A US force for the Golan Heights? A roundtable discussion

On 1 November 1994, the Center for Security Policy sponsored a Roundtable Discussion at the ANA Westin Hotel involving over 35 former government officials, policy analysts from leading research institutes, senior journalists, congressional staff members and representatives of the Israeli embassy and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The Roundtable featured brief presentations concerning the findings of a blue-ribbon studyU.S. Forces on the Golan Heights: An Assessment of the Benefits and Costs, the study was signed by eleven high-ranking, former U.S. national security officials — including five retired four-star general officers, three of whom served as members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Three of the authors of the study, General John Foss (USA, Ret..), Eugene V. Rostow and Douglas J. Feith,no mission for a U.S. Golan troop deployment would justify the costs and risks. sponsored by the Center for Security Policy and issued on 24 October 1994. Entitled elaborated on the group’s conclusion that

The Roundtable also was the occasion for remarks by two of the authors of a study sponsored by the respected Washington Institute for Near East Policy that arrived at somewhat different conclusions. Michael Eisenstadt, a fellow at the Institute, and Andrew Bacevich, the Executive Director of the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, described their view that — provided certain requirements are met, including peace agreements with between Israel and Syria and between Israel and Lebanon and a demonstrated Syrian commitment to end terrorism, drug trafficking and other objectionable activities — the deployment of a small number of U.S. troops on the Golan could be justified.

No effort was made to define or formally approve consensus positions on any topic; nor were specific recommendations adopted by the group. The Roundtable, nonetheless, suggested broad agreement that a commitment to deploy U.S. forces on the Golan Heights would be a significant one and that the Clinton Administration, the Congress and the public consequently should examine this issue with far greater rigor than has been applied to date. The following pages offer highlights of the conversation.

THE CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY STUDY: U.S. Deployment on the Golan Would Have Adverse Repercussions

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and National Security Council staff member, Douglas J. Feith, presented an overview of the Center’s study. He observed that, while the idea of deploying an armed U.S. force on the Golan Heights as part of an overall peace settlement between Syria and Israel is under active consideration in Washington, Jerusalem and Damascus, there has been little public analysis or discussion of the merits or purposes of such a deployment. The Center’s report was designed to stimulate both by examining with care the military and political purposes to which U.S. troops in the Golan Heights might be put.

The Study considers three missions or functions that could be a rationale for a U.S. deployment to the Golan: (1) monitoring, (2) deterrence and (3) demonstration of U.S. support. It examined what a U.S. force reasonably could be expected to accomplish; whether the mission could be accomplished at less cost and with smaller risk through means other than

a deployment of American troops; and what are the likely — but unanticipated — harmful consequences of assigning such a mission to U.S. troops. Mr. Feith summarized the analysis as follows:

A mission to monitor military activity for purposes of early warning and military intelligence would not require the presence of U.S. troops and would not be relied on by either Israel or Syria.

A mission to monitor the parties’ compliance with the peace agreement would not require the permanent presence of U.S. military personnel.

A U.S. force large enough to serve as an effective military barrier to a future Syrian military offensive would require far more troops than the U.S. is prepared to commit to a "peacekeeping mission."

A U.S. deployment intended to serve as a "tripwire" to ensure that a Syrian military offensive would trigger a large American military intervention would constitute a mutual defense alliance with Israel that would require a formal defense treaty between Israel and the U.S., duly ratified with the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. This would be contrary to longstanding U.S. policy with respect to Israel and antithetical to Israel’s tradition of military self-reliance. U.S. "peacekeepers" would not, in fact, create an automatic tripwire and American officials should ensure that Israelis do not mistakenly view them as such.

Since Syria knows that renewed aggression against Israel will antagonize the U.S. whether or not U.S. troops are stationed on the Golan, their presence is not necessary as a political deterrent to Syrian attack.

Because of the special character of the U.S.-Israeli relationship, U.S. troops are more likely to have a constraining effect on Israel than on Syria. For instance, Israel might be deterred from undertaking necessary preemptive action (such as the Osiraq raid).

Finally, the United States is likely to pull the peacekeepers out — as it did in Lebanon — in the event of U.S. troops being injured or killed on the Golan Heights.

