Clinton’s first visit with President Assad of Syria in Geneva (January, 1994):

I was impressed by his intelligence and his almost total recall of detailed events going back more than twenty years. Our discussion produced the two things I wanted: Assad’s first explicit statement that he was willing to make peace and establish normal relations with Israel, and his commitment to withdraw all Syrian forces from Lebanon and respect its independence once a comprehensive Middle East was reached.

I knew the success of the meeting resulted from more than personal chemistry. Assad has received a lot of economic support from the Soviet Union: that was gone now, so he needed to reach out to the West. (My Life, page 574-575)   

Clinton’s next meeting with Assad (October, 1994)

The next morning I flew to Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, to see President Assad. I wanted Assad to know that I was committed to a Syrian-Israeli peace based on UN Resolutions 242 and 338, and that, if an agreement was reached, I would work hard to improve relations with his country. My meeting with Assad produced no big breakthrough, but he did give me some encouraging hints about how we might move forward. (626)

Clinton only comment on Wye River talks between the Israelis and Syrians (January 1996):

We began the year in foreign policy with Warren Christopher hosting talks between the Israelis and Syrians at Wye River Plantation in Maryland. (696)

Prelude to Shepherdstown finally (January 2000):

On January 3, I went to Shepherdstown, West Virginia, to open peace talks between Syria and Israel. Ehud Barak had pressed me hard to hold the talks early in the year. He was growing impatient over the peace process with Arafat, and was unsure whether their differences over Jerusalem could be resolved. By contrast, he had told me months before that he was prepared to give the Golan Heights back to Syria as long as Israel’s concerns could be satisfied about its early-warning station on the Golan and its dependence on Lake Tiberias, otherwise known as the Sea of Galilee, for one-third of its water supply.

Before he was killed, Yitzhak Rabin had given me a commitment to withdraw from the Golan to the June 4, 1967, borders as long as Israel’s concerns were satisfied. The commitment was given on the condition that I keep it “in my pocket” until it could be formally presented to Syria in the context of a complete solution. After Yitzhak’s death, Shimon Peres reaffirmed the pocket commitment, and on this basis we had sponsored talks between the Syrians and the Israelis in 1996 at Wye River. Peres wanted me to sign a security treaty with Israel if it gave up the Golan, an idea that was suggested to me later by Netanyahu and would be advanced by Barak. I had told them I was willing to do it.

Dennis Ross and our team had been making progress until Bibi Netenyahu defeated Peres in the election amid a rash of terrorist activity. Then the Syrian negotiations faltered. Now Barak wanted to start them up again, though as yet he was unwilling to reaffirm the precise words of the Rabin pocket commitment.

Barak had to contend with a very different Israeli electorate from the one Rabin had led. There were many more immigrants, and the Russians in particular were opposed to giving up the Golan. Natan Sharansky, who had become a hero in the west during his long imprisonment in the Soviet Union had accompanied Netenyahu to Wye in 1998, explained the Russians Jews’ attitude to me. He said they had come from the world’s largest country to one of its smallest ones, and didn’t believe in making Israel even smaller by giving up the Golan or the West Bank. They also considered Syria to be no threat to Israel. They weren’t at peace by were not at war either. If Syria attacked Israel; the Israelis could win easily. Why give up the Golan?

While Barak didn’t agree with this view, he had to contend with it. Nevertheless, he wanted to make peace with Syria, was confident the issues could be resolved, and wanted me to convene negotiations as soon as possible. By January, I had been working for more than three months with the Syrian foreign minister, Farouk al-Shara, and by telephone with President Assad to set the stage for the talks.

Assad’s frailty and a stroke suffered by Foreign Minister Shara in the fall of 1999 heightened Barak’s sense of urgency. At his request, I sent Assad a letter saying I thought Barak was willing to make a deal if we could resolve the definition of the border, the control of the water, and the early-warning post, and that if they did reach and agreement, the United States would be prepared to establish bilateral relations with Syria, a move Barak had urged.

Assad replied a month later and in a letter that appeared to back away from his previous position, perhaps because of the uncertainties in Syria that his and Shara’s health problems had caused. However, a few weeks after that, when Madeline Albright and Dennis Ross went to see Assad and Shara, who seemed completely recovered, Assad told them that he wanted to resume negotiations and was ready to make peace because he believed Barak was serious. He even agreed to have Shara negotiate something he had not done before, as long as Barak would personally handle the Israeli side.

Barak accepted eagerly and wanted to begin immediately. The Washington talks got off to a bit of a rocky start with an aggressive public statement by Shara. Nevertheless, in private talks, when Shara suggested that we should start where the talks had left off in 1996, with Rabin’s pocket commitment of the June 4 line, provided Israel’s needs were met, Barak responded that while he had made no commitment on territory, “we do not erase history.” The two men then agreed that I could decide the order in which the issues – including borders, security, water and peace – would be discussed. Barak wanted the negotiations to continue uninterrupted; Shara agreed, and the two sides went home to prepare.

