Something Afoot in Syria

By Robert G. Hazo

A proposal to reconcile with the enemy of an ally normally means that a switch of sides is being contemplated. That was the general assumption during the recent flurry of reports about a possible rapprochement between Syria and Iraq. But the initiative's abrupt halt suggests that Syria had something bigger in mind.

King Hussein was said to have broached the proposed realignment during President Assad's May 5 visit to Amman. Such an initiative probably was also a motivation for King Hussein's earlier fence-mending visit to Damascus. Assad's reaction was to call for an immediate summit conference between himself and his arch-rival, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq. Saddam Hussein's counterproposal was a Foreign Ministers' meeting. Since it is doubtful that King Hussein would have broached the idea of a realignment without first clearing it with Saddam Hussein, either the Iraqi President was having second thoughts or, more likely, received Syrian conditions he did not like. From that point on, developments mostly went downhill. King Hussein announced a meeting of Syrian and Iraqi foreign ministers, along with formation of a committee of reconciliation. But just before the meeting was to be held, it was cancelled or indefinitely postponed.

What happened? The press has offered one scenario but the circumstances suggest that Syria had in mind an even more dramatic one. Either would change the entire strategic map of the Middle East.

As reflected in media reports, the proposal made by Hussein to Assad was cast as a simple switch of sides by Syria, less in order to gain advantages for Syria than to remove the substantial liabilities resultant from Syrian support of Iran.

Syria was experiencing severe financial strains. It has a $10 billion plus debt to the Soviet Union that needs continual servicing. Its oil supply from Iran had been cut back because it owed Iran somewhere between $1 and $2 billion. It had had to make do with a diminishing subsidy from Saudi Arabia as part of the pressure put on it to cease backing Iran. Also, for years Syria has lost millions in transit fees by shutting down the pipeline carrying Iraqi oil through its territory.

The hint that Syria hoped to turn these economic liabilities into a political triumph was the mention not only of proposed reconciliation between Syria and Iraq but also of political union, either in the form of an outright merger or of a federation of the two states. For Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states to achieve what they wanted from a reconciliation, political union or federation would not only not be necessary, but would be seen by some of them, Iraq primarily, as disadvantageous.

The view that the concept of political unity was of Syrian origin in reaction to the original proposal is lent support by the fact that the idea caught the diplomatic community in Washington totally by surprise.

The Syrian government has been, with reservations, backing the Gemayel government in Lebanon and for some time has found the attacks on that government by the Hezbollah and other Iranian-oriented Shia groups in Lebanon increasingly troublesome.

President Assad was bothered when Western nations labelled Syria a terrorist state. He seems to have been less concerned at the possibility of an attack by the United States, which was probably not a serious threat in any case, than at the loss of world prestige by being lumped with Libya and Iran in a general pariah classification. In Greece, on his first official visit to a Western country in some years, he maintained that Syria did not engage in or sponsor terrorism and that it condemned terrorist action. Syria certainly has used surrogate groups for a variety of purposes, especially in Lebanon, and it may have allowed some of them too long a leash. But its normal pattern has been to exercise substantial control over their activities. Putting a bomb aboard an El Al jet or planting one in a disco in Germany to injure servicemen are not Assad's style.

Among liabilities it has had to contend with as a result of supporting Iran is domestic sabotage, presumably by Iraqi agents. Before Assad's visit to Amman, reports had leaked of over a hundred Syrian casualties from bombings. While in Amman, Assad said the real figure was close to 2,000, including a number of military cadets killed in the bombing of a train.

Finally, since the recent seizure by Iran of indisputedly Arab land in the Fao Peninsula, it has been awkward for Syria to support Iran against another Arab state given its long-standing, highly-touted devotion to the Arab Nation as espoused in its Baathist philosophy. So sensitive has the Syrian government been on this subject that it sought and received assurances that Iran would not attack Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states threatened by Iranian forces.

Since the Syria-Iraq reconciliation proposal frightened Iran into supplying Syria with a fresh infusion of petroleum on credit, conventional wisdom accepted this as the reason for postponement of the meeting of foreign ministers.

In fact, however, there are reasons to believe that Assad has had in mind all along a more far-reaching strategy consistent with his long-range national goals. Those goals are: Syrian ascendancy as a leader if not the leader in the Arab world and development of the strongest possible military force to confront what Assad has always defined as the real threat to Syria and the Arabs: Israeli expansionism. It was Assad's pursuit of these two goals that made him oppose the Camp David treaty as a separate peace and a sell-out of the Arab cause. It was the same kind of thinking that inclined him to adopt the goal of strategic parity with Israel, and go it alone if necessary. Ironically, these goals motivated his support of Iran against Iraq. He considered Saddam Hussein a serious competitor for Arab world leadership, and he regarded Iran as a potential strong ally of the Arabs against Israel.

Right after the Camp David agreement in 1978 removed Egypt from the lineup of Arab states confronting Israel, Assad called for unity with Iraq and for putting aside differences between the Syrian and Iraqi sectors of the Baath party. Preliminary steps had already been taken to implement Syrian-Iraqi union in 1978 and 1979 when Saddam Hussein abrogated it. The Iraq-Iran war followed in 1980.

Approached on behalf of Iraq by Arab intermediaries also threatened by Iran, it is a good guess that Assad saw an opportunity for a breathtaking move that, if successful, could not only reconcile Syria and Iraq but also result in a northern tier of Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran united against a common foe. The vehicle would be the forging of a Syrian-Iraqi political union on whose behalf Assad could approach Iran about peace negotiations. Iran would find it hard to refuse Assad, its long-time ally. Saddam Hussein would step out of the limelight and Assad, representing all the Fertile Crescent Arabs, would be betting he could talk the Iranian regime out of its goal of establishing a fundamentalist regime in Iraq or at least get the Iranians to de-emphasize any such plans until Khomeini's death removed the impetus behind them. Any reparation to Iran would be spread over time and paid for by the Gulf oil-producers.

If Assad insisted the Israeli threat is the first order of business, the argument would likely not fall on deaf ears in Iran or Iraq. When Lebanon was invaded in 1982, prominent leaders in Iran's parliament proposed that Iranian and Iraqi forces stop fighting each other and march side by side to Lebanon to fight the Zionist invader. Since then the Iraqis have riposted with offers to facilitate the transit of Iraqi territory by Iranians wishing to fight Israel.

If this was Assad's proposal, his audacious gambit failed. Iraq intensified public criticism of Syria after the Foreign Ministers' meeting was cancelled.

It is unlikely, however, that the matter will end with a simple return to the status quo ante, because it is doubtful that King Hussein would have made any overture to Assad unless it had strong Saudi support and some chance of success with the Iraqi government. Although the war is putting severe economic strains on Iran and military strains on Iraq, there nevertheless seems to be little hope that the war will just peter out short of Khomeini's death or some dramatic initiative from the Arab side. Whatever form that initiative takes, it is likely to be accompanied by a call to all of the Islamic nations involved to resolve their present bloody impasse by uniting into a formidable and unprecedented coalition confronting Israel.

Robert G. Hazo is Chairman of the Middle East Policy Association and Senior Public Policy consultant of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.