The Golan Is Not the Sinai

One of the distinguished retired military officers who co-authored the Center study was General John Foss (USA, Ret.), who served as Commanding General, Training and Doctrine Command (1989-1991) and former Commanding Officer of the 82nd Airborne Division with responsibility for deploying U.S. forces to the Multilateral Force and Observers mission (MFO) in the Sinai Desert. Gen. Foss made the following points in disputing the idea that a U.S. deployment of forces on the Golan would not differ appreciably from the American experience fielding a peacekeeping Multilateral Force and Observers (MFO) in the Sinai:

The MFO is a small international command, remote from the Egyptian-Israeli border, manning small monitoring outposts distant from any civilian population centers and lightly armed.

By contrast, a U.S. Golan deployment would be located in a confined geographic area, directly in the path of any military action between Israel and Syria, between two heavily armed military forces and close to population centers dominated by fanatical terrorist groups, committed to harming American citizens and interests.

To use an American force to deter military action by Syria is to make killing Americans the price to break the peace. Hamas and Hezbollah have demonstrated a willingness and a capacity to exact such a price.

In any event, to contend with Syrian military action, a commander would need at least a brigade (5,000 men) of heavily armed troops on the Golan. The rule of thumb in calculating the full impact on military resources, however, that number must be multiplied by three: 1/3 training for the peacekeeping mission, 1/3 on site and 1/3 retraining for other missions. Thus, the United States would need to commit at least one division to a Golan deterrence mission. But as the United States downsizes to the smallest peacetime Army since 1939 (10 active duty divisions total), committing 15,000 men and their associated logistics training to a mission without a termination date is a huge investment in a risky proposition.

Historical Experience With U.S. Security Guarantees and Commitments

Eugene V. Rostow, a former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs and former Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and another highly respected co-author of the Center study, observed that America’s commitments to its allies must be made clearly, publicly and after explicit public and congressional debate of the implications. Bitter past experience suggests that otherwise the United States will, in the end, fail to honor such commitments. Professor Rostow made the following points:

President Eisenhower made private assurances to Israel in 1957 that, if Egyptian President Nasser were to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping, the U.S. would use force to open them. When Nasser closed the Straits in 1967, President Johnson decided, in light of the heavy U.S. commitment in Vietnam, that the United States could not fulfill its 1957 assurances which had been made to induce Israel to withdraw from the Sinai after the Suez war.

The U.S. must be explicit about the commitments it gives to its allies. In 1979 the Israelis told the U.S. about the Osiraq reactor and its probable purpose. A year later, the U.S. formally told Israel — both in Tel Aviv and in Washington — that it had looked into the Osiraq reactor and agreed with Israel’s conclusions. Israel took this statement as an American sanction to destroy the reactor and was shocked when the United States subsequently condemned the raid.

The proposal for U.S. forces in the Golan is founded on the assumption that Syria will not make peace until the whole of the Golan has been returned. Neither Israel nor the United States need accept that assumption: The centerpiece of peace in the Middle East is the Israeli-Jordanian agreement, because they are the only two successor states to the Palestine Mandate. Security Council Resolution 242 and its follow-on resolutions can be implemented without Syria. U.S. troops need not be exposed to terrorists in order to achieve a comprehensive peace in the Middle East.

PRECONDITIONS THAT MIGHT MAKE FOR A SAFE AND USEFUL U.S. DEPLOYMENT ON THE GOLAN HEIGHTS

 Michael Eisenstadt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Andrew Bacevich of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies collaborated in a separate study of the role the U.S. can play in supporting a Syrian-Israeli peace agreement sponsored by the Washington Institute. Their study arrived at somewhat different conclusions from that prepared by the Center for Security Policy. Key points made in the course of Messrs. Eisenstadt and Bacevich’s remarks included the following:

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  • There must be a package of treaties between Israel and Syria and between Israel and Lebanon detailing the commitments each makes to the others.
  • Syria must improve the local security environment by: closing terrorist camps around Damascus and in Lebanon; disarming and cutting-off Iranian assistance to Hezbollah; and ending drug cultivation in the Bekka Valley which finances terrorist operations. And
  • The U.S. must impress on Syria that Syrian backsliding on terrorism will have an immediate, profound and negative effect on U.S.-Syrian relations.

In analyzing the costs and benefits of a U.S. deployment on the Golan, it is necessary to recognize that a U.S. presence will have both a military and a political deterrent value. In deciding to participate in peacekeeping arrangements, Washington will have to balance the possible risks inherent in peacekeeping as well as the potential opportunities that peace will create versus the likely risk of increased instability and perhaps even war should the Israel-Syria peace effort collapse.