Clinton’s account of the Shepherdstown talks between Israel and Syria (January, 2000)

It quickly became apparent that the two sides were not that far apart on the issues. Syria wanted all of the Golan back but was willing to leave the Israelis a small strip of land, 10 meters, along the border of the lake; Israel wanted a wider strip of land. Syria wanted Israel to withdraw within eighteen months; Barak wanted three years. Israel wanted to stay in the early-warning station; Syria wanted it manned by personnel from the UN or perhaps from the US. Israel wanted guarantees on the quality and quantity of water flowing from the Golan into the lake; Syria agreed as long as it got the same guarantees on the water flow from Turkey. Israel wanted full diplomatic relations as soon as withdrawal began; Syria wanted something less until the withdrawal was complete.

The Syrians came to Shepherdstown in a positive and flexible frame of mind, eager to make an agreement. By contrast, Barak, who had pushed hard for the talks, decided, apparently on the basis of polling data, that he needed to slow-walk the process for a few days in order to convince the Israeli public that he was being a tough negotiator. He wanted me to use my good relationship with Shara and Assad to keep the Syrians happy while he said as little as possible during his self-imposed waiting period.

I was, to put it mildly, disappointed. If Barak had dealt with Syrians before or if he had given us some advance notice, it might have been manageable. Perhaps, as a democratically elected leader, he had to pay more attention to public opinion than Assad did. But Assad had his own political problems, and had overcome his notorious aversion to high-level involvement with the Israelis because he trusted me and had believed Barak’s assurances.

Barak had not been in politics long, and I thought he had gotten some very bad advice. In foreign affairs, polls are often useless; people hire leaders to win for them, and it’s the results that matter. Many of my most important foreign policy decisions had not been popular at first. If Barak made real peace with Syria, it would lift his standing in Israel and across the world, and increase his chances of success with the Palestinians. If he failed, a few days of good poll numbers would vanish in the wind. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t change Barak’s mind. He wanted me to help keep Shara on board while he waited, and to do it in the isolated setting of Shepherdstown, where there were few distractions from the business at hand.

Madeleine Albright and Dennis Ross tried to think of creative ways to at least clarify Barak’s commitment to the Rabin pocket commitment, including opening a back channel between Madeleine and Butheina Shaban, the only woman in the Syrian delegation. Butheina was an articulate, impressive woman who had always served as Assad’s interpreter when we met. She had been with Assad for years, and I was sure she was in Shepherdstown to guarantee the president an unvarnished version of what was happening.

On Friday, the fifth day, we presented a draft peace agreement with the two sides’ differences in brackets. The Syrians responded positively on Saturday night, and we began meetings on border and security issues. Again, the Syrians showed flexibility on matters, saying they would accept and adjustment to the strip of land bordering Galilee to as much as 50 meters, provided that Israel accepted the June 4 line as the basis of discussion. There was a practical validity to this; apparently the lake had shrunk in size in the last thirty years. I was encouraged, but it quickly became apparent that Barak still had not authorized anyone on his team to accept June 4, no matter what the Syrians offered.

On Sunday, at a lunch for Ehud and Nava Barak at Madeleine Albright’s farm, Madeleine and Dennis made a last pitch to Barak. Syria had shown flexibility on what Israel wanted, providing its needs were met; Israel had not responded in kind. What would it take? Barak said he wanted to resume the Lebanese negotiations. And if not, he wanted to break for several days and come back.

Shara was in no mood to hear this. He said that Shepherdstown was a failure, that Barak was not sincere, and that he would have to say as much to President Assad. At the last dinner, I tried again to get Barak to say something positive that Shara could take back to Syria. He declined; instead telling me privately that I could call Assad after we left Shepherdstown and say he would accept the June 4 line once the Lebanese negotiations resumed or were about to start. This meant Shara would go home empty-handed from negotiations he had been led to believe would be decisive, so much so that the Syrians had been willing to stay through the end of Ramadan and the Eid.

To make things worse, the latest bracketed text of our treaty leaked in the Israeli press, showing the concessions that Syria had offered without getting anything in return. Shara was subjected to intense criticism at home. It was understandably embarrassing to him, and to Assad. Even authoritarian governments are not immune to popular opinion and powerful interest groups.

When I called Assad with Barak’s offer to affirm the Rabin commitment and demarcate the border on the basis of it as long as the Lebanese negotiations also started, he listened without comment. A few days later, Shara called Madeleine Albright and rejected Barak’s offer, saying the Syrians would open negotiations on Lebanon only after the border demarcation was agreed upon. They had been burned once by being flexible and forthcoming, and they weren’t about to make the same mistake again.

For the time being we were stumped, but I thought we should keep trying. Barak still seemed to want the Syrian peace, and it was true that the Israeli public had not been prepared for the compromises that peace required. It was still in Syria’s interest to make peace, and soon. Assad was in ill health and had to pave the way for his son’s succession. Meanwhile, there was more than enough still to do on the Palestinian track. I asked Sandy, Madeleine, and Dennis to figure out what we should do next; and turned my attention to other things.  (starting on page 885)