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

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