" Syria, a pole of stability ? "

By J.M. Vernochet.

"In Middle East, it would not be a war without Egypt and peace without Syria."
Henri Kissinger.

There is a geopolitical architectonics drawn with constants, which cross history, at least during given periods, or still geographic data super-decisive of the destiny of the peoples and States. He would not know how to have therefore a just understanding of events without a precise knowledge of structural foundations of the politics of Nations and States.

Among these "constants" the creation of the Israeli State here, fifty-three years ago, is a major constituent fact of Syrian foreign policy. In the North Alexandrette's Sanjak and sources of the Euphrates in the heart of Anatolia register in the geography another chapter of the Syrian future.

Today Hafez El Assad is not any more. His younger son Bachar succeeded him in the head of a collective direction of a State always dominated with the Alaeut minority. After some vague desires of change in the management of internal affairs, he backtracks now, and outside, the Israeli State more ever imposes his politics on him. Before his coming to power Ariel Sharon had not hidden his intention "to make peace with Syria and Lebanon" taking responsibility for the political axis drawn by his predecessor Ehoud Barak who had followed the road opened by Ytzak Rabin himself.

But in this slow walking process towards peace, Syria has to face crippling obstacles, for example the restoration of the heights of Golan, lost in 1967 at the conclusion of the War said of Six Days, and against the restoration of which Damascus sets a principal question. The question of Golan does not raise any more for a long time the strict domain of the security of the Israeli territory. The "strategic" value of Golan diminished indeed in the course of time as increased the tactical reach of the theater weapons and other Scuds. The real value of Golan occupied with the Israeli kiboutzim is no more an important military matter but conceals a wealth which tomorrow will be the stake in impregnable conflicts : the water. The restoration of Golan collides consequently in a strong hostility in the Israeli opinion without one glimpse, especially in the current situation, the possibility of an inversion of this tendency.

Paradoxically, beyond the restorations of the despoiled territories, the coexistence of two States is not problematic. The attentive observer will not miss to raise that Syria in front of Israel is in a position rather comparable to the one of Egypt toward the Hebrew State. Since the return of the Sinai, the Egyptian-Israeli dispute very widely emptied of any contents. The drafts of anti-israeli rhetoric are, as each knows largely for domestic usage. It is necessary to give susceptible wages to cut the herb under the feet of an Islamic opposition influence of, which is very strong in the opinion. But the tree of speeches in front should not hide the forest of interests at stake, to begin with the priority concern for the Egyptian leaders to assure the perpetuity of the regime and, the organization of a succession in the head of power based on Syrian model.

To look at it a little closer, situation in Syria is not different if it was not the thorny question of Golan that one can compare with the one of Sinai before Camp David. However as curious it can appear, Damascus in its long walking towards a still untraceable peace looks with constancy a support from Washington. First of all because the Middle-Oriental politics of the United States offers a bigger reliability because of certain continuance while Israeli politics embarrasses by the non-legibility and its visible changes of cap. Since the starting up of negotiations, Damascus had about six different interlocutors in the person of the various Prime Ministers who succeeded one another in a steady rhythm. Some were moreover unrelenting as Netanyahou, the others subjected to contradictory pressures of strong amplitude, even purely and simply eliminated as Rabin.

Nothing amazing when Syria turned away from bilateral negotiations and or went to look for the arbitrage of the "superpower". The first objective being before even an improbable normalization with Israel, to obtain from the United States the suppression of sanctions attached to countries appearing on the blacklist of terrorist States. Advantages, more particularly economical and commercial, very comparable to those obtained by Egypt after Camp David should have to ensue from it and contribute to strengthen the position of Syria, which is far from having given up any regional ambition. Generally little revealed : the prince to inherit the throne of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah, married the girl of a high Alaeut dignitary. Without giving to this fact a reach or an exaggerated meaning, links created seem to go to the direction of an intention of "pan Arabic" to the leaders of Damascus whose regional ambition seems intact. Moreover, beyond religious questions Syria-Israeli rivalry has really to be dreaded in terms of leadership.

To remain that the power of Alaeut, in minority by definition, remains only for the price of a rigorous social control which forces it "to play tightened" by maintaining a pressure outside as it was until now the case in Lebanon, or by releasing the rein of Hezbollah to enrich according to the necessities of moment its capacity of negotiation with Israel - with which, the state of war continues for 53 years - Damascus finding in this permanent state of tension justification in the preservation of an austere internal regime.

