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Road To Damascus
Slate takes a neat look at the would-be Ahmed Chalabi of Syria. The absurdity of much of the "get Syria" agenda is tending to obscure the fact that we do, in fact, have a Syria problem on our hands of small but serious scope. This is the management of the Syrian-Iraqi border. If we, in cooperation with the governments of Syria and Iraq, can get that border shut down then it should be possible for the Iraqi government to sustain itself over the longterm without open-ended United States support. If we can't, then there are going to be problems. Rattling a saber or two Syria's way as part of an effort to get that border shut down makes sense since Syria has, historically, given in to saber-rattling. But making that work requires us to set priorities and indicate a willingness to lay off on Hezbollah/Israel/Lebanon type stuff if we can get Syria to cooperate with us on Iraq, which is much more important and much more urgent. Syrian sponsorship of anti-Israeli terrorism is ugly, but not fundamentally our problem.
February 7, 2005 | Permalink
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Comments
Did you see the article in the Financial Times on the weekend about Lebanon and Syria? It is mostly about how rich, cynical twenty-somethings have set up civil war theme bars. But there is a bit about how much Assad has pissed off Chirac, and how France is trying to line up with the US neocons who think Syria is a more realistic next war than Iran.
Who knows? But if you see anything in the Moonie/Murdoch media or among the warbloggers about what an upstanding fellow Chirac is now, buy Tehran and sell Damascus.
Posted by: Gareth | Feb 7, 2005 12:55:23 PM
Does Likud even want us to invade Syria? I know they're enemies and all, but I think I might rather have a weak enemy on my border than utter chaos.
Posted by: JP | Feb 7, 2005 1:14:25 PM
What's the alternative to the cabal of minorities that currently runs Syria? Probably a fundamentalist Sunni regime.
Posted by: ahem | Feb 7, 2005 2:06:26 PM
The absurdity of much of the "get Syria" agenda is tending to obscure the fact that we do, in fact, have a Syria problem on our hands of small but serious scope.
Which makes Syria a lot like Iraq in 2003, or Social Security. This administration has a knack for making crises and catastrophes out of "small but serious" problems.
Posted by: cmdicely | Feb 7, 2005 2:07:28 PM
We could knock over the syrian military pretty easily, not considering their nerve gas. Would they use it? Would they use it on israeli cities? My guess is they wouldn't, they keep it only as a MAD-type deterrent to israeli nukes.
What excuse would we use to invade syria? We think the iraqi WMDs went there? The syrian government isn't a democracy and we want to liberate their people? They sponsor terrorists against israel? We don't need no steenkin' excuses?
Syria is a very poor country, particularly since we put sanctions on them. Smugglers who were willing to bribe would be an important income source for border guards etc. Are we ready to pay syrians considerably more than the smugglers? What about lifting the sanctions and selling (giving) syria modern weapons?
We want to scare the syrians into cooperating with us. If you were in charge of syria what would you do?
Would you do everything you could to help the USA get iraq completely conquered so our army wouldn't be pinned down there and could invade other countries? When the USA has made explicit threats to invade syria? When on the other hand that army (and air force) is already strong enough to wreck syria, without an occupation? What would you do?
Posted by: J Thomas | Feb 7, 2005 2:24:17 PM
What excuse would we use to invade syria?
Have you ever read the Syrian Accountability Act?
Apparently we are angry with them for having violated UN resolution 520 because we care so, so, so very much about Lebanese soveriegnty.
You have to know who the main people are and what they backed in the 80's and up to today to know just how far down the looking glas we are.
Posted by: absynthe | Feb 7, 2005 3:21:26 PM
[The] Road To Damascus
...is paved with guys in tents
BADUMP
thanks folks
Posted by: anonymous coward | Feb 7, 2005 3:46:41 PM
Have you ever read the Syrian Accountability Act?
Sponsored by Barbara Boxer no less! Who's pulling her strings (like we don't already know -- Likud of course!)
Posted by: Argyll | Feb 7, 2005 4:14:45 PM
What about lifting the sanctions and selling (giving) syria modern weapons?
Has Matt's blog been hijacked? Is this some kind of sophisticated parody ?
Posted by: Argyll | Feb 7, 2005 4:17:08 PM
What's the alternative to the cabal of minorities that currently runs Syria? Probably a fundamentalist Sunni regime.
Totally. They only know two kinds of government over there -- fascist military states or radical theocracies. Such a backward people!
Posted by: Argyll | Feb 7, 2005 4:24:28 PM
They only know two kinds of government over there -- fascist military states or radical theocracies. Such a backward people!
Strawman. Did I say anything resembling that? What's the dominant political opposition to the current Syrian regime? Which groups have the organization and experience to assert themselves as legitimate successors, after years of a police state? The true believers, that's who: the sons of Hama.
This is one issue, for instance, in Jordan's slow political transition: an attempt to create a political climate which isn't dominated by radicalised voices from mosques. Take a look at what King Hussein is trying to do before jerking that knee, asshole.
