USCFL - On Syria and American Mideast Policy: Will Syria Retain its Regional Influence?

Ever since his ascendance to power in September 1970, Syrian late president Hafez Assad succeeded in carving out for his country an influential political position on the Middle Eastern stage, mainly in the framework of the Arab Israeli conflict. Historically, apart from the Damascus-based Umayyad era, geographical Syria has hardly played any significant role in the Middle Eastern politics. Rather, Damascus has always been subject to influence from the three centers of power in the region; Iraq, Egypt and Turkey. During the height of the cold war, Assad made use of the prevalent world order to transform Syria from an insignificant country in the politics of the region to a regional power to be reckoned with, when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Through tactical realignments in line with the continuous transformation of the International world order, Assad secured his place in any envisioned Mideast peace project.

This paper will briefly trace the ascendance of Syria into an influential regional player in the framework of the Arab-Israeli conflict since the empowerment of Hafez Assad, attempt to identify Syria’s elements of regional influence and determine whether Syria will succeed in preserving its means of regional influence in the post-Saddam regional order.

Right from the beginning, Assad’s cunning policy was instrumental in preserving Syrian Ba’th regime on the regional stage. By declining to interfere in favor of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and withholding air-cover in their confrontation with the Jordanian monarchy in September 1970, Assad succeeded in averting a regional, and possibly international, crisis and avoiding a self-destructive confrontation with Israel and the United States which would not have allowed the fall of the pro-Western Jordanian monarchy.[1]

Later on Assad would strengthen his regional position by sponsoring radical Palestinian factions mainly operating across the Israeli-Lebanese border. Unsurprisingly, Syria has always had the intention of controlling the Palestinian political and military institutions for the following reasons: (1) to play the Palestinian card in peace negotiations, (2) to achieve an all-Arab leadership in the struggle against Israel, (3) to increase diplomatic pressure on Israel in the world community, and (4) to increase the rate of military pressure through cross-border Palestinian guerrilla warfare.[2] This policy was partly successful as Syria controlled, sponsored or armed several radical Palestinian factions, allowing them to open offices on its territory.

By destabilizing Lebanon, an open political system surrounded by authoritarian states and thus the natural the stage for proxy wars between its powerful regional neighbors, Assad succeeded in consolidating the regional influence of his country in the region. After arming Palestinian factions and Lebanese Leftist militias, Assad moved to Lebanon in 1976 to avert a possible wipe out of Christian forces in their enclave. The intervention was justified on grounds that; (1) a Palestinian-Leftist victory in Lebanon would draw an Israeli retaliation bringing the Israeli threat closer to Syria’s borders, and (2) a Christian defeat would leave them no recourse but to opt for Israel. Ultimately, enforcing a pax-Syriana over Lebanon would increase Syria’s diplomatic leverage through controlling the political process in a country bordering Israel on the one hand, and the military leverage by sponsoring Palestinian, and later on Hezbollah, guerrilla attacks against Israeli forces in south Lebanon on the other. Syria’s leverage peaked when finally the United States, following a serious but failed attempt to stabilize Lebanon in 1982, renounced it as a Syrian sphere of influence. In 1990, and in return for Syrian support for the international coalition for the liberation of Kuwait, Syria would complete its control over Lebanon and launch its proxy war in south Lebanon against the Israeli occupying forces.

Since the mid 1970s the United States has acquiesced to Syria’s Middle Eastern regional role as a stabilizing factor. However, today the successful American military campaign in Iraq is a historically unmatched instance of American power projection in the Middle East. Following the dismantling of the Soviet Union there was no doubt that the United States would emerge as a unilateral superpower in the new world order. However, the September 11 terrorist attacks speeded up the process as the United States set out to launch its all-out assault against global terrorism and adopt an aggressive defense strategy aimed at preempting perceived threats before they reach American shores.[3]

In that framework, Iraq would be the first instance of American power projection on the international stage following its retaliation against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. With its 130,000-strong coalition military force in control of the most resourceful country in the Middle East, the United States would declare a new strategic balance of power in the making and warn unruly countries against the danger of opposing American interests. It is in this context that the United States launched its diplomatic offensive against Syria for openly supporting Saddam’s regime and allegedly hiding Iraqi top-ranking Ba’thist officials and weapons of mass destruction.[4] The intended message? Room for compromise… no more.

The recurrent American warnings that unruly Middle Eastern countries should understand that a new strategic balance in the region is in the making is commensurate to an American declaration that from now on Washington intends to play a role proportional to its political and military weight. The proclaimed goals of America’s Mideastern policy hinges on two major issues; (1) Stabilizing the Iraq and setting up a friendly regime and (2) concluding peace between Israel and the Palestinian authority as a prelude to comprehensive Middle East peace. This requires the United States to neutralize the bargaining power of regimes opposed to the American vision of Mideast peace.

In that context the United States has made clear, most recently during its Secretary of State Colin Powell’s to Lebanon,[5] the fact that it will not tolerate any Syrian destabilizing activity to interfere with its efforts to stabilize Iraq. Thus, the United States has demanded that Syria (1) close its borders to Iraqi officials seeking refuge in Syria and hand over any Iraqi officials that might have infiltrated through the Syrian-Iraqi porous border, (2) refrain from intervening in Iraqi affairs, and (3) relinquish its weapons of mass destruction.

