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Why Syria needs the
US
By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - Syria has set off a border
skirmish with the Americans and Iraqis, but words
are flying, not bullets.
Syrian President
Bashar Assad recently told an American newspaper a
vastly different story about who is guarding his
605-kilometer border with Iraq than what is coming
out of the other side.
"Who to cooperate
with?" he asked when questioned about Syria's
joint participation in minding the border. "If you
go to the border, there are only Syrian guards on
our side. But if you look at the Iraqi side, there
is nobody. No Iraqi guards, no American guards.
Nobody."
The Americans and the Iraqis were
angered by his remarks because they contradicted
everything they have been saying since 2003. Soon
after Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr fueled
the diplomatic row by charging that Syria is
supporting the infiltration of terrorists into
Iraq.
Many in the Middle East are confused
about whether to believe the Syrians or the
Americans and Iraqis.
The Arabs have
generally believed over the past two years that
Syria was supporting the insurgency in Iraq out of
conviction that so long as Iraq remains ablaze,
the Americans will not be able to interfere with
the behavior of the Syrians. The thinking goes
they will have too much on their plate to
criticize Syria for meddling in Palestinian and
Lebanese affairs or interfere in Syrian domestics.
The Syrians will play this game, everybody
believes, until President George W Bush leaves the
White House in another three-and-a-half years.
The counter-argument, however, suggests
that if the Islamic insurgency continues in Iraq,
it might spill over into Syria and create problems
and chaos for the Syrians. This is the Syrian
argument: if chaos prevails in Iraq, then it will
also prevail in Syria. The Syrians were unable to
bear a civil war in Lebanon in the 1970s and
1980s, fearing for their own stability and safety.
Likewise, they will be unable to bear civil war in
Iraq.
The Syrians believe they have done
their share in combating Islamic terrorism. On
July 12, Syria's ambassador to Great Britain, Sami
al-Khiyyami, pledged that his country would help
the United Kingdom track down those involved in
the terrorist attacks in London on July 7. He
said: "Anything that the UK asks for, we will
respond to positively. Syria is fully ready to
cooperate against terrorism."
Assad even
contacted British Prime Minister Tony Blair,
offering his condolences and pledging his support
to punish the London terrorists. Other indicators
showing that Syria is cooperating with the US in
the "war on terrorism" is that Damascus arrested,
in the past few months alone, more than 1,300
Arabs trying to cross the border into Iraq. In his
recent newspaper interview, Assad said that the
number was 1,500.
Syria on a recent day
arrested 11 suspects trying to cross the border
into Iraq. Syria is saying aloud that its
cooperation is not only out of a desire to
cooperate with the Americans but because it also
feels threatened by Islamic fundamentalism. True,
it did turn a blind eye to the fighters who
crossed the border to fight in Iraq in 2003, but
Syria soon realized the folly of such an action.
When the fighters were defeated or deported back
to Syria, a combination of frustration, anger and
despair took over. Unable to strike at the
Americans or the next-door Israelis, they
unleashed their anger on their fellow Syrians.
Syria has repeatedly said since 2003 that
chaos in Iraq does not serve its interests, since
disenchanted warriors can leave Iraq where weapons
are in abundance, return to Syria and create a
nightmare for Syria's secular regime. In April
2004, that happened when several terrorists
attacked a UN building in the Mezzeh neighborhood
of Damascus, killed a young teacher and police
officer. Also in 2004, Syria foiled a planned
attack by an armed man on the US Embassy in
Damascus. Several other attacks have taken place
since then, and more recently, a group of
terrorists was apprehended, after much shooting,
on Mount Qassiun overlooking the Syrian capital.
Earlier this summer, Syria announced that
it had arrested one man and killed another who had
been planning an attack in Damascus on the behalf
of a terrorist organization called Jund al-Sham.
This group had planned to send a three-year-old
girl with explosives into the crowded Palace of
Justice in Damascus. The Syrians say the weapons
and money for these terrorist networks is coming
from Iraq and Lebanon. This should give the
Syrians enough ammunition to monitor its border
with Iraq and more reason to keep close tabs on
everything coming in from Lebanon. True,
intimidation and revenge are the real reasons
Syria has kept Lebanese cargo trucks on the
Syrian-Lebanese border for weeks, but part of the
Syrian strategy is security. This month two cargo
trucks found carrying explosives tried to cross
the border into Syria. One was coming from the
Bekka Valley, carrying 100 kilograms of TNT, the
other from the northern border with weapons hidden
in cement containers.
Thought
control
Part of Syria's ploy to contain
fundamentalism is to control the thought of
potential terrorists through mosques and religious
networks that are closely monitored by the state.
