Redstate

By streiff Posted in User Blogs — Comments (12) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

U.S. military intelligence officials have concluded that the Iraqi insurgency is being directed to a greater degree than previously recognized from Syria, where they said former Saddam Hussein loyalists have found sanctuary and are channeling money and other support to those fighting the established government.

--Rebels Aided by Allies in Syria, US Says.

A small (area about the size of North Dakota with a population slightly larger than Florida), relatively poor country (per capita income of $1,165) surrounded by hostile or ambivalent neighbors, Syria is by far the most curious entrant in the 21st century Great Game that is Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union.

Read on.Syria's actions to date concerning Iraq have been no less convoluted and conflicted than its relationship with the United States. Though technically still in a state of war with one of our key allies, Israel, it has been a cooperative partner on the intelligence front in active counterterrorism operations and in participating in the rendition of al Qaeda suspects and vigorously interrogating them.

It participated in substantial numbers in the Gulf War, if not particularly energetically, yet attempted to prevent a US invasion of Iraq. Evidence indicates that Syria accepted substantial transfers of equipment or materiel from Iraq weeks leading up to the Iraq War (here| here | here). Though it gave no aid or assistance, so far as we know, to Saddam Hussein, in the immediate aftermath of the war it seems that Syria refused sanctuary to Uday and Qusay as well as other high profile Ba'athists. Yet now it is apparent that Syria is condoning the coordination and funding of operations as well as the recruiting of fighters from the cafes of Damascus.

It does this in spite of 150,000 US troops on its border and an Iraqi government that has publicly blamed Syria for inciting violence in Iraq. And it does so in full knowledge that while the US troops will eventually leave the area that the bitterness created with Iraq will linger for years to come.

Given the counterintuitive and high risk nature of Syria's involvement in Iraq one has to ask, why do they bother? What do they possibly gain that could offset the risk?

It may be a mistake to attribute a coherent plan behind Damascus' actions. The Ba'ath parties in Syria and Iraq owed a great debt to the Soviet Union in how they ruled. Like the Soviet Union they were based on three independent pillars: the party, the army, and the security service. While this ensured the government was safe from a coup it also, absent strong leadership, resulted in the various pillars running amok. For instance, there is a great body of evidence that suggests that when Soviet air defense forces decided to splash KAL 007 on September 1, 1983 that the frail Yuri Andropov was left out of the loop.

Where the late Hafez al-Assad was firmly in control of all levers of power in Damascus in is much less certain that Bashir Assad controls his own government. Even if there is no single guiding force behind Syrian actions in Iraq, what would Damascus consider a successful outcome. To determine success, it is useful to see what outcomes would scare the bejeezus out of Assad and his henchmen.

Democratic Iraq. This is nightmare of the Syrian Ba'ath party. Already struggling with a nascent democracy movement, a sclerotic government, and a dead-in-the-water economy the last thing it needs on its eastern frontier is a large, wealthy (by Third World standards, anyway) democracy. The only worse outcome would be a large, wealthy democracy with a 3-division corps of US troops semi-permanently based there.

Failed State. An equally bad outcome for Syria would be an Iraq that has degenerated to a Somali or  Sudanese level of failure or an Iraq that splits into ethnic ministates. Trade through Iraq, especially the transport of Iraqi oil, is a key part of the Syrian economy. A failed state would either make trade through Iraq impossible or prohibitively expensive. Likewise a national disintegration of Iraq would force Syria to stand by as Turkey either snapped up Iraqi Kurdistan or moved to bring it within a Turkish sphere of influence.

After the two unacceptable outcomes we can move into outcomes that Syria could live with or even endorse.

Shi'a or Sunni Islamist State While not something the secular Ba'ath would prefer, it is an outcome it thinks it could finesse. Ruled by the Shi'a Alawite minority and a long time sponsor of the Lebanese Hezbollah, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Pasdaran, the Damascus regime believes it could peacefully coexist with a Shi'a islamist state. Likewise, it thinks it could coexist with a Sunni islamist state. Though the elder Assad slaughtered about 100,000 members of a Syrian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama the most obvious explanation of why the Syrians have allowed their country to be used as a transit route for jihadis and why they have allowed jihadis to be recruited through Syria and why there have been rumors of an attempted Ba'ath rapprochement with the Muslim Brotherhood is that Damascus is hedging its bets on the off chance that Zarqawi is successful.

Strongman. Syria probably views a Shi'a strongman as the ideal outcome. He would create a stable neighbor with the same religious views as the Syrian ruling elite and they probably assume that such a strongman would support the Hezbollah more consistently than did Saddam. A strongman could guarantee Iraq's territorial integrity, oil deliveries to and through Syria, and there would not be a nearby democracy to encourage any rogue small "l" liberals in Syria. There is probably a conceit among the Syrian Ba'athists that they could export the Syrian Ba'ath party to supplant the Sunni based Iraqi Ba'ath party. A Sunni strongman, a Saddam II regime, would be a secondary choice but they coexisted with one Sunni strongman for 30 years so they could do it again.

More than anything, though, Syria wants two outcomes for the United States. First and foremost they want us out of the region. This is likely only under two options: democracy or a Shi'a strongman who we see as a Kemal Ataturk figure. Secondly they want us to bleed sufficiently so that we will be hesitant about military intervention in the region in the future. For us to bleed, they must keep the insurgency alive without raising their profile sufficiently to get thumped. Whether they can calibrate their actions to achieve this goal is arguable. Richard Armitage, in his swan song as Deputy Secretary of State, laid down a marker this week in Damascus. Cutting through the "yo' mama" rhetoric, it seems like the Syrians might have gotten the message. The operative word is "might".

It is difficult to see how Syria wins in this adventure following their current strategy. The idea of us leaving the region with a failed state or Zarqawi/Khomeini regime in place is fairly slim. The idea that we will let them continue to bleed us without some kind of direct action is also remote. But Syria has demonstrated is that it is not averse to brinkmanship though its reach often exceeds its grasp and it responds aggressively to perceived weakness.

Unfortunately for all concerned, Syria may be viewing Iraq through the lens of the US intervention in Beirut and the US hostages in Lebanon without recognizing this is a different time, a different place, and a different United States.