Syria & Syrians - The Peace FAQ

Syria & Syrians

Frequently Asked Questions:

● Is Syria a terrorist state? What is the U.S. position?

● Does Syria want real peace with Israel?
● What is Syria's motivation in participating in the 'peace process'?
● Once Israel's security concerns are addressed, won't there be peace?
● How does the Assad family maintain its power in Syria?

Is Syria a terrorist state? What is the U.S. position?

● Syria is a charter member of the list of "state sponsors of terrorism"--

appearing on the first such list in 1979--and it has kept its spot on
that list ever since. According to the State Department, the Syrian
government has not been directly engaged in terrorism since it was
implicated in the attempted bombing of an El Al flight in 1986.
Nevertheless, Syria has retained its status as a state-sponsor of
terrorism because it meets the criteria outlined in the Arms Export
Amendments Act of 1989, which in part defines terrorist states as
those that allow their territory to be used as a sanctuary; provide
logistical support to terrorists or terrorist organizations; provide safe
haven or headquarters for terrorists and their organizations; plan,
direct, train, or assist in terrorist activities; and/or provide financial
support for terrorist activities.

According to the 1998 edition of the State Department's annual

report, Patterns of Global Terrorism, Syria provides safe haven and
logistical support to terrorists. Specifically, says Patterns 1998,
Damascus permits numerous terrorist groups-- headed by Hamas,
the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC)--to maintain
their headquarters in Damascus and Syria-controlled territory in
Lebanon, and it allows Hizballah to receive military supplies via
Syrian territory. In addition, Patterns 1998 raises questions
regarding continued Syrian support to the Kurdistan Workers Party
(PKK), even after Syria's expulsion of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in

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October 1998.

Despite its two-decade record of support for terrorism, Syria is not

subject to sanctions as extensive as those meted out to some of its
fellow "state sponsors." Whereas U.S. law prohibits Syria from
receiving direct economic assistance, U.S. military equipment, and
high-tech products made in America, there is no ban on trading with
Syria as there is on Iraq and Iran. As a result, Syria received $161
million in U.S. exports in 1998, down from a high of $226 million in
1996. Even this low 1998 total made the United States the seventh-
largest source of Syria's imports.

- David Schenker, research fellow at The Washington Institute,

January 5, 2000

Does Syria want real peace with Israel?

● They [Syrian spokesmen] speak soothingly ... of their deep desire for
"the peace of the brave." Looking at what their leaders tell their own
people about Jews, however, one gets the distinct impression that
their ultimate goal is the peace of the grave.

- Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, January 7, 2000

● Radical States and Regional Stability

by Professor Barry Rubin

Syria must adjust to the current regional situation although it does

so by making the minimum possible policy change. It was the state
most hard-hit by the USSR's collapse. Damascus was on bad terms
with all its neighbors, threatened by Saddam's drive for leadership,
undermined by the end of Saudi subsidies, bogged down in
Lebanon's civil war, and short of money for buying weapons. But
Syria's role in the Kuwait crisis and the need to involve it in Arab-
Israeli peacemaking eased the pressure on Damascus.

Syria's militancy arises from the country's history, regime's ideology,

and the ruling Alawite minority's need to prove its nationalist and
Islamic credentials to a skeptical Sunni Muslim majority. By declaring
itself guardian of Arabism and the Palestinian cause, Syria
rationalized its interests to gain hegemony in Lebanon, isolate Egypt
after the Camp David accords, intimidate Jordan from negotiating
with Israel, split the PLO, blackmail oil-producing states to provide
aid, sponsor a proxy war against Turkey, and bar Israel from
participation in regional affairs. Terrorism has been an important tool
in Syria's arsenal for pursuing these goals. Syria's "main asset, in

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contrast to Egypt's preeminence and Saudi wealth," explains Fouad

Ajami, "is its capacity for mischief."

Syria's domination over Lebanon seems as strong as ever. Since first

sending in its army in 1975, nominally as a peacekeeping force,
Damascus developed a network of clients while intimidating
adversaries through violence. The 1991 Syrian-brokered Taif accords
ended the fighting without reducing Syrian control.

Similarly, Syria has been able to limit concessions regarding its role
in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Participating in talks does not necessarily
mean readiness to reach a diplomatic solution. On the contrary,
Damascus has done the minimum needed to avoid U.S. pressure,
maintain good relations with Europe, and obtain Saudi economic help
while setting its own demands high enough to sabotage any
diplomatic breakthrough. Syria turned down Israel's offer to return
all the Golan Heights in exchange for peace.

Syria is uninterested in reaching agreement since even one meeting

virtually all its demands would severely damage its interests. Unable
to use Israel as a threat, Syria would have a hard time obtaining aid,
influencing Arab counsels, or continuing to control Lebanon. Any
diplomatic solution would increase U.S. influence; favor Egypt, Israel,
and Jordan over Syria; block Syrian influence on the Palestinians;
and make Israel a stronger rival.

Internal politics also inhibit Syria from making a peace that enemies
would portray as traitorous while raising popular demands for
democracy and higher living standards. The dictatorship has no wish
to reduce the size or budget of an army sustaining its rule. In short,
Syria's hawkishness has been rational.

Of course, this does not mean Syria wants war or confrontation

either with Israel--which defeated it in three wars despite conditions
far better for Damascus--or with the United States. For Asad, it is a
far more profitable strategy to speak in tones of reasonableness and
cooperation while hoping the future will bring opportunities to escape
Syria's weak position. Being so isolated, relatively poor and weak,
and with much of its army tied up in Lebanon, Syria is unlikely to
engage in unilateral aggression on Israel or other neighbors.

Radical states pose a long-term threat to regional stability.

Nevertheless, a combination of U.S. power, Arab opposition,
isolation, division among themselves, Israeli power, and recent
defeats constrain them from acting as they would like to do.

28. New York Times Sunday Magazine, 1 April 1990.

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29. On Syria's military strategy and capabilities, see Michael

Eisenstadt, Arming for Peace: Syria's Elusive Quest for `Strategic
Parity' (Washington DC, 1992).
30. On Syria's handling of these problems see, for example,
Washington Post, 18 January and 12 December 1989; 15 and 17
July, 9 August, 11 September, and 24 November, 1990. New York
Times, 10 January 1989 and 15 July, 9 and 25 August, and 11
September 1990. On Syria's human rights record, see Middle East
Watch, Human Rights in Syria (NY, 1990).
31. The Alawites comprise only about 12 percent of Syria's
population. On Syria's political culture, see Rubin, The Arab States
and the Palestine Conflict, op. cit.
32. Daniel Pipes, Greater Syria, (NY, 1991).
33. See, for example, U.S. Department of Defense, Terrorist
Group Profiles Washington 1988; U.S. Department of State, Abu
Nidal Organization, (Washington, 1988); Barry Rubin, "The Uses of
Terrorism in the Middle East," in Barry Rubin, The Politics of
Terrorism, (Washington DC, 1988). Syria's terrorist assets include
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command
(PFLP-GC), the Samir Ghosha branch of the Palestine Liberation
Front, the al-Fatah rebels led by Abu Musa, the Palestine Struggle
Front, al-Saiqa (Palestinian), Abu Nidal's al-Fatah--Revolutionary
Council, a branch of (Palestinian) Islamic Jihad led by Ahmad
Mahana, the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK, anti-Turkish Kurds). It has
significant influence over the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (DFLP). Syria also encouraged al-Amal to attack Palestinian
refugee camps in Syria in the 1980s. See, for example, al-Dustur,
"The Syrian `peace' following the Israeli `peace,'" 3 June 1985; al-
Nahar, 29 May 1985. David Ottoway, "Syrian Connection to
Terrorism Probed," Washington Post, 1 June 1986.
34. Fouad Ajami, "Arab Road," Foreign Policy, No. 47, Summer
1982, p. 16.
35. Daniel Pipes, Damascus Courts the West: Syrian Politics, 1989-
91 (Washington DC, 1991). See also Eyal Zisser, "Hizballah in
Lebanon - At the Crossroads," A. Nizar Hamzeh, "Islamism in
Lebanon: A Guide," and Laura Zittrain Eisenberg: "Israel's
Lebanon Policy," in Middle East Review of International Affairs 3
(September 1997).
36. Financial Times, 18 March 1992; Wall Street Journal, 29
October 1991. Permitting Syrian Jews to emigrate is an example of
Asad's efforts to make gestures to Washington.

Professor Barry Rubin is Senior Resident Scholar at the BESA

Center for Strategic Studies and Editor of the Middle East Review of
International Affairs. His books include Cauldron of Turmoil: America
in the Middle East (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992); Revolution
Until Victory?: The Politics and History of the PLO (Harvard University
Press, 1994); and, as co-editor, Iraq's Road to War (St. Martin's

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Press, 1994) and The Israel-Arab Reader (Viking-Penguin, 1996).

What is Syria's motivation in participating in the 'peace process'?

● For Syrian president Hafez Assad, that [U.S. financial aid] is the real
prize. Perhaps the most urgent objective for the 69-year-old mr.
Assad is to exploit peace with Israel to cultivate among the American
political elite an interest in the survival of his brutal dictatorship.
Even a small aid package would achieve this goal, an especially
important one when reports of mr. Assad's declining mental and
physical capabilities and his family's violent internal feuding suggest
profound vulnerability within his regime.

... [However, ] Ending [Syrian] support for terrorism - as well as

providing full cooperation to U.S. investigations of anti-American
terrorist attacks, extraditing nazi war criminals, securing the freedom
of Israelis still missing in action, and stopping transport of Iranian
arms to Hezbollah across Syrian-controlled territory - should be the
beginning of this [Peace] process, not its end.

- Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington institute for

Near East Policy, in the Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2000

Once Israel's security concerns are addressed, won't there be

peace?

"...Israelcannot have only a strategic peacewith Syria, as was the

case with Egypt; the substantial differences between the two
countries mean that peacecan endure only if there are internal
changes in Syria."

- Thomas Friedman, before the Washington Institute's Policy

Forum, Washington DC, December 10, 1999

How does the Assad family maintain its power in Syria?

● Hafez Assad

President Assad of Syria is an Alawite Muslim while the majority of

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the population is Sunni. The latter regard the Alawites as heretics to

Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood, Ikhwan, instituted activities
against Assad and his Baath Party. The leadership of the Brotherhood
consisted largely of Muslim clerics, the ulama, and its rank and file
were mainly young Sunni bourgeois or urban poor.

The Brotherhood carried out a number of bomb attacks and

assassinations against the government. Scores of Baath party
workers were slain in their homes often together with their wives and
children. On 26th June 1980, Ikhwan assassins attacked the "enemy
of Allah", Assad himself. The next morning eight hundred Ikhwan in
Palmyra prison were killed in their cells.

The Mukhabarrat, secret police of Assad rounded up those they

considered were collaborating with the Brotherhood. A leading light,
Shisakhi was found castrated, face burnt with acid and his eyes
gouged out. Hundreds of Sunni were executed and even some
Christians. Suspects were tortured to prepare lists of the Islamic
underground. An apparatus to rip out fingernails was used and also
the "Black Slave"-a hot metal skewer which burnt its way from the
anus to the colon.1

The ancient city of Hama was the Ikhwan stronghold and Assad was
determined to clean it out. On 2nd February 1982, five hundred
troops moved into the old Barudi district. The Ikhwan were waiting
for them and cut them down with machine-gun fire. Exhilarated with
their early success they called for a jihad against Assad. Every
mosque in Hama blared forth the call from its minarets. The guerrilla
war was over; it was time for everyone to openly support the
Brotherhood and drive out the "infidels".

The Ikhwan held a sizeable part of the town and even had its own
hospital and women fighters. Some Syrian army units defected to
them.

Assad called in the heavy weapons; many of the old alleyways were
too narrow for tanks and so whole districts were flattened by artillery
rather than engage the Brotherhood in hand to hand fighting.

Thousands of innocent people were killed in this way. Many more

perished during the "mopping up". Buildings were dynamited without
concern for the occupants. After that whole areas were levelled by
bulldozers.

The death toll is estimated at over 20,000. "Syria's murderous

suppression of the Hama uprising had much in common with the
behaviour of the Nazis in occupied Europe".2

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