Assad and His Allies: Irreconcilable Differences?

On February 22, 1987, President Hafez al-Assad of Syria deployed more than 7,000 Syrian troops into West Beirut. Their immediate aim in the capital of neighboring Lebanon was to stop the furious warfare that had raged for a week between feuding militias. But for Assad the stakes were much higher than the peace of Beirut’s streets. Syria had undergone a rapid succession of setbacks in its relations with the West, deepening economic crisis at home, and humiliations in Lebanon at the hands not only of Assad’s enemies but of his two most powerful allies: Iran and the Soviet Union. Indeed, Lebanon had become a crucible where those relations were constantly tested and often found wanting, and there the potential began to emerge for major changes in Syrian foreign policy.

The question of how Syria’s difficulties with two very different allies have developed, and where those tensions will lead, is tied intimately to the course of the Iran-Iraq war, the Palestinian question, the Arab-Israeli peace process and the fate of American hostages. In a region beset by intractable and interrelated stalemates one looks for variables that might change the equation, and Syria’s alliances have shown more signs of shifting than any other relationships, hostile or friendly, in the Middle East.

Can the West, especially Washington, exploit the situation? Can it hope for a major realignment in Syria’s relations with either Iran or the Soviet Union? In June, as Assad’s problems continued to multiply with the assassination of Lebanon’s pro-Syrian Prime Minister Rashid Karami, then the kidnapping of American journalist Charles Glass just 350 yards from a Syrian checkpoint, Washington seemed to sense an opportunity. It was less than seven months since the United States had withdrawn its ambassador to Damascus, charging Syria with support for international terrorism. President Reagan wrote to Assad personally, and in early July he dispatched U.N. Ambassador Vernon Walters to start talks about improving relations. Walters reportedly concluded the conversation with "feelings of optimism."