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DAMASCUS: Syria has many reasons to oppose a US attack to oust its neighbour Iraqi President Saddam Hussein — not least fears it could be next if Washington succeeds in getting control of Baghdad.
Although historically there is little love lost between the rival Baath party regimes in Damascus and Baghdad, Syria’s worry is that Washington will use any eventual control of Iraq to tip the balance of power in the fragile Middle East.
“The Syrians are nervous about having next door a puppet US regime, leaving them between an American-backed Israel on one side and a new US-installed regime in Iraq on the other,” one Syria-based analyst said.
“They are also nervous about the United States securing a quick success and moving next to change the regime in Syria because they shelter anti-Israeli groups,” he added.
Syria, long a fixture on a US list of rogue states that sponsor “terrorism”, has incensed Washington by backing militant Palestinian groups bent on the destruction of Israel such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad as well as Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
A traditional bone of contention between Damascus and Washington has also been Syria’s insistence that Palestinian suicide attacks against Israelis are legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation, and not “terrorism”.
“Their problem is not about toppling Saddam but about who would come in his place,” a Western diplomat said. “They see a pro-American regime replacing Saddam as more of a threat than Saddam now. They prefer a pariah and an outcast neighbour to a successful pro-American candidate.”
OIL WINDFALL: Almost as important to Syria at the moment, analysts say, is the invaluable contribution Iraq makes through oil to Syria’s economy. Turkey, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt have also found favour with Iraq through oil or trade contracts.
Syria, oil industry sources say, illegally receives about 150,000 barrels of Iraqi crude oil each day at a big discount, flouting UN sanctions via a pipeline that was closed for nearly two decades until it was reopened in 2000.
“The Syrian economy is in bad shape, it is so stagnant that they have no choice. Oil is a major windfall for the Syrian economy. It is a way of making money,” said one diplomat.
“Naturally, that gives them strong economic benefits in not disrupting the situation and maintaining the status quo with Saddam in place,” the diplomat added.
Damascus denies violating the sanctions imposed on Baghdad after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait and says oil trade with Iraq is in compliance with the UN sanctions oil-for-food programme.
Apart from the threat of losing that windfall, Syria fears Iraq could implode — and possibly take its neighbours with it.
Damascus is concerned about the possibility that Iraq might disintegrate along sectarian and ethnic lines in a post-Saddam environment — with Shias taking over the south and Kurds controlling the north and whatever emerges in Baghdad.
“Any US attack on Iraq means fragmenting Iraq and this is a danger that threatens all the countries of the region. We oppose any such action,” said Yasser Nehlawi, a member of the Syrian Parliament Committee for national security.
NO TEARS FOR SADDAM: Syria believes the US preoccupation with Iraq, traditionally a bitter enemy of Damascus, is misplaced at a time when violence is raging between the Palestinians and Israel, which also has weapons of mass destruction.
They attribute the plan to move on Iraq to Washington’s “double standard” toward Israel and point out that such a military action could inflame Arab streets, where anti-US sentiment has been rising because of Washington’s support for Israel.
“Israel alone has innumerable nuclear and biological weapons. Why aren’t they holding it accountable?” Nehlawi said.
But despite the public opposition, analysts believe that when the moment of truth comes Syria will jump out of the way.
Over decades of enmity, Syria and Iraq skirmished and plotted against each other. The animosity was manifested in Baghdad’s support of the Muslim Brotherhood’s revolt that was crushed by late President Hafez al-Assad in 1980’s.
It is partly for this reason that some analysts believe that the Syrians will try somehow to come out on the winning side.
“Nobody will shed any tears for Saddam. The Syrians don’t really like Saddam or his regime,” said one analyst. “They themselves were on the receiving end of his aggression...They hate his guts but they no longer think he’s the threat that we make him to be.
“At the last minute the Syrians will find a way to reconcile themselves and Syrian public opinion with whatever gains they can get. When the hour comes, they will adjust. After all, they want to survive,” the analyst said.
Many observers recall how Hafez al-Assad shocked the world when he decided to endorse the US-led alliance that drove Saddam out of Kuwait.
“It was unbelievable and this time too all is possible. They are still capable of changing their position,” one European diplomat said.—Reuters