This is being done by promoting reform-minded and
moderate clerics within the Muslim establishments,
such as the regime-friendly Islamic deputy
Mohammad Habash, and more recently through the
appointment of Sheikh Ahmad Hassoun, a moderate
cleric, as Grand Mufti of the republic.
His predecessor, Ahmad Kaftaro, had been
at the post for four decades and encouraged
Muslims to go to Iraq in 2003 and wage a holy war
against the Americans, whereas Hassoun has voiced
his rejection of all forms of violence. Yet Syria
has specifically said that it will not allow
Islamic political parties to operate once a
multi-party law is issued, as decided by the
Ba'ath Party Conference of June 2005. By turning a
blind eye to the Islamists and banning them from
political activity, the regime would actually be
forcing them to become more aggressive, and go
underground as they had done in the 1980s. Denying
them political existence will not make them go
away. Syria should, in order to contain them,
permit the creation of moderate Islamic parties
and keep tabs on all of their members. Having them
operate under the watchful eye of the state is
better than having them work in secret.
Syria does have a lot to fear from
fundamentalism. Hundreds of fundamentalists roam
the Middle East, and once disguised, it would be
difficult to distinguish them from any other Arab.
Syrian authorities have always welcomed all Arabs
into Syria with no visas, to promote Arab
brotherhood and unity. This has backfired since,
with no visa record and no proper database of
Arabs entering Syria, practically any person can
enter. Using bribes, anyone can pay his way
through the Iraqi border, through tribes and
smuggling, and end up as a suicide bomber in
Baghdad. Even worse, he might stay behind and
become a suicide bomber in Syria.
And with
time, it is becoming clear that many members of
al-Qaeda, especially those stationed in Europe,
are Syrians. Prime on the list is Abu Musaab
al-Souri, whose real name is Mustapha Setmariam
Nassar. He is a former member of the Syrian Muslim
Brotherhood. An opponent of the Ba'athist regime,
especially after its clash with the Brotherhood in
the 1980s, Abu Musaab al-Souri became a
fundamentalist and wrote a book about Syria called
The Syria Experiment. He became a Spanish
citizen by marriage and joined al-Qaeda, directing
and teaching camps in Afghanistan in the 1990s
where he met Osama bin Laden. Abu Musaab al-Souri
was an expert on chemicals and poisons. In 1995,
he moved to the UK and tried to create his own
terrorist networks, but so impressed was he by the
September 11 that he pledged to support and
blindly adhere to bin Laden after that. He worked
with dormant terrorists cells in Spain, Italy and
France and is a potential suspect in both the
March 11 attacks in Madrid and the July 7 bombings
in London.
Adding insult to injury is a
general belief in Syria that the Americans are not
doing their share in combating terrorism, neither
on the Iraqi border or elsewhere. In September
2002, German police raided the Syrian textile
company Tatex near Hamburg, accusing some of its
staff of having ties to al-Qaeda. One person was
close to bin Laden's secretary and the other
employee was Mohammad Haydar Zammar, the infamous
Syrian who had recruited into al-Qaeda Mohammad
Atta, the principal highjacker on September 11.
The US should have frozen the assets of Tatex, due
to its al-Qaeda connection, as they did with many
companies and individuals after September 11, but
they did not and German authorities took no legal
action against the company. According to a January
report in Newsweek magazine, this was done so as
not to antagonize the Syrian government, which had
infiltrated the company with informers to spy on
Syrian members of the Hamburg cell of al-Qaeda.
Meanwhile, religious involvement is
increasing in Syria. Mosque attendance, head
scarves and blind adherence to Islam is spreading
throughout Syrian society. The reasons are many,
but chief among them is that Arab nationalism has
failed and the disgruntled masses have searched
for an outlet to explain their suffering and find
salvation. This has been topped by the continued
atrocities in Palestine as well as the US invasion
of Iraq and Afghanistan.
And Muslim
activists are seeing that political Islam works.
In Palestine, Islamic parties like Hamas and
Islamic Jihad have succeeded in inflicting heavy
damage on Israel. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has done
the same and was the only party in modern Arab
history to force the Israelis to withdraw from
occupied Arab land (the Israeli withdrawal from
South Lebanon in 2000).
In Iran, the
theocracy created in 1979 is strong, confident,
and has managed to impose itself on the regional
and international community. In Iraq, the Muslim
fighters have also caused havoc for the Americans.
They appear to be scoring more victories in
post-Saddam Iraq than Bush. This is a threat the
Syrians must combat immediately. To do that, they
require US cooperation in as much as the Syrians
need the US because the Americans and Syrians,
along with the entire civilized world, have a
common enemy in radical and political Islam.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian
political analyst.
(Copyright 2005
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
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