DAMASCUS: As the United States faces growing challenges in Iraq, help could come from an unexpected source.
Syria, a member of the United Nations Security Council which strongly opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq, is now ready to send peacekeeping troops.
Given the right conditions, of course. “Syria would be ready to send troops to Iraq only after the United Nations has the final say in Iraq and if a deadline for the American withdrawal is put,” Bouthaina Shaaban, Syria’s new minister for expatriates told IPS.
“If these two points are addressed, then the Arab League, including Syria, would review an Arab contribution to rebuilding Iraq,” Shaaban said. “This is the only way to send troops to Iraq.”
Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa says his country would try to meet any “reasonable” requests from Washington to send troops to Iraq. Conditional as it is, the gesture is the latest signal that the Syrian regime is seeking to mend its strained relations with the United States.
Since March when the war in Iraq began, the Ba’athist government of President Bashar Assad has never been out of Washington’s line of political fire.
Members of the US administration have accused Syria of assisting the Iraqi military by sending them night-vision equipment, of allowing Islamist jihadis to cross the porous border into Iraq to fight US troops, of supporting major terrorist organisations with offices in Damascus, and of possessing and developing weapons of mass destruction. Damascus has consistently denied these charges. Now, five months after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Syria potentially stands to become one of the biggest winners from the war.
Fears that the United States would close the border with Iraq have proved unfounded. While business has yet to reach pre-war levels, the future of bilateral trade between the two countries looks bright.
Syria agreed recently to supply electricity to Mosul in northern Iraq in exchange for oil. Rail links between the two countries reopened in July, and trucks carrying goods from Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey cross into Iraq daily.
Any peacekeeping operations would bring significant financial gains for Syria.
“With the United States struggling with near anarchy, rising troop casualties, dilapidated infrastructure and soaring costs, Washington will need the support of Iraq’s neighbours,” says Fayex Sayegh, political analyst and former head of Syria’s state- run TV and radio station.
Syria has influence with the Sunni tribes in Iraq, which are an extension of Syria’s own tribes, as well as with Kurds in the north and the Shias in the south, Sayegh says. It is an influence that the United States values.
That influence is being put to work already. Syria “will do all that it can to help Iraqi people out of their ordeal,” Assad told leaders from 20 Iraqi tribes this week. He added that the United Nations should be given the last say in Iraq.
Imad Fawzi Shuaibi, a political analyst who lectures at Damascus University, suggests that “Syria’s conditional offer of assistance is likely to add further pressure on the administration of US President George W. Bush to allow the United Nations a greater say in Iraq’s future.”
Bush has asked the United Nations General Assembly for help in the reconstruction of Iraq. He said it was time to set aside past differences over the US-led invasion.
“Now the nation of Iraq needs and deserves our aid — and all nations of goodwill should step forward and provide that support,” Bush said in his speech, six months after the United States and Britain invaded Iraq without UN backing.
Contrary moves in the US Congress do not seem to worry Syria. The Congress debated the Syria Accountability Act last week, which threatens sanctions against Damascus unless it renounces support to militant anti-Israel groups, abandons its alleged pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and withdraws its forces from neighbouring Lebanon.
Samir al-Taqi, political analyst and former Syrian lawmaker, argues that contrary to popular belief, the leadership in Damascus is not uncomfortable with the presence of US troops in Iraq. “They’re happy to see the Americans as their neighbours,” he says.
“Before the war, the Americans were conducting Middle East policy from afar, by remote control,” he says. “Now that they are here, everything that happens in Baghdad will keep Mr Bush awake at night. We have become de facto partners‘Syria is just waiting for the Americans to come and ask for their help.”—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.
