WASHINGTON - Syria, a pivotal player in the Middle East for decades, looms as a possible spoiler in President's Bush's strategy for halting Israeli-Palestinian violence and toppling the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.
Syria has backed Palestinian radicals and allowed weapons to flow to Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, posing what an Israeli diplomat calls "the single greatest threat to regional stability in the immediate term."
In addition, U.S. officials say, Damascus has developed closer ties to Baghdad, allowing Iraq to smuggle out oil and allowing frequent air travel and shipments to Iraq in violation of United Nations sanctions.
In the past, Syria has often positioned itself to exploit Middle East tensions in a way that enhances its influence. Under the late Hafez Assad, Syria became an ally in the U.S.-led war to drive Iraqi forces from Kuwait in 1991. Later that year, Assad agreed to open direct peace talks with Israel. This allowed the United States to achieve a breakthrough in staging a peace conference in Madrid.
But Syria, now ruled by Assad's enigmatic son, Bashar, is sending mixed signals about its intentions as Bush prepares to make his boldest proposal to date to try to restore regional stability.
Bush is expected to unveil a Middle East peace plan this week that would include a provisional Palestinian state, on the condition that it undergo reforms and provide assurances that it would coexist peacefully with Israel.
Syria, which wants to reclaim the Golan Heights from Israel, stands to play a crucial role in a new Arab-Israeli peace initiative. With its influence among radical groups in the region, Syria could help U.S. allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia steer Palestinians away from violence against Israelis and toward cooperating with the United States in reviving the shattered peace process.
"Given Syria's strategic role in the region, there will not be a comprehensive peace without Syria coming on board," said Edward Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, now director of the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.
Calming Israeli-Palestinian violence is widely seen as key to Bush's longer-term strategy of toppling Hussein's regime in Iraq. Bush wants to prevent a hostile government from producing nuclear weapons or making them available to terrorists.
As the U.S. policy has taken shape, Arab kings, princes and a president, and the Israeli prime minister have trooped to Washington, Camp David and Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in an effort to influence the president's thinking.
Syria, though, has remained on the sidelines, with officials in Damascus denouncing what they call Bush's support for the hard-line positions of Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon.
The Syrian foreign minister, Farouk Sharaa, who is to arrive in the United States this week, will likely be too late to have any effect on Bush's plan. In fact, Sharaa might spend all his time in New York, where Syria is presiding over the U.N. Security Council this month, and not visit Washington at all.
"He would hear an awful lot of messages that he doesn't want to hear about Syria's role in violence, international terrorism and its policy toward Iraq," a State Department official said.
During the first six months of its two-year seat on the Security Council, Syria has spotlighted what it calls Israeli terrorism against the Palestinians.
In turn, Israeli officials have mounted a campaign to point out the dangers they say Syria poses. A week ago, Sharon told Bush about what an Israel official called an "explosive" buildup of weapons by Hezbollah, some of which could strike deep inside Israel, that Iran has shipped to southern Lebanon with Syria's approval.
Unlike his father, who used Hezbollah to maintain pressure on Israel but kept it "on a leash," Bashar Assad appears to be enamored of the guerrilla group and more likely to give it freer rein, the Israeli official said.
Last week, Syria's ambassador to the United Nations presided over a council session on the Palestinian conflict. The session illustrated the deep strains in relations between the United States and Syria, which Washington continues to view as a sponsor of terrorism.
The deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, James B. Cunningham, pointed to an unusually brazen act of support by Damascus for terrorism.
Earlier this month, he noted, Damascus allowed the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, from its office in the Syrian capital, to claim credit "for the horrific car bomb attack on a public bus in Israel that killed 17 and wounded 30."
Cunningham added: "Those who harbor the people ordering such acts of terror, wherever they are, are under an obligation from this council to take action against them."
U.S. officials say Syria is also likely the most serious violator of the sanctions against Iraq.
At the same time, some officials in Washington describe a less combative U.S.-Syrian relationship than these words suggest and a less threatening Syrian role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"I'd steer you away from thinking Syria is about to do anything provocative," a U.S. official said yesterday. "They're certainly not interested in provoking a war with Israel."
Since shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Syria has been "extremely" cooperative in supplying intelligence on Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaida, according to a senior American official. Syria's secular regime has long kept a close watch on Muslim militants who might pose a threat to its rule.
And on May 11, Assad joined the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Egypt in rejecting "all forms of violence" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There have also been unconfirmed reports that Sharaa traveled to the Iranian holy city of Qom to try to persuade Iran's hard-line clerical leadership to cut back support for Hezbollah.
Where Israelis portray Bashar Assad as an unpredictable and potentially dangerous leader who has outdone his father in his public hostility toward Israel, others see something else.
Djerejian says he saw a more reasonable Assad when he met with him in January. A former U.S. envoy to both Damascus and Tel Aviv, Djerejian has since led off-the-record meetings among Syrian and American officials and analysts at his Houston-based institute.
"I saw a very pragmatic person: no ideology or emotional references to either Israel or the Jewish people," he said of Assad.
Compared with Assad's public posture, "I saw a real contrast in terms of his professional, focused approach on negotiations" with Israel, Djerejian said. "He made clear that Syria has adopted a strategic option for peace."
Mindful of Syria's potentially vital role, the Bush administration is unlikely to escalate its criticism within the Security Council, an official said yesterday.
Next, Washington will have to decide whether to ignore Israeli pressure and include Syria in the international Middle East conference that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell plans to hold sometime this summer.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt are expected to insist that Syria be invited.