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Syria Can't Be Flipped

[Forbes] Michael Rubin - It is tempting to believe that U.S. diplomacy can flip Syria. The last rejectionist Arab state, Syria is a lynchpin not only in the Arab-Israeli peace process, but also in efforts to resolve the Iraqi insurgency and Lebanese instability. Alas, Syria cannot be flipped, largely due to Arab history and political culture. For more than a millennium, Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo have competed for the leadership of the Arab world. At times, two rivals would join forces but never has there been solidarity among all three. Diplomats seeking to flip Assad are asking him to commit political suicide. Syria has less than 20 million citizens to Egypt's 80 million; for Damascus to work in the same coalition as Cairo is to subordinate itself to it. Absent the crisis of resistance, Assad has little reason to justify rule by his Alawite clan, a minority Shiite sect, among a disenfranchised Sunni Arab majority. The writer, editor of the Middle East Quarterly, is a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
2008-11-13 01:00:00
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