Does a Disordered Iran Risk Pushing Damascus toward Riyadh?

In the latest issue of In the latest issue of The Atlantic, staff writer Jeffrey Goldberg asks his readers to imagine the possibility of a Jewish-Sunni alliance. At a moment in history when both Israel and the Middle East’s predominantly Sunni states are ostensibly threatened by Iran, Goldberg posits that such a configuration would effectively challenge Tehran’s rise. It would be “grand, if necessarily implicit” alliance.

Goldberg is correct in that Iran’s ambitions, when coupled with the instability and fallout of its elections, are already forcing a recalibration of interests among regional policymakers. We may yet see surprises. We will not, however, see a Jewish-Sunni alliance. If we were to draw on the lessons of 1991– when American policymakers scrambled to stop Israel from entering, and possibly fracturing, the Gulf War coalition– a military alliance with Israel would, at this time, be hard-pressed to move from the realm of the implicit to the practical. In the practical, a Jewish/Sunni fighting force would surely threaten the internal stability of the participating Sunni regime. And if an alliance is not practical, then what good is it?

Instead forging an alliance with Syria is worth much more. The struggle for Syria is alive and well, it is only the players that have changed. Iraq is no longer vying with an ascendant Egypt for control of Damascus. Instead Cairo and Baghdad have been eclipsed and then enveloped, if only imperfectly, into the larger Saudi-Iranian rivalry. Syria is Iran’s most important and longstanding regional alliance– one forged and maintained more out of pragmatism than shared ideology. And as such it may now be appropriate to ask if Tehran has overstretched, if the alliance doesn’t project to be far more trouble than it’s worth, and if Damascus is nearing the borders of the Riyadh camp.

For now Asad is safely perched on the fence. Ahmadinejad visited Damascus as recently as May but Riyadh has also made significant overtures. In March Asad met alone with Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah ahead of the Doha Summit and reports suggest that the Saudi King offered Damascus aid that would offset that already being given by Tehran, an estimated $1 billion (Qatar’s investment of $4 billion might also be jeopardized by a shift). A further promise of mobilized Arab backing in the peace process was extended. And for as much as the Iranian-Syrian relationship has given Damascus vital strategic depth in the Levant, if past is precedent, then even a temporary détente with Riyadh could act to improve the Syrian position in Lebanon. Of course, a full break– a grand shift– would mean abandoning Damascus’ Lebanese and Palestinian proxies, an unlikely outcome unless accompanied by tangible American and Israeli assurances. The significance of even a partial break in the Syrian-Iranian alliance should therefore not be underestimated.

Yet a grand shift in Syrian strategy becomes conceivable when considered against the backdrop of economic crisis and a long-stalled local economy. Tens of thousands of Syrians working in the Gulf have lost their jobs this year and will have to return home. Syrian expatriates remitted an estimated $850 million in 2008. Syria could reasonably calculate that a move away from Iran would relieve anxieties among Gulf policymakers and perhaps convince Washington to lift its policy of economic sanctions. The June visit of Mid East envoy George Mitchell, and the announcement of the return of an American ambassador to Damascus may suggest that the Obama administration is willing to chart a new path with Syria and bring actual pressure to bear on Israel over the Golan.

There is little to suggest that Syria could survive a face-to-face confrontation with Israel and as Israel becomes more bellicose toward Iran, Damascus may be looking for a way out of its alliance. But such a grand shift in strategy is almost always precipitated by an economic crisis. When Egypt left the Arab Camp it was facing the failure of socialist economic policies at home. When Syria last faced a grave economic test with the fall of the Soviet Union, it willingly committed 19,000 of its troops to fight another Arab state and, in so doing, win back financial support from the Gulf as well as improved relations with the West.

With a politically unstable and diplomatically overstretched Iran offering little to boost a floundering Syrian economy, Damascus could increasingly look to Riyadh and Washington. It would have to be convinced, however, that the Obama administration, unlike the Bush administration, operates independently of the wishes of Tel Aviv. Goldberg’s Jewish-Sunni alliance is fanciful. But a Washington-backed Damascus-Riyadh-Cairo axis– as briefly existed just after the first Gulf War– could be the unexpected outcome of disorder in Iran and the new struggle for Syria. -SW