In struggle for Mid-East peace, look closely at Syria

After decades-long hostility, Israelis and Palestinians are tip-toeing their way, at U.S. urging, through talks toward a peace as elusive as a desert mirage.

The goal is to secure security for Israel and nationhood for the Palestinians, ordered by boundaries yet to be defined and agreed upon.

Ironically, the wild card in all this may be the nation not even seated at the negotiating table — Syria.

For Israel cannot be confident of its security so long as Syria continues its support, including weaponry, for Hamas and Hezbollah, facilitates the movement of jihadists and explosives into Iraq, and maintains its coziness with Tehran, which may be on the brink of achieving a nuclear bomb, and is bellicose in its attitude towards Israel.

There also needs to be settlement of the Golan Heights problem, seized by Israel from Syria in the 1967 six-day war, and now containing some 20,000 Israeli settlers. Should the Golan be returned to Syria, an unfriendly regime in Damascus would be able to pour murderous artillery and rocket firepower into the whole of northern Israel.

But Syria's recent behavior is very cryptic, or perhaps we should say, very Syrian, in keeping with the country's long history of balancing diverse alliances.

While maintaining its support for some of the worst bad actors in the Middle East, it has been curbing the influence of Muslim conservatives and lifestyles at home, and approving some humanitarian and cultural initiatives, even from the United States. Meanwhile, the Western-educated wife of President Bashar al-Assad has been quietly supporting modernization, even whispering of ultimate democracy, albeit over the long haul.

In its foreign policy, Syria has so far resisted the attempts of the Obama administration to "engage" in any robust manner, as part of the American president's overture to the Arab world. Barack Obama has conceded that aspects of Syria's behavior remain troubling but argues that Syria could yet be constructive and helpful in a number of ways to U.S. policy in the Middle East.