Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

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Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka
Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Bilszn Özeti
Iraq, with no publicity, held joint military maneuvers, the first in their modem history. The new spirit of cooperation
extends to economic affairs as well.
Iraq and Syria hope this month ornext to reopen a major oil pipeline from the northern Iraqi oil fields through
Syrian territory to the Lebanese Mediterranean port of Tripoli. It has not been used since 1982.Already, Syrian and
Iraqi technicians are at work on the pipeline. In fact, Iraqi oil is already being refined in the Syrian city of Banias,
the Middle East sources said.
Bashar, one of the Middle East intelligence sources said, "has definitely embraced" a radically new concept for
Syria. He has clearly approved a new strategic doctrine of cooperation with Iraq, Syria's historic regional rival, as
well as with Iran, tocreate a powerful regional block of Iran, Iraq and Syria opposed to Israel and the United States.
This move is a radical reversal of the cautious policies of Bashar's father for a full 30 years. Hafez Assad fought
two fierce wars with Israel ~within six years. First, he directed Syrian forces in the 1967 Six day War, when he was
Syria's minister of defense. Then, as president, he launched the 1973YomKippur War,when his tough, massive tank
army caught the Israelis by surprise and nearly swept them off the Golan Heights and across the Galillee to the
Mediterranean before being held and rolled back.
But after that, Assad followed a policy of more than 25 years of trying to avoid any outright direct conflict with
the Israeli Army. Since the 1975 Israeli-Syrian disengagement agreement, not a single Israeli soldier or settler on
Golan has been killed by direct Syrian action. In fact, Hafez Assad's greatest enemies were two fellow revolutionary
Arab leaders of his own generation, Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and President
Saddam Hussein of neighboring Iraq. Syria and Iraq have always been rivals for the leadership of the Arab world,
especially in the Fertile Crescent region they share. But ideological rivalries over the past 40 years have made things
far worse. Both Saddam and Hafez Assad claimed to preside over the only true, ideologically pure regime of
Baathism, or Arab Socialism.
Hafez Assad always deeply distrusted and feared Saddam. Iraq has almost double Syria's population and vast oil
wealth. When the United States mobilized a vast coalition and assembled a huge army of 700,000men to roll Iraq
out off Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War, Hafez Assad joined them.
Reversing this historic policy carries enormous risks for Bashar Assad.
But it has major attractions to him as well.
The main risks are that he could blunder into a major war with israel and that this time, unlike 1967 and 1973,
Syria could be totally smashed. Then Bashar's Baathist regime, dominated by the Assad family's own Alawi religious
sect concentrated around the mountainous western Syrian city of Latakia, could be swept from power. Or, by
allowing the Iraqi military and security services to operate freely in Syria - a policy that was anathema to his father
-- Bashar could leave himself vulnerable to being toppled and killed in a coup plot orchestrated by Saddam.
But with all its risks, the policy of strategic alliance with Iraq also
has many advantages for Bashar.'
It is popular with the hawkish Alawite Baathists who dominate Syria's army and security services. They are filled
with frustration at their inability to win a chance for military revenge against Israel, Middle East intelligence source
say. And they are strongly supportive of this policy.
Also, having been raised from childhood on the radical, anti-American ideology of Baathism, they want to expel
the United States and its allies from the region, not come to terms with them.
A strong anti-U.S. and anti-Israel policy is also popular with Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, especially the radical
fundamentalists among them. Hafez Assad slaughtered at least 10,000of these people - possibly as many as 30,000
-- along with their families in 1982 when he used tanks and heavy artillery to literally flatten the city of Hama when
it was in a state of insurrection, controlled by the Ikhwan, or Muslim Brotherhood.
offend Muslim religious leaders, especial-
Now Bashar, like his father before him, must take especial pains not to
ly radicalones, to avoid reopening that deadly old feud.
Finally, the policy of going radical and lining up with Saddam is also
United States far more than it fears Iraq. It is also welcome to Hezbollah.
popular with Iran, which now fears the
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