Posted by: ahem | Feb 7, 2005 5:06:09 PM
OT (somewhat) but anyone interested in Syrian affairs should be checking out Josh Landis' blog regularly.
Posted by: Argyll | Feb 7, 2005 5:18:04 PM
"Take a look at what King Hussein is trying to do"
Not very much, actually, considering that he died in 1999 . . .
Posted by: rea | Feb 7, 2005 5:51:23 PM
"Does Likud even want us to invade Syria? I know they're enemies and all, but I think I might rather have a weak enemy on my border than utter chaos."
If Syria acts as a funnel for support to rejectionist groups in the Pal Territories just when a renewed peace process is looking possible, then Israelis of all political stripes might decide that chaos in Syria is preferable to chaos in the Pal territories.
Besides, chaos might come eventually anyway.
Posted by: liberalhawk | Feb 7, 2005 6:04:31 PM
Indeed the Syrians will never fully achieve "modernity" until they adopt our ultra-modern US methods of border control! Oh wait ... um ... never mind.
Comparisons:
Syria-Iraq border: 1500 kilometers
US-Mexico border: 3200 kilometers
Syrian 2003 GDP: $58 billion
US 2003 GDP: $11 trillion
Syria should adopt a public position on their border difficulties that is sure to appeal to the Bush White House. The border crossers are merely "unofficial guest workers", who are needed in Iraq to do the kind of low-compensation work - housekeeping, falafel flipping, suicide bombing, decapitaions, etc. - that Iraqis "just won't do themselves".
Posted by: Dan Kervick | Feb 7, 2005 6:31:52 PM
It's worth remembering that the worst tragedies of the Vietnam war were inflicted on the Cambodian people, not the Vietnamese people, as American policy followed a similar interdiction concern.
Posted by: Petey | Feb 7, 2005 6:36:30 PM
I wonder how many of the warnutters are aware that Syria has a substantial Christian minority that has, by and large, enjoyed not merely religious freedom but considerable state protection and patronage. While Syria's government is authoritarian, it is secular: one of the Assads' key strategies has been to carefully balance the influence of the competing religions.
It would be ironic if the "war on Islamism" ended up choosing as its first two targets the middle east's only two secular states! It would also likely spell the end of one of the last two mainstream Christian community in the middle east (the other being in Lebanon): everywhere else, under authoritarian and democratic governments alike, indigenous Christians have been persecuted and squeezed to the point of extinction.
Posted by: Mork | Feb 7, 2005 9:49:59 PM
It would be ironic if the "war on Islamism" ended up choosing as its first two targets the Middle East's only two secular states!
Yes, the Likudniks can't seem to decide whom they hate worse - Arabs who sometimes happen to be Muslim, or Muslims who sometimes happen to be Arab. Looks like the former at the moment.
Posted by: Dan Kervick | Feb 7, 2005 11:01:28 PM
Dan Kervick,
Your comment about Syrian "guest workers" was priceless :-)
Posted by: synykyl | Feb 7, 2005 11:44:57 PM
"Your comment about Syrian "guest workers" was priceless :-)"
I was just about to say that, so I guess I'll just have to second it.
Posted by: Green Dem | Feb 8, 2005 1:35:36 AM
Mork -
But Syrian Christians are heretics! (Syriac Orthodox, IIRC - their missionaries established christianity in India during the time of the Roman empire). That's worse than being Muslim to the fundie right.
One thing that has really slipped down the memory hole is that under Saddam Iraqi Christians were long a privileged minority, just as in Syria. The minority Christians have historically been influential in Ba'athism throughout the ME, as they are in the PLO. That's one of the main reasons the PLO and Ba'ath have been secular.
Posted by: derrida derider | Feb 8, 2005 7:16:21 AM
"If Syria acts as a funnel for support to rejectionist groups in the Pal Territories just when a renewed peace process is looking possible, then Israelis of all political stripes might decide that chaos in Syria is preferable to chaos in the Pal territories."
The cause of chaos in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is not Syrian-supported "rejectionist groups", it is Israeli actions.
It's the occupation, stupid!
Posted by: Shirin | Feb 8, 2005 2:59:51 PM
syria and Iraq are hardly the Arab worlds only two secular states - there are several secularist regimes. And its a stretch calling post-91 Iraq secularist.
And again what are you talking about with Likudniks? All Likud pols Im aware of are busy with internal Israeli politics relating to the disengagement. You wouldnt happen to be using Likudnik to refer to somebody else, would you?
I thought this was supposed to be a "reality based" community.
Posted by: liberalhawk | Feb 8, 2005 5:02:41 PM
You aren't maybe using anti-semitism as a cover to try and cow someone into not saying bad things about your pet state and it's rather obvious geopolitical objectives are you?
Posted by: absynthe | Feb 8, 2005 5:10:09 PM
liberalhawk,
If you were addressing me, then I will say that I use the term "Likudniks" to refer mainly to American supporters of the Likud position - not to Likud politicians themselves.
Posted by: Dan Kervick | Feb 8, 2005 9:35:22 PM
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