IS OLMERT THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN'T PLAY THIS GAME? When you look around the Middle East, all the major players--the leaders of the most influential Muslim countries--all seem to have an agenda, a strategy, and the will to see it through: with the wiles and cleverness you would expect in the Middle East.

Olmert , though does not fit that mold. Sure, when it comes to Israeli politics and maintaining his position, Olmert is recognized as being a crafty survivor--wheeling and dealing to strengthen his position. So why is it that when he wheels and deals with Abbas and the US, Olmert's deals serve only to weaken Israel and place it in even greater danger?

Even Bashar Assad, who is sometimes characterized as weak and inexperience, has learned the ropes and is continuing his father's rule. Barry Rubin has written The Truth about Syria. According to an online review of the book, Rubin describes Bashar Assad as learning how to continue to influence events--reaping the benefits, without having to pay the consequences:

Bashar Assad is brash and inexperienced and was initially unsure of himself. To stabilize his rule, he embarked on sham liberalization at home, and on adventurism abroad. The vigorous secular stance of the Hafez Assad regime has been relaxed. Women are allowed to wear traditional clothing, and the religious establishment was coopted to support a new blend of Islamic Arabism or Arab-flavored Islamism. Repression is generally maintained not by arrests, but by threat of loss of livelihood. Syrian sources indicate that compared to the rule of Hafez, Bashar's rule is "liberal," causing a degree of satisfaction, because Muslim Brotherhood adherents and religious elements have more freedom. Bashar pursues a program of vigorous repression of liberal reformists, but, as these are a tiny minority, most people don't care.

Abroad, Bashar cooperated with Saddam Hussein against the United States, importing Iraqi oil under the noses of US intelligence and journalists, and the US did nothing. The deal was profitable for both dictators. When Iraq fell, he stepped up the Syrian alliance with Iran. Syria had always been the only Arab country that was close to Iran, a strange alliance of supposedly secular Bathists and fundamentalist Shi'a.

Bashar Assad allows the operation of insurgency units based in Syria, and the flow of arms, protesting that he cannot control his borders, while allowing the insurgents to bank Iraqi funds in Syria and fund their activities. Amazingly, all this activity incurred almost no danger to Syria. It was hardly mentioned in the egregiously superficial report of the Iraq Study Group. On the contrary, Syrian mischief won Assad's regime a seat as an honored guest at negotiations aimed at "stabilizing" Iraq. Competition among the Western powers, as well as their interest in weaning Assad away from his alliance with Iran, guarantee that Syria will not be left without support.

Assad the son, drew the conclusion, perhaps mistaken, that there is almost no limit to what he can do. In Lebanon, he made one mistake - the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, which set the Arab world against him, and even France. To regain favor in the Arab world and bolster his regime at home, Assad is apparently counting on a war with Israel. Or perhaps, he is counting on the threat of this war, to force Israel to beg the United States to return to mediating discussions. These discussions will inevitably bring up demands to legitimize Syrian presence in Lebanon, to stop the investigation of the Hariri murder and grant other concessions, and like the previous "peace process" they are unlikely to lead to real peace. As Rubin explains, and as backed by the account of Dennis Ross, Israel offered to return all the land of the Golan that belonged to Syria before the 1948 war. Hafez Assad, in the final negotiations in which he humiliated the United States one more time, insisted on freedom of navigation in the sea of Galilee, which Syria had not had before 1967, and on legitimizing the acquisition of territories it had conquered by force in 1948. The difference in area between the Israeli and Syrian proposals was tiny for Syria, though all-important for Israel, but the Syrians needed an excuse to perpetuate the conflict.

So why is it that with Olmert, Israel is always paying consequences without reaping any benefits.

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