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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 April - 3 May 2000 Issue No. 479 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 27 April - 3 May 2000 Issue No. 479
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters A genuine rapprochement?
By Salah HemeidFor more than two decades, Iraq and Syria, ruled by two rival wings of the pan-Arab Baath Party, were engaged in a fierce, sometimes violent, competition for regional supremacy. Now, there seems to be some signs of warming in their relations, raising serious questions on whether the two old foes have decided to put their battle of wills behind them.
Early this month, the two countries talked about the possibility of reopening the pipeline that used to carry Iraqi crude form its northern oil fields in Kirkuk to the Mediterranean through Syria. Reports from Damascus suggested that the strategic pipeline, closed in 1982, might resume operations in three months.
If it happens, the move will be the second significant step Iraq and Syria are taking to clear up their differences. In February, Iraq reopened a diplomatic interests section in Damascus after a 20-year break. Two Iraqi diplomats were sent to handle mostly consular affairs through the Algerian Embassy in Damascus. Syria has not reciprocated, but the move was another sign of a slow, yet obvious, improvement in their troubled relations.
Syrian-Iraqi ties deteriorated in 1980 after President Saddam Hussein accused President Hafez Al-Assad of orchestrating a palace coup against him by recruiting several leaders of his ruling Baath Party. Syria denied any involvement, but the alleged conspiracy, in addition to an uprising in the Syrian city of Hama in 1982, blamed on Iraq, raised tension between the two neighbours.
Relations worsened further when Syria sided with Iran in the Iraq-Iran War (1980-1988) and, at the war's peak, Damascus shut down the oil pipeline which, at the time, was Iraq's main crude export outlet to European markets. Another cause for ill-feeling was Syria's construction of a water dam on the Euphrates, which Iraq said was reducing the river's flow into Iraq, thus harming millions of farmers and undermining agriculture.
In 1991, Syria joined a number of other Arab countries in the US-led international military coalition that drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait, adding more bad blood between the two rival regimes. As in the Iraq-Iran war, the Syrian alignment against Iraq in the Gulf crisis underscored the fact that the language of pan-Arabism, which both regimes uphold, could not hide their strategic rivalry.
The first thaw in the two countries' ties came in 1997 after Iraq started implementing a UN-supervised oil-for-food deal, which allows Baghdad to free its humanitarian needs of the economic embargo imposed on the country since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Syria, short of hard currency and pressured by the US to finalise a peace agreement with Israel, started selling food supplies to Iraq.
Soon after, bilateral trade flourished. Baghdad shops were full of Syrian consumer goods and Iraqis began flocking to Damascus for business and tourism. Some reports also suggested that Iraq began smuggling oil via Syria, through illegal deals, similar to those with neighboring Jordan, Iran and Turkey.
In addition, Syria has made some goodwill gestures towards Iraq in its continuing confrontation with the US. These include its constant endeavours to discourage Iraqi Kurds from having a separatist entity in northern Iraq and its condemnation of US assistance to Iraqi opposition groups aiming to topple Hussein's regime. Such gestures, carefully calculated by Damascus, must have been received with high appreciation in Baghdad.
Normalisation of Iraqi-Syrian relations, nevertheless, is unlikely to materialise in the near future, according to informed sources. In similar cases involving other countries, such positive developments would have led to full restoration of diplomatic ties. The problems between Iraq and Syria, however, are so deep-rooted and complex that the two regimes seem ill-equipped to deal with the situation.
The most notable impediment to building normal ties is the profound mistrust which each regime entertains of the other; their current and recent moves towards improved relations more likely to be tactical adjustments dictated by circumstances than by a genuine desire for reconcilliation.
For Iraq, the objective is simple and clear: Hussein wants to defeat the UN economic embargo and break the walls of isolation imposed by the US against his regime. If Syria joins the countries which do business with Iraq, this will prove beneficial to his effort to reach out for more Arab support and, eventually, to undermine the ban.
Al-Assad's motives are equally as clear. The Syrian leader is under enormous pressure from the US to finalise a peace deal with Israel, the terms of which are not to his liking. So, Al-Assad, a master tactician, may be trying to signal that his rapprochement with Saddam Hussein is intended to change the regional balance and, consequently, reflect positively on his position in the peace process. The only problem with such a tactic is that Iraq, after a 10-year crippling embargo and a rigid disarmament regime, is too weak to be able to make a shift in the regional geopolitical balance in Syria's favour.
