- (march 2009)
Syria vs Israel. There is no question that Israel has been the staunchest
(if sometimes tricky) USA ally in the Middle East from the day the shah fell in
Iran and was replaced by an Islamic anti-USA regime. One could almost view
the last 30 years of Middle-eastern history as a 30-year war between the USA
and Iran for control of the region. Westerners who don't study history probably
don't realize that Iran is one of the longest-lasting empires in the world.
The history of the Middle East has often been the history of a century-old
clash between Iran and the Western empires (whether Macedonian, Roman, Byzantine
or Ottoman). Iran was briefly controlled by Western powers (Britain and the USA)
for the first time in its history. The Islamic revolution simply restored its
independence and its ambitions in the region.
In the short term, and particularly during the Cold War, Israel may have served
the cause of the USA. Now that the Cold War is over and now that almost all Arab
countries have become allies of the USA, it has become debatable whether Israel
(widely viewed in the world as a nuclear-armed racist state that has violated
dozens of United Nations resolutions) represents an asset or a liability for
the USA.
The new USA president, Barack Obama, has explicitly inaugurated direct talks
with Syria, long held by George W Bush as unworthy of diplomacy. Whatever the
merits of this decision, the result has been to galvanize the Syrian leadership.
Syria is a poor country with almost no natural resources, surrounded by three
military powers (Turkey, Israel and Iraq). Its only "purchasing" power is its
strategic location, and the fact that it never signed a peace treaty with
Israel. Now that the USA is finally listening, Syria can hope to get something
in return for its value. It also turns out that the USA's withdrawal from Iraq
puts Syria into the USA's camp: Syria now has a vested interest in making sure
that the Iraqi government succeeds in restraining the terrorists, lest those
terrorists start operating in Syria too. An objective observer would probably
deem Syria more important to the USA than Israel.
Israel is painfully aware that its importance in the world is rapidly fading.
It was lucky that the USA was ruled for eight years by one of the dumbest
leaders that the Western world has known. That luck is unlikely to last for
much longer. The USA would gain a lot by making peace with Syria. It gains
nothing by keeping it hostile.
Back to world history: throughout the millennia Syria has been the battleground
between the Western empires and the Persian empire, but it was always more
Western than Persian. Add religious history: the Sunni-Shiite divide has never
been so deep, and Syria is mostly Sunni and partly Christian. If the USA
changes its attitude towards Syria, it is likely that Syria will change its
attitude against Iran. Its alliance with Iran was always regarded as a marriage
of convenience.
The USA is likely to ask that Syria signs a peace treaty with Israel.
Syria has been eager for decades to do so. Naturally, it wants to save face,
which means that Israel will have to surrender the territory that it seized
40 years ago, and that some kind of just settlement with Palestine must be
presented to the Arab world. When Israel attacked Gaza in such a brutal manner,
killing more than one thousand people and destroying hundreds of buildings,
it may have targeted Syria in its own vicious manner: no Arab country, and least
of all Syria, can make peace with Israel when Israel is slaughtering
Palestinians.
The temptation for Israel to provoke Syria is stronger than ever. Barring a
major incident, the USA is likely to realize that Syria is becoming more
valuable than Israel.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2007 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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