Because terrorism is a practical problem, several specific steps must be taken as a precondition before a U.S. deployment makes sense:

Under such circumstances, a limited U.S. deployment on the Golan would serve U.S. interests including: regional peace; a strong Israel; containment of fundamentalism, terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; and maintenance of U.S. access to Middle East oil. A peace that advances these interests is worth a strong demonstration of U.S. support, including a small U.S. troop presence in the Golan.

DISCUSSION

 A lively exchange of views occurred following these remarks, involving the authors of the two studies and other participants in the Roundtable. Among the propositions debated were the following:

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  Assad clearly wants an economic assistance package from the U.S., but he can get economic aid without U.S. troops. What a U.S. presence will uniquely represent, however, is a de facto American security guarantee to Syria, which will no longer have to worry about Israeli preemptive actions.

  Rabin is looking ahead to Israeli elections in 1996 and has apparently concluded that he cannot sell a peace treaty with Syria without a U.S. presence to replace Israeli self-reliance.

  Rabin’s assumption is that U.S. troops on the Golan will ease the government’s domestic task of getting support for the Syrian treaty, but Israeli opinion polls show great public unease with the prospect of an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan — even if they are replaced with a U.S. or international force.

  On the pro side is the fact that the Golan has been the most peaceful area of the Middle East for the last 20 years. The explanation for that record may have less to do with Assad’s intentions than the fact that Israel has been on the Heights in force.

  In fact, evidence of Assad’s unreliability is damning: He agreed three times in writing to leave Lebanon, but has not done so. Assad agreed to let all the Syrian Jews leave Damascus, but has not done so. Assad twice has signed protocols with Turkey (1987 and 1992) to stop supporting cross-border PKK activities, but has not done so. Even the 1974 disengagement agreement remains unimplemented in such significant aspects as repopulation and troop levels.

The key question is whether stationing U.S. troops on the Golan Heights for any reason is a good or a bad idea. The Center’s analysis concludes that no rationale for a U.S. deployment justifies the cost in blood or treasure — costs that will be unavoidable if a deployment goes forward. The Washington Institute study argues, however, that — in the event the U.S. proceeds to station troops in the Golan despite the risks — some steps could be taken that would minimize the dangers to U.S. policy and to American troops.

The Golan is not at all like the Sinai. There is no place to station forces in the Golan where they would not be in harm’s way, either from hostile forces or terrorists.

Syria never populated the Golan in the past, except with troops and Druze militia. "Repopulation" of the Heights by Syria following a peace agreement could lead to a situation like that in the Gaza Strip, exposing peacekeeping forces to hostile terrorist actions from civilian populations in close proximity.

Under the best of circumstances, a U.S. deployment to the Golan would be dominated by the fact that Israel could do nothing that might involve the U.S. in hostilities. A U.S. presence, backed by a congressional commitment, means that Israel would be inhibited from taking lawful preemptive actions in self-defense. In fact, the country that would most be constrained by a U.S. presence in the Middle East is Israel.

What benefits do Syria and Israel expect to derive from a U.S. presence on the Golan?

Many Israelis feel pushed by the U.S. toward an accommodation with Syria, when they have not yet developed confidence in the PLO and Jordanian agreements. In addition, there is significant Israeli resistance to surrendering a wholly self-reliant defense posture to an unreliable ally acting as an impartial peacekeeper.

Terrorist attacks and hostage-taking of U.S. forces could well lead to anti-Israeli or anti-semitic reactions in the U.S., as occurred during the U.S. presence in Lebanon.

Rabin is ahead of Israeli public opinion, on both the right and the left. Moreover, there has been no detailed public debate in Israel regarding the stationing of U.S. troops on the Golan Heights.

Can Assad be relied upon to maintain any peace arrangement he agrees to?

Support of Hamas, Hezbollah, the PKK and the drug trade is the litmus test of Syrian intentions. Without demonstrable Syrian action to end its support of these activities, the U.S. should not consider being an active participant in the process.

If there remains a "cold peace" between Syria and Israel, even key proponents of a U.S. Golan deployment believe that it will be too dangerous to make the deployment. On the other hand, if the peace is a "warm peace," U.S. troops will be unnecessary. Note that there are no peacekeeping forces between Israel and Jordan because that is deemed a real peace.

If the United States elects to send troops to the Golan, the U.S. must define its own mission, and not let Syria or Israel dictate the terms of the deployment.

Any proposal to send U.S. troops to the Golan Heights must be thoroughly debated both publicly and in Congress before there is a governmental commitment to such an action.