MUST READ: GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT SYRIA

Getting Serious About Syria
by Prof. Barry Rubin

"We must once again restore the Israeli army’s deterrence, because there is no other way,” explains Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Quite right. The place to start is Syria. Israel’s strategic policy toward Syria should be based on two simple, basic principles:

1. Israel should make the Syrians believe it wants to see the current regime there overthrown even if it has no intention of making this happen or even really wants that outcome.

2. Israel should make clear that if there is a future Hizballah attack leading to a war like last summer’s that Syria, not Lebanon, will be the main target of retaliation.

Let’s review the issues and then discuss why this is the best policy. It is true that Israel does not seek the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad’s Baathist dictatorship dominated by the Alawite minority. The reason is that the likely replacement would be an Islamist regime from the Sunni Arab majority. An alternative could be simply another Baathist regime under a different leader but the risks of regime change are certainly real.

Strategy, however, is not just stating what you ultimately want but also what you wish the other side to think you want. In Syria and throughout the Arab world, the idea is clearly held that Israel is not willing to strike too hard as to bring down the Assad regime. In turn, this emboldens that regime to strike hard at Israel, knowing it has little or nothing to fear. That security should be taken away from the Damascus regime.

Clearly, Israel does not want war with Syria. Yet the whole concept of deterrence is to make clear to the Syrians that Israel is not afraid of war and that Syrian support for terrorism against Israel will have real and costly consequences. Without this fear, there is no deterrence. And without deterrence war--either directly with Syria or with Syria’s clients in Lebanon--is far more likely.

The weakness of Syria should also be a factor in Israeli thinking. Despite the possibility of renewed Russian aircraft sales, Syria’s military is badly outdated. A lot of the regime’s threats and use of terrorism is a bluff, formulated precisely to distract from that fact. The Syrian regime has no great power ally and cannot depend on a single Arab government.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Getting Serious About Syria