In May 2008, Iraqi and Coalition forces attacked Syrian-based Al-Qaeda in Iraq cells in and around Mosul. Despite a mid-2007 drop in the number of foreign fighters transiting from Syria into Iraq, the flow of Al-Qaeda fighters has increased during the first months of 2009. Insurgents have been transiting through Syria into Iraq since the launch of the 2003 American invasion of Iraq that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein. As US forces raced toward Baghdad during March and April of that year, Syrian security personnel waved buses of foreign volunteers across the border into neighboring Iraq to fight the Americans. At the same time, Iraqi Baathists still loyal to Saddam's regime fled in the opposite direction, finding safe haven in sparsely populated parts of eastern Syria. There, they established the New Regional Command, a headquarters from which to raise funds, procure weapons, and train personnel for the insurgency in Iraq. The base was critical because it ensured they would be free from harassment by US forces.

For two years, Syrian security personnel facilitated the activities of foreign jihadists and Saddam loyalists with the implicit approval of Damascus. The regime had two major incentives in doing so.

First, in the same way that Saudi Arabia disposed of its most fervent jihadists by sending them to Afghanistan during the 1980s to fight and die against the Soviet Union, Iraq was a fortuitous outlet for Syria's own Islamist opposition, based mainly in and around Aleppo, in the country's northwest corner. The strategy was, at best, a short-term success. Syria will now be forced to contend with battle-hardened jihadists returning from Iraq. Saudi Arabia experienced a similar "blowback" when it struggled to "digest" returning Saudis from the Afghanistan war.

Second, Syria had a strategic interest in tying down US forces in Iraq and preventing the rise of a stable Iraqi government allied with the United States. Despite the significant animosity that existed between Damascus and Saddam's Iraq, the regime in Damascus determined that chaos in Iraq was preferable to the rise of a stable US ally to Syria's east.

Improvements in Iraqi security since 2007 are the result of developments on the Iraqi side of the Syrian border, including the US troop surge, a new counterinsurgency strategy, and Sunni Iraqi disgust with Al-Qaeda. This led to the formation of the "Awakening Councils" through which tribal leaders cooperated with the US-led multinational force in Iraq. Iranian dissidents in Iraq also acted as mediators between Iraqi Sunni chiefs and the Coalition forces to help stabilize the country.

Contrary to Syrian claims, the stability in Iraq has very little to do with the cooperation Damascus has offered (as minimal as that happens to be). Indeed, the regime has tolerated the continued presence of jihadists and insurgents. Coupled with Iran's sheltering of radical Shiite groups, such as that of Moqtada al-Sadr, jihadists and insurgents in Syria constitute a sword of Damocles hanging over the government of Iraq.

Looking forward, President Barack Obama will need a multi-pronged strategy of focusing on Iraqi security, occasional covert operations across the border against high-value targets in Syria, and outreach to Damascus. However, expectations should be tempered. Even at the height of US leverage in the aftermath of the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri in Lebanon, Syria was unwilling to undertake serious efforts to curtail the activities of jihadists and insurgents on its soil.

Ultimately, the Iraqi government may eventually have more influence over Damascus, given Syria's desire to expand economic relations between the two countries. When Iraqi President Jalal Talabani made his first official visit to Damascus in January 2007, topping Syria's agenda was the signing of agreements related to economy and oil, which Damascus believed should precede agreements on security issues. Syria also seeks relief from the economic stress of its Iraqi refugees. According to December 2006 statistics from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, there are between 600,000 and 1 million Iraqi refugees in Syria. Iraq has a unique opportunity to ensure that its security demands are met before moving forward with Syria on those issues that are critical to the Syrian economy.

What may ultimately doom the jihadist and Baathist operatives in Syria is the domestic headache they give Damascus. Just as Saudi Arabia suffered the blowback effects of jihadists returning from Afghanistan in the 1980s, a new generation of foreign fighters driven out of Iraq may yet challenge the Syrian regime.

However, the Islamist opposition has been down that road before. The late Syrian President Hafez Assad brutally crushed a challenge to the regime from the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982 in the city of Hama, killing some 20,000 people. Thus, as journalist Thomas Friedman wrote in his book "From Beirut to Jerusalem," those who seek to challenge the Syrian regime should be prepared to play by "Hama Rules," which would prompt Damascus to neutralize the Islamists whenever they pose a threat to the regime's survival.

Copyright Daily Star--Lebanon 2009

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