Syria Next? (14 May 2003)

As he stood aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on 1 May to declare the "liberation" of Iraq complete, President Bush announced that "the war on terror is not over". He added, "any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups and seeks or possesses weapons of mass destruction is a grave danger to the civilized world - and will be confronted." The two countries at the top of the agenda to be "confronted" next are Iran and Syria.

Syria has featured prominently in the Bush administration's rhetoric from the start of the invasion of Iraq. In response to allegations about slow military progress, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld accused Syria of allowing fighters and military supplies to cross the border into Iraq, and declared this a "hostile act". He was followed up on 2 April by former CIA director James Woolsey, who plays a highly significant but unofficial role in coordinating with the American client Iraqi opposition groups. Sharing a platform with Paul Bremer, now the President's envoy to Iraq, Woolsey declared that "World War IV" had begun, with the US pitched against the "fascists" of Syria: "We want you nervous," declared Woolsey."This country and its allies are on the march". At the same time, US forces destroyed the Kirkuk-Banyas pipeline that supplied Syria with cut-price oil worth up to $1.5bn a year from Iraq, and severed the railway lines between the countries.

By 13 April, President Bush had found a reason for this hostility, but the script seems to have been taken from another conflict: "We believe there are chemical weapons in Syria," said Bush.

It was left to Secretary of State Powell to produce a list of demands, which he announced on returning from his visit to Damascus in early May: Syria must seal its border with Iraq and not interfere with the installation of a new government there, it must hand over any Iraqis who have crossed the border to the US forces on demand, and it must stop supporting Hizbullah in Lebanon and Palestinian political groups. "If they do not," said Powell, "then there will be consequences."

Damascus appears to have acceded on the demands in relation to Iraq. In addition to the oil stoppage, non-oil trade links between the countries have been curtailed, worth an additional $2bn a year to Syria. For a faltering economy, these measures will have an especially severe impact.

Links with Hizbullah, however, have grown closer, especially after Hizbullah drove the Israeli occupying army out of most of south Lebanon in May 2000, and Bashar al-Asad succeeded his father Hafiz as the Syrian president barely two weeks later. Hizbullah retains the respect of the majority of Lebanon's population - Christians as well as Muslims - fostered by a reputation for honesty, its hardworking elected members of the Lebanese parliament, and an extensive network of social welfare organisations, including hospitals and housing projects, serving the poor of south Lebanon more effectively than any government has ever done.

Hizbullah has also successfully portrayed itself as the national defence against Israeli cross-border attacks, with its anti-aircraft guns and rockets acting as the deterrent to Israel's traditional policy of bombing Lebanon in any situation of political difficulty. It is for this same reason that Israel - and hence the US - would like to see Hizbullah dismantled. The US has classified Hizbullah as a major terrorist organisation from its inception, and continues to blame it for the 258 US fatalities from the 1983 bomb attacks on the US embassy in Beirut and its marine barracks, even though the perpetrators have never been identified. The EU by contrast doesn't label Hizbullah as a whole as a terrorist organisation: they make a false distinction between Hizbullah, which can be coordinated with, and what they call the "External Security Organisation", which is classed as a terrorist organisation to appease the US.

It is not likely to be long before Woolsey's jibe at the Syrian leaders as "fascists" will be picked up by leading members of the US administration. On the face of it, the level of democracy in Syria is comparable with that in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The Ba'th party - albeit a rival wing from that in charge in Iraq for 35 years from 1968 - has been in charge of Syria since 1963. The Asads - father and son - have ruled since 1970, with a support base in one of the tribal confederations of the minority Alawite sect. Hafiz al-Asad crushed popular rebellions led from the majority Sunni Muslim population, most notably the slaughter in the city of Hama in north Syria in 1982, which killed around 10,000 people.

Soon after Bashar al-Asad's rule began, the "Damascus Spring" of 2001 brought six months of political progress in which the most notorious prison was closed, internet cafés were opened, and articles mildly critical of the regime were permitted in the press. By September 2001, the progress was halted when leading civil rights activists were arrested and criticism curtailed. Nevertheless, a process of gradual political reform remains on the cards. In the wake of the Iraq war, Syrian intellectuals have been arguing that the only way to forestall a US invasion would be to engage the people in a popular process of democratisation.

The Syrian leadership may view its links with Hizbullah and its internal reforms as negotiating chips, to use in an attempt to bolster its relations with the US. However, it is far from clear that the present US administration understands or is willing to pay attention to subtle political manoeuvring. Although the US administration now seems to be downplaying its earlier threats to Syria, it bases its foreign policy towards states perceived to be hostile on the use of force against dissent rather than on attempts to encourage and appreciate cooperation. In such a situation, the potential for the US to make unsustainable demands from the Syrian regime, resulting in the eventual use of force when those demands cannot be met, remains high.

Author: Glen Rangwala

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