Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview Shmuel Bar ...

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Bashar’s Syria 405statements. 121 His behavior raises questions as to what extent he has a strategy—eitherthat which he inherited or of his own—which goes further than preservation of the regime.In any case, Bashar’s foreign policy behavior at the present stage is clearly defensive andreactive. It includes: Attempts to reach a modus vivendi with Washington, at least so as not to provide apretext to the United States or Israel to step up their campaign against the regime.Bashar seems resigned to American hostility to his regime, and does not seem tobelieve that there is an option for a stable positive relationship with the United States,at least under the present administration. Attempts to improve relations with Russia and Europe as a counterbalance to thehostility of the United States. This policy—at least on the European front—hassoured in the wake of the murder of al-Hariri and the rupture of his relations withFrance. Cultivating the strategic relationship with Iran, much as Bashar attempted to lean onIraq before the war. Dangling the prospects of gradual democratization (by the presidential elections of2007) and warning of the chaos that would emerge from regime change, in order todeter attempts to remove the regime. Occasional willingness to renew negotiations with Israel and restrain the pro-SyrianPalestinian factions. Attempts to create “nuisance value” for Syria by measured support of the Iraqiinsurgency, along with signals that he may change that policy in return for a suitablepolitical (and economic) compensation.IsraelTo judge by Syrian rhetoric, Israel is by far the prime strategic concern of the regime inDamascus. While the occupation of the Golan Heights is the official rationale for Syria’senmity toward Israel, Syrian hostility toward Israel goes much further. Israel is portrayed asa cunning, aggressive, evil foreign entity implanted in the heart of the Arab world, plottingto take over the entire Arab homeland—from the Nile to the Euphrates, Syria included.Alongside the hostility to Israel, Syria has also promoted wider anti-Semitism throughpublication of books such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.Nevertheless, Syria had made progress toward acceptance of some sort of peace agreementwith Israel during the 1990s and up to Hafez al-Asad’s death. Toward the end of the1990s Hafez al-Asad (like Bashar after him) declared that the peace option is Syria’s “strategicoption,” though he and other spokespeople from the regime took care not to give theimpression that Syria had abandoned the military option. It is difficult to assess whether ornot Hafez al-Asad was really reconciled with the idea of a full peace (with diplomatic relationsand normalization) with Israel. However, Syrian positions in the negotiations seemedto indicate that he had crossed that Rubicon and many Israelis who had been involved inthe negotiations received that impression from their Syrian interlocutors.However, even if this is so, it is not to be taken for granted that this acceptance of thefact of Israel’s existence was passed on to Bashar. Upon his ascendancy to the presidency,some officials in Israel expected that Bashar would be more receptive to peace with Israelthan his father had been. This expectation was in line with forecasts that Bashar, by virtueof his youth and Western orientation, would initiate a process of democratization, or at leastliberalization, in Syria. The assumption was that if Bashar indeed desired to turn to the
406 S. BarWest—and specifically to the U.S.—he would have to present a more flexible position onpeace with Israel. These assumptions turned out to be misleading. In many ways, Bashar’srhetoric regarding Israel echo statements that were heard from his father decades before.These include: Blatantly anti-Semitic statements drawing on Christian and Muslim demonizationof the Jews. 122 Nonacceptance of Israel as a “real entity” with a real attachment to its land. Statementsto this effect also echo Arab propaganda from the 1970s, which portrayed Israelas a sort of artificial “Crusader Kingdom” of uprooted people who, if given theopportunity, would return to the countries from whence they came. 123 Statements to the effect that even if a peace agreement with Israel were to be concluded,the Arabs could not accept Israel as part of the region and would continue tosee it as a threat. 124 Statements aimed at lowering the priority of peace with Israel. Syria, according toBashar, wants peace but “an honourable peace” and can wait until such a peace isattainable. Peace should be reached from a position of strength. This strength mustinclude a credible deterrence of Israel, which can derive from military capabilitiesor even Arab solidarity. Until this deterrence is achieved, any peace that is reachedwould be a “peace of the weak.” 125 The lack of urgency is echoed in a “publicopinion poll” published in Damascus in which a clear majority of Syrians agreedthat peace with Israel would not promote a solution to Syria’s economic problems,and might even exacerbate them. These results should be seen more as a reflectionof the regime’s line that peace with Israel is not a necessary condition for solvingSyria’s real problems and therefore should be accorded a lower priority than realpublic sentiment.It is difficult to differentiate between rhetoric, which plays a central role in Syriannational mobilization and regional status (and thereby serves to buttress the regime’s “nationalist”status), and true strategic assessment. Were Syrian rhetoric a true reflection ofSyrian assessments, it would be translated into Syrian readiness for a potential Israeli attackeach time that the Syrian propaganda machine sounded the alarms about possible Israeliaggression. In fact, the Syrian Army’s level of preparedness has been diminishing constantlyover the last decades and there have been few cases of real tension or concentration of largeforces on the border between the two countries.For the Syrian regime the conflict with Israel seems to consist of a number of “layers”: The ideological layer: As opposed to recognition of Israel’s existence, this layerincludes the ideology of Pan-Arabism and subsequent rejection of Israel’s right toexist as a Jewish State superimposed on Arab Palestine. This layer dictates not onlythe attitude toward Israel, but towardthe Palestinian leadership—the PLO and thePalestinian Authority. The Ba’th ideology does not distinguish between one part ofthe Arab homeland and another, and hence does not recognize exclusive Palestiniansovereignty over the Palestinian problem. The problem is an “Arab issue” and mustbe resolved in accordance with Arab consensus. Hence no Arab country—eventhe Palestinians—has the right to conclude a separate peace with Israel. The PLO,according to this viewpoint, has been given the task of representing the Palestinianissue by the Arabs and is accountable to the Arabs. It is not an autonomous nationalliberation leadership that can decide on its own path according to its understandingof the Palestinian interests. This ideological principle, though, had already been
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