Tony Badran's new piece in Foreign Policy "Don't Let Damascus Out of the Doghouse" discusses the challenges the US faces with engaging Syria.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent envoys to Damascus, which suggests the possibility that the relationship between the US and Syria could change from the Bush Administration policy of isolation.  However, Secretary Clinton is going about redefining America's relationship with the Assad regime with caution.  Badran notes, 

in [Secretary Clinton's] stop in Jerusalem, she told reporters that Washington would "not engage in discussions for the sake of having conversation. There has to be a purpose to them; there has to be a perceived benefit for the U.S."

Critics of the policy of isolating Syria have often made "engagement" seem like an end in itself, but through her careful remarks, Clinton clarified that engagement should be based on a clear understanding that talks are but a tool to an end. This is a welcome development. The Assad regime is notorious for dragging out processes and offering no meaningful concessions while extracting unilateral ones.

Previous American efforts to engage Syria and build a consensus of peace in the Middle East have been spurned by the Syrians, although the Syrians accepted all of the gifts the US presented.  More recently, French President Nicolas Sarkozy re-opened relations with the Syrians on the understanding that the regime would make a few modest concessions, but the regime has yet to make them while continuing to ask for more concessions from the French.  

Badran recommends "meaningful engagement," not meaningless negotiations in which the US makes offers for Syria to spurn, which the US makes only to placate domestic audiences and international observers unaccountable for the results of failed engagement.  The US must actually negotiate, which means fully understanding Syria's power and relevance in the Middle East:

Meaningful engagement requires a proper understanding of the limited nature of Syria's relevance, assets, and what it really has to offer. By any measure, Syria is at best a secondary regional actor. Syria has no real economy to speak of. Its minuscule oil reserves, which are the regime's main lifeline, are dwindling, and the country has already become a net importer of oil. Its conventional military power is modest. Its only ability to project any influence has been through its sponsorship of militancy and violence and its ties to Iran, without which it would be relegated to the status of a marginal backwater. The regime's legitimacy hinges on radical narratives of "resistance and rejectionism" toward the United States and Israel. But the gap between the Syrians' actual importance and their self-image and sense of entitlement is vast.

What Washington wants from Syria is not help, but an end to misbehavior. The State Department has rightly defined U.S. policy objectives by making public a list of issues on which the United States seeks tangible Syrian behavioral change: support for terrorism, clandestine nuclear programs, subversion in Lebanon, and human rights at home.

We will see what these negotiations yield.  Unfortunately, like Badran, I do not see these negotiations leading to anything fruitful.