but are insisting the administration put that aside and start consulting with the Hill - and soon. Otherwise, they say, Clinton runs the risk of another humiliating defeat, like Congress�s rejection this fall of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

"The only way an Israeli-Syrian deal will ever succeed is if both the administration and Congress support it," Howard Kohr, AIPAC's executive director, told The Report. "Congress has to have some ownership on this issue. The president cannot go it alone."

Against this background, there is concern that Barak could anger Republicans by recruiting Democratic consultant James Carville, one of the architects of his election victory, to massage the Israeli public in advance of the referendum on a Syrian accord. Pro-Israel activists are pushing Barak to hire a Republican consultant to work with Carville, making the campaign bipartisan. "If they just bring in someone like Carville, and the opposition brings in someone like (Republican and Likud consultant) Arthur Finkelstein, that's going to be bad news,� said one activist. "Republicans will see Barak as a Democrat, and the whole thing will become partisan. You'll have both sides campaigning on it, which would be terrible." The activists have sent the same advice to the Likud.

Bipartisan distaste for Syria presents another danger to an aid package. Syria's reputation for supporting terrorism and tolerating narcotics trafficking has made it one of the least popular regimes among lawmakers, including many Democrats, who would be reluctant to provide it with aid, even in the context of a peace deal.

Syrian sources say they are well aware of Congress�s attitude - and expect little in the way of actual financial injections. They note that even a beloved American ally like Jordan received only a meager $250 million in aid from the United States after it made peace with Israel, and a fifth of that had to be taken from Israel�s account. The sources expect any meaningful financial assistance to come from Europe and Japan.

What the Syrians do want is to be taken off the State Department�s lists of countries that tolerate terrorism and drug trafficking - classifications that prevent Americans from doing any business with Damascus. With these marks of Cain removed, Syria hopes to attract U.S. investment, particularly from oil companies who could help modernize Syria's natural gas industry.