The Foreign Service Journal, October 2005

which, in the final analysis, are convergent. There have long been tensions in the U.S.-Syrian relationship, of course, which the war has exacer- bated. Damascus opposed U.S. intervention in Iraq, not out of love for Saddam Hussein but as a result of its perceptions of threat. Despite the fact that the two countries share a history of Baath Party rule, Syria and Iraq were at loggerheads even before Saddam came to power in 1979. Yet Syria, like Iraq’s other Arab neighbors, was satisfied with the status quo: Saddam was weak enough not to threaten the region, yet strong enough to keep Iraq united. If Damascus became the most vocal regional critic of U.S. policy, it is because it had additional reasons for opposing the war. It opposed the concept of regime change, fearing it would become a precedent in inter- national relations: if strong nations do not like the lead- ership of their weaker rivals, they could take unilateral action to change the regime of their foe. In particular, Syria feared that Israel, its militarily superior rival, might one day embark on such an adventure. Nor did it relish the prospect of having 140,000 American troops at its doorstep. Syria is already surrounded by U.S.-backed powers, whether to its north, where Turkey is a powerful member of NATO; to its south, where Jordan is Washington’s closest Arab ally; or to its southwest — Israel. Moreover, it feared that the U.S. war in Iraq would cause northern Iraqi separatist Kurds to break away and proclaim an independent state of their own. Such an outcome would likely whet the appetite of Syria’s own Kurdish minority for greater autonomy. It is as a result of these perceptions of threat that Damascus facilitated, at least initially, the infiltration of jihadists into Iraq. Its aim in doing this was to tie down U.S. occupation forces in the hope that Washington would later turn to it for help in fighting the insurgents and stabilizing the new Iraqi government, much as it had done during the first Persian Gulf War. All Sticks, No Carrots Underlying Syria’s initial policy is the carrot-and-stick approach that the late Hafez Assad, the cur- rent president’s father, employed successfully vis-à-vis Washington. On the one hand, Syria frequently did Washington’s bid- ding to demonstrate that it could be useful in advancing U.S. interests in the region. Syria’s intervention in the Lebanese civil war, initially against the Muslim/ Palestinian alliance, is one case in point. Its stabilization of Lebanon and the assistance it rendered in gaining the release of American hostages there during the 1980s is another example. And its participation alongside U.S.- led coalition forces against Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War is yet another. On the other hand, Syria has never been shy about defending its national interests. Its support for Shiite groups resisting the U.S. peacekeeping presence in Lebanon during the early 1980s is just one example. As it turns out, however, that approach backfired against Damascus. For in the post-9/11 era, Washing- ton was in no mood to offer carrots. Moreover, Bashar Assad is not the master strategist his father was, nor does Russia provide the same patronage as the former Soviet Union did. Making matters worse, Assad, a political neophyte, badly underestimated longstanding American wrath against Syria and the intensity of the U.S.-Israel alliance, especially under the current administration. Even when Syria belatedly took measures to stop the infiltration of jihadists into Iraq, including the erec- tion of a 12-foot-high wall along a section of its 360- mile border, the deployment there of 15,000 troops, the arrest of over 2,000 Syrian and non-Syrian would- be infiltrators, and the repatriation of the latter to their countries of origin (Saudi Arabia and Jordan), Washington continued to pursue a policy of “sticks only” with Damascus. The U.S. imposed economic sanctions against Syria, withdrew its ambassador from Damascus, helped evict Syrian forces from Lebanon and, to further isolate Syria, pressed its European allies to postpone the signing of the E.U.-Syrian Associate Agreement. Nor would Washington provide Syria with F O C U S 50 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 5 By ostracizing Syria, Washington is opening itself up to unintended consequences. Murhaf Jouejati is the director of the Middle East Studies program and a visiting assistant professor of political sci- ence and international affairs at The George Washington University. He is also an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute.