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Dr. Barry Rubin is the director of the Global Research for International Affairs (GLORIA) Center of the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel. His latest book is entitled The Truth about Syria (Palgrave, 2007). Near East Report recently spoke to Dr. Rubin about the Syrian regime and the threats it poses to U.S. interests.
Near East Report: How has the Syrian regime under Hafez Assad and his son Bashar managed to survive for almost four decades despite its many failures?
Barry Rubin: Indeed, the Assad regime has failed to provide a better life for the Syrian people, to defeat Israel and to unify the Arab world. Furthermore, it’s largely controlled by a small non-Muslim and widely despised minority called the Alawites. Given all this, we would have expected the regime to fall long ago. It has managed to defy gravity through the use of ideology, authoritarianism and the building of hatred and scapegoats, namely Israel, the West and the United States. The bottom line is that the regime needs the Arab-Israeli conflict for its very survival. What we should have understood after the regime rejected Israel’s offer to return the Golan in 2000 is that the conflict is the regime’s main asset.
NER: So the return of the Golan is not a priority for the Assad regime?
BR: Suppose Syria gets the Golan back; what happens? There are celebrations for a few days. And then people say, Okay, the conflict is over, so now let’s have an open economy, let’s have democracy, let’s have free speech, let’s have citizens’ rights, let’s not spend all our money on the military. That’s what will happen, and the regime knows it. So if you kick away the Golan crutch, the regime falls.
If there is peace, moreover, Israel becomes a normal player in the region and U.S. influence increases. And that too is a disaster for the Syrian regime, because both the United States and Israel will then oppose Syria’s ambitions. Damascus needs to control Lebanon, among other things because Lebanon is where it gets its money. The Syrian economy doesn’t generate income, so looting Lebanon has helped keep the regime afloat. It also wants to control the Palestinians. To promote these ambitions, intransigence is built into the nature of the regime. It’s not just a misunderstanding, or about a few yards along the Sea of Galilee. It’s about the very survival of the regime and its regional ambitions.
NER: Why, despite these weaknesses, is Syria in position to matter so much?
BR: What the regime can do is cause trouble. In Lebanon, for example, it has now staged 16 major terrorist attacks—mostly assassination attempts, many of which have succeeded. It’s basically the mentality of the mafia: You do what we want or we’ll kill you. And it’s working. People in the West—even in the United States—are afraid of Syria and are offering it concessions. For the Syrian regime, threats and violence are paying off; why would it want to change?
NER: So you don’t believe there’s a benefit in engaging Syria?
BR: No. The Syrians know how to play the game. While providing military equipment to Israel’s and America’s enemies, they keep saying, “We want to engage, we want peace.”
But what they’re really after is to stop the creation of the tribunal for trying the assassination of [former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq] Hariri. They are really scared of this tribunal because among the people on the list are the second- and third-most powerful people in Syria, namely Bashar Assad’s brother and brother-in-law. The regime’s talk about peace is merely a means for sidetracking the international community from the Hariri tribunal.
NER: Can Syria be flipped from its alliance with Iran?
BR: Syria gets a lot out of this alliance. First, the two regimes are partners on three major issues: Iraq, Lebanon and Palestinians; they work together on the same side with the same groups (in Iraq the groups are different, but the interests are the same). Second, Syria gets a lot of Iranian economic aid and investments in government enterprises, which are absolutely critical to its economic survival. Third, it gets protection from U.S. or Israeli reprisals. And finally, it gets Islamist cover with its own population. So why should the regime quit this alliance? What are you going to offer it in return? All you can offer is commercial investment—but that means opening up the Syrian economy, which would break the regime’s control over the economy on which its survival depends.
NER: How should America approach Syria?
BR: Tough diplomacy. The Syrian regime must be pressed. It must know that the United States will not engage it until it changes its policy; that Israel will not talk to it until it really does something to stop the terrorism it’s inciting; that the United States gives strong support to Israel and to Lebanon, and is trying to persuade the Europeans to do the same. We have the stronger cards. There’s no need to offer unilateral concessions.