Recently certain analysts noted the onset of the lowering of Syrian military operation in Lebanon, from the initiative of the new guard constituting the close circle of acquaintances of Bachar el-Assad in the big displeasure of the Chief warrant officer state, but with the approval of the vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam and Farouk el-Charah, Minister of Foreign Affairs. This relative opening is not nevertheless called to last, according to its evolution Syrian home policy, which after a shy opening, returned quickly in the used receipts under Hafez el-Assad. The ones of observers having neglected the determining structural data of the Syrian political "block" were able to believe in the duration of the short-lived "spring of Damascus!"

Syria has indeed kept with the aid of Hezbollah and in a lesser degree, with the Palestinian, because of their least "monitored", a means of applying pressure on the Israeli and not an unimportant trump card in the negotiation. Pressure all the more necessary as the new Turkish ally of the Hebrew State maintains in the North, a pressure ever contradicted since the errors under the French mandate which made the Alexandrette's Sandjak, syrian equivalent of Alsace-Lorraine same as France of 1870, a subject of perpetual discusses which has almost degenerated into open conflict in 1998. To which come henceforth to add dams built by Turkey on the superior course of the Euphrates and its tributaries that threaten today the hydraulic supply of Syria, but also Iraq.

Can one bet "on the insulation" of Syria on the Middle-oriental scene ? Since Hafez el-Assad, Syria maintains unmistakably a balance in the tension and establishes curiously a factor of stability in the middle of a regional environment, which could turn out relatively more fragile in a context of pointed crisis. Indeed Israeli-Palestinian crisis escaped to the control of States political chief warrant officers, political stability in Jordan or in Egypt could be seriously compromised. Under the pressure of the street, power in Cairo as in Amman would be forced, at the risk of falling, to close eyes on the permeability of their borders to the people and to the materials. It is mostly assured that Syrian Baas does not have to be afraid that in such circumstances situation escapes from its control. The Israeli do not ignore it even though they mobilize their own opinion in a recurring way on the subject of the Syrian threat, and its weapons of chemical war. Syria is an embarrassment, a concern but the real threat is somewhere else.

Perspective is outlined indeed for Syria to occupy a seat to the Security Council of United Nations even to assume the Rotating presidency of it. What can not be obviously envisaged without the approval of United States and from a positive vote of their part ? This will be negotiated and in the balance, American Administration will not miss to require the cancellation of the Syria-Iraqi trade agreements that contribute to widen breaches opened today in the device of embargo. Will Damascus be inclined to give up the iraqi market ? Nothing is less sure it will be difficult to backtrack. Contracts are signed and can not be questioned with a simple stroke of the pen. As for the lock of the oil pipeline Bagdad-Banyas, the petroleum pours. An agreement would have be found with Washington in term of which Damascus would have undertaken to collaborate in the preservation of the waterproofs of American device. Now Damascus already opted maybe for an original solution consisting in consuming the imported iraqi petroleum, and in exporting 150 000 barrels days which leave the IP terminal of Banyas, by taking them from its own internal production. So appearances will be safe and embargo would not be "violated" any more.

Bachar under the influence of the "formers of the regime" having experimented the limits of the new team, will doubtless look for a decisive support towards Europe by the bias of the Elysées. Hafez's el-Assad last official visit had been Paris in 1998, first official journey in an Occidental state for twenty years, since the visit in France in 1976. It was a question not only of answering Mr. Jacques Chirac's visit in Damascus in 1996. Hafez el-Assad as Farouk el-Charah clarified it at the time to the Figaro placed this visit "in an exceptional context because of the impasse where is engaged the process of peace, and the critical situation that this established fact leads. Finally it is a question of strengthening already existing links with France and the European Community". More close being Europe geographically and politically from the Oriental shore of the Mediterranean sea, everything indicates that Syria will continue to work to bind itself in Europe via France, engaged in quadripartite negotiations on Lebanon, meaning with the Community, essentially worried about stability and about development in Mediterranean space.

However, the room for maneuver of the Alaeut power remains finally fairly narrow. The real stability of the regime likes the cohesion of a collective direction at the head of the Syrian State, the Bachar's el-Assad figurehead should not mask that he is doubtless less the heir of his father, that the fruit of a successful compromise made between various constituents which could show themselves occasionally into opposition. Now, by definition and in essence, any coalition of interests never remains infinitely. Hafez's el-Assad Syria gave us the example of exceptional duration, and a certain continuance seems for the moment insured after the always-precarious cap of the transition. Then until proved, otherwise Syria can constitute a pole of stability in a region where "normalization" is not still for the agenda.

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