The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has just released a report on the Middle East that ostensibly lays out "a new approach" for the next American administration to pursue - one that is "brought back to a more realistic perspective." Instead, what we are offered is a faulty recipe for American surrender and a reprehensible abandonment of interests, allies, principle, and international law.

The section dealing with Lebanon and Syria is of especial concern. The authors misread Syria's ambitions and its aggressive campaign against Lebanon. Furthermore, they fail to mention essential United Nations Security Council resolutions affecting both countries, and never even tackle the central issue of the special tribunal being set up to try suspects in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

The authors' faulty premises about Syria are captured in this revealing passage: "A new policy toward Syria also needs to recognize the country for what it is: a small country without massive ambitions or ideological crusades, trying to maintain some role in the region."

This statement grossly misstates reality. Syria's goal, which its regime has acknowledged, is the restoration of Syrian hegemony over Lebanon. So while the Carnegie experts fantasize about "compromise," Syria always had other plans. In an interview last year, Syrian President Bashar Assad showed no ambiguity in declaring that the "normal place" for Syrian-Lebanese relations was where "they were a few years ago," in other words before Syria withdrew from Lebanon in April 2005.

Aside from hegemony over Lebanon, Syria has accorded itself the right to meddle in the affairs of all its neighbors - including Iraq and the Palestinian territories. This stems from a self-image and sense of entitlement to being a major player in the Levant - "the fortress of Arabism." Syria's strategic posture is intimately linked to the regime's ideological worldview. It was best described by Assad himself recently when he dubbed Damascus the "capital of the Arab culture of resistance." The identity and legitimacy of the regime rests on this perception. Syria has always strived to fulfill the perception through violence - its only asset - and by keeping an open front against Israel through the Lebanese border and encouraging attacks by Hizbullah or Palestinian proxies.

But somehow the Carnegie report fails to mention the crucial UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which has effectively closed off the southern Lebanese front to such proxy wars. How this resolution and Resolution 1559 are supposed to square with Carnegie's recommendation that the US accept, apparently indefinitely, continued armed status for Hizbullah and the return to Lebanon of Syrian "influence," which is certain to restore to Hizbullah its operational freedom, is left unexplained.

Remarkably, the report only twice mentions the Hariri tribunal, established under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, and tersely. One reference merits a pause for its irresponsible inference that the "confrontational tone of US policy, coupled with the setting up of the Hariri tribunal by the United Nations, has made the [Syrian] regime paranoid."

Syrian paranoia is understandable. Who wouldn't be paranoid at the prospect of being held accountable for murder? But that hardly matters. For the authors to conflate the UN-mandated tribunal with a supposedly confrontational US policy is astonishing. All Security Council resolutions on Lebanon have been consensual. What the authors miss is that the credibility of the international system is at stake in the Hariri trial. And they don't realize that if anyone is to be accused of a confrontational approach in Lebanon it is Syria, which, beginning in 2004, began a campaign of assassinations and bombings that continues to this day.

Under the guise of "compromise," the authors essentially advocate America's abandonment of its Lebanese allies who have peacefully resorted to international institutions and law in the face of murder. Accepting Carnegie's proposals would constitute forsaking the rule of law, UN resolutions, the Lebanese Army and security forces, and the revival of Lebanese constitutional institutions, which Syria's Lebanese allies have spent over a year systematically trying to undermine. Supporting these institutions has been at the heart of Washington's policy in Lebanon - a policy pursued largely through UN auspices.

The authors propose that the US discard its "Manichaean" view of the struggle in Lebanon as being between democracy and tyranny. But asking a new administration to draw some sort of equivalency between Lebanon's elected parliamentary majority and Hizbullah, which recently flaunted its ties to Imad Mughniyeh, a man wanted in 42 countries including the US, is certainly not going to appeal to future American policymakers.

The Mughniyeh issue raises other doubts about Carnegie's conclusions. Mughniyeh's presence in Damascus only confirmed that Syria harbors, sponsors, and supports what the United States considers terrorist organizations. Yet, strangely, the case of the Hizbullah official is never mentioned in the Carnegie report. Syria's possible desire to acquire nuclear material from North Korea is mentioned only once, in passing. No effort is made to gauge its significance. What practical conclusions can future American policymakers reach amid such glaring omissions?

In placing the onus for Lebanon's problems on the US, the authors suggest they haven't been following events in recent months. During this period, and with the Bush administration's acquiescence, the French government and the Arab League have tried to compromise with Syria to guarantee a Lebanese presidential election, while safeguarding Lebanon's independence. Without exception Syria has torpedoed every initiative, following this with assassinations and escalation. This prompted France to suspend talks with Damascus, while key Arab leaders, who have publicly complained of Syria's obstruction, are leaning toward boycotting the Arab summit in Damascus at the end of March as a consequence.

Syria's goals in Lebanon and those of the international community are diametrically opposed. This, quite simply, leaves no common ground for meaningful engagement with the Assad regime.

The bottom line is that the current US policy toward Lebanon and Syria is being conducted through the UN Security Council, in close coordination with Washington's European and Arab allies. It is based on safeguarding American interests and allies, and on creating a favorable balance of power in the Levant. In other words, it is a sound, multilateral policy both from an internationalist and from a realist perspective.

 The Carnegie authors write that the US needs a new approach based "less on ideology and more on reality." But they don't heed their own advice, nor do they appear to grasp Lebanon's reality particularly well either.

Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, hosts the Across the Bay blog (www.beirut2bayside.blogspot.com). He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.