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Middle East Review of International Affairs
Syria, the United States, and Iraq — Two Years after the Downfall of Saddam Hussein
by Eyal Zisser
*
Abstract
The conquest of Iraq by the United States in April 2003 was a significant event in the history of the Middle East. Apart from Iraq, it would appear that Syria was the Middle Eastern country most adversely affected by this event. The United States' control over Iraq dealt a serious blow, not only to the Syrian economy and to its regional and international standing, but also to the image of the Syrian Ba`th regime.
However, more than anything else, U.S. occupation of Iraq, making it Syria's new neighbor to the East, created a new focus of friction, or even an open and bleeding wound, in relations between Damascus and Washington. Over the past two years, this wound has significantly contributed to the deterioration of relations between the two countries, which to begin with had not been characterized as close or in an atmosphere overflowing good will. While Syrian-American relations have not yet reached their nadir, this is liable to occur sooner than might have been expected. Evidence of this are those voices now being raised in Washington, mainly in the Pentagon, calling for a military strike against Syria in order to get it to fall into line with U.S. policies. Two years after the end of the war in Iraq, Syria, even in the eyes of the Syrians themselves, is a weaker, more isolated country, plagued by ever-increasing internal and external pressures. This is the direct result of Syria's own mistakes, rooted in the misreading and misinterpretation of the regional and international, especially American, political scenes.
Full Text (PDF, 15 pages, 91.9 KB)
Note *: Prof. Eyal Zisser is the head of the Department of Middle Eastern and African History and a senior research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, both at Tel Aviv University. Prof. Zisser has written extensively on the history and the modern politics of Syria and Lebanon and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Among his books are: Assad's Syria at a Crossroads (Tel Aviv, 1999); Asad's Legacy — Syria in Transition (New York, 2000); Lebanon: the Challenge of Independence (London, 2000); Faces of Syria (Tel Aviv, 2003); and In the Name of the Father, Bashsar al-Asad's First years in Power (Tel Aviv, 2004).Ê