On the other hand the United States has also declared that it expects Syria to play a constructive role in promoting the Roadmap for Mideast Peace drafted by the International Quartet, which constitutes the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. Regardless whether the United States will actively work towards achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal during the current administration or the next, and provided that the current administration succeeds in returning to office for a second term or that its successor carries on the same foreign policy strategy, it is expected that the United States will actively step up pressure against Syria to undermine its long-cherished elements of regional influence. These constitute the following:

a- Shutting down offices of Palestinian radical Factions in Syria: Since the mid 1960s Syria has been able to influence Palestinian decisions via its support, sponsorship, finance and arming of radical and rejectionist Palestinian factions operating within the Palestinian Organization or otherwise. The US expects Syria to relinquish its support and financing of these groups and refrain from attempting to undermine the Roadmap and Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations through the indirect support of the rejectionist agenda harbored by these groups.

b- Disarming Hezbollah: Since its complete domination over Lebanon, Syria has succeeded in bringing Hezbollah under its complete control. Via Hezbollah, Syria stepped up pressure against Israel by launching a proxy war against Israeli forces in south Lebanon. In 1996, the United States and the international community intervened to avert a wide scale confrontation along the Israeli-Lebanese and possibly Israeli-Syrian border following threats by Hezbollah to target Israeli heartland as retaliation to Israeli aggressions against Lebanese civilians. This culminated in the adoption of the April understanding that legitimized Shiite guerrilla activity against Israeli occupation soldiers. Ultimately, the war culminated in the withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied parts Southern Lebanon. Today, after a complete Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon, the United States is no longer ready to tolerate such activity. The United States expects Syria to dismantle Hezbollah’s military wing as a prelude to a Lebanese army deployment along the Lebanese-Israeli border.

c- Allowing the deployment of the Lebanese army along the Lebanese-Israeli border: In line with the United Nation’s declaration that Israel has unilaterally withdrawn its forces from South Lebanon and implemented UN Security Council Resolution 425, the United States expects Syria to allow Lebanon deploy its army along the Lebanese-Israeli border in line with that resolution. The United States intends to deny Syria any opportunity to influence Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations via unidentified or uncontrolled guerrilla cross-border attacks.

d- Relaxing Syria’s security regime and emergency law: Ever since Assad seized power by force of arms, he has employed the institutions of the Ba’th party and security and intelligence forces to consolidate his grip over the regime. The United States is expected to demand the relaxation of Syria’s security regime and emergency law which has allowed the Syrian regime to defer attending to Syria’s mounting domestic problems in the name of tackling the greater regional threats emanating from the presence of a “strange Israeli entity in the heart of the Arab Nation.” The United States is expected to pressure Syria into adopting reforms in line with its new vision of a liberal Middle East.

e- Withdrawal from Lebanon: Syrian hegemony over Lebanon has allowed Syria to strengthen its diplomatic and negotiating position in the framework of the Middle East peace process. It has also provided the launching ground for a long and persistent proxy guerrilla war against Israel first via Palestinian factions and later on via Hezbollah. A complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon did not prevent Syria from continuing its support on the grounds that Israel continues to occupy a small strip of Lebanese territory, Shebaa Farms. Moreover, initially the United States considered Syria a stabilizing force in Lebanon in as much as it possessed the resources to actively destabilize it and undermine its security. Today, with its 130,000 troops at the gates of Syria, the United States is not expected to tolerate such behavior. Thus pressure is expected to mount on Damascus to withdraw its forces from Lebanon.

The US led campaign against the Iraqi regime signaled in the emergence of a new Middle Eastern regional order. For a long time the American position regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict has provided the pretext for anti-Americanism among the majority of the Arab people. The success of the American-led coalition in toppling the regime of Saddam Hussein provides a rare and valuable opportunity to solve the Arab-Israeli dilemma once and for all. For that purpose, the United States has assembled, in cooperation with Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, a Roadmap for Middle East Peace envisioning a just solution for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.[6] This multilateral effort is intended to give the Roadmap wide-range international support and legitimacy. Furthermore, the United States is aware that prospects for its success are dim unless the United States actively imposes it on the fighting parties. For this purpose the United States will need to pressure Israel and the Palestinians into making painful concessions and prevent all regional players from negatively influencing this process. Syrian elements of regional influence have simply become incompatible with the American envisioned plan for Mideast peace.

[1] For a detailed account of this incident, see Moshe Ma’oz, Assad the Sphinx of Damascus: A Political Biography, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988, p. 84,

[2] Ibid., p. 119.

[3] For details of the New National Security Strategy of the United States, see The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, The White House, September 2002.

[4] See for example, “Rumsfeld says top Saddam aides escaped into Syria,” April 14, 2002, http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030414-22290439.htm, May 6, 2002.

[5] See for Example, “Beirut wa Dimashk Tarayan Manakhan Hiwarian Biroghm Al-Mataleb Al-Mouta3adida,” As-Safir, May 5, 2002, p.1.

[6] See, “A Performance-Based Road Map to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Washington Post, April 30, 2003, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59050-2003Apr30?language=printer, May 6, 2003.

Would you like to comment on this article?

If you would like to send us your thoughts on this article, please click the button below:

If you would like to read feedback submitted by other visitors, please click on the button below:

Article:	On Syria and American Mideast Policy: Will Syria Retain its Regional Influence?
Author:	Fouad Al Aswad
Date:	May 2003