The American Spectator

Let’s not negotiate “peace” with Syria. Let’s skip it this time.

If — and it’s still highly speculative — the U.S. can cow Syria into leaving Lebanon, disbanding the terror organizations, easing the internal oppression, scrapping its WMD, we can only applaud. For doing those things, Israel owes Syria precisely nothing. It does not have to hand back the strategically vital Golan Heights, raze the Israeli villages, farms, and factories there to the ground, as a “price” for Syria’s compliance with the most minimal human norms — any more than it owes Qaddafi anything for allowing U.S. and British inspectors to peek around his nuke plants. And if America has more ambitious plans for Syria involving regime change, Israel hardly needs to deal with a sinister regime that’s on the way out.

It’s time to get rid of the idea of quid pro quo with terrorists and killers. When Syria turns into a civilized country with a decent regime, dialogue will be worth something.

P. David Hornik is a writer and translator in Jerusalem.