Syria and Saudi Arabia: Collaboration and Conflicts in the Oil Era

278 Pages·2007·4.13 MB·English

by  Sonoko Sunayama

SYRIA AND SAUDI ARABIA
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SYRIA AND
SAUDI ARABIA
Collaboration and Conflicts
in the Oil Era

Sonoko Sunayama

Tauris Academic Studies
LONDON(cid:2284)NEWYORK
Published in 2007 by Tauris Academic Studies, an imprint of I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
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In the United States of America and Canada distributed by Palgrave Macmillan
a division of St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010

Copyright © 2007 Sonoko Sunayama

The right of Sonoko Sunayama to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted
by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any
part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Library of International Relations 31

ISBN: 978 1 84511 302 5

A full CIP record of this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available

Printed and bound in India by Replika Press Pvt. Ltd
From camera-ready copy edited and supplied by the author
CONTENTS
Preface and Acknowledgements vii

Introduction 1

1. Syrian-Saudi Relations before Camp David: 14
Historical background (1946–1978)

2. Drawing the Fault Lines: The Camp David agreement 49
and its aftermath (September 1978–October 1980)

3. Heading Opposing Camps: The primacy of Saudi Arabia 89
(October 1980–September 1982)

4. The Beginning of the End of ‘the Saudi Era’ 139
(October 1982–March 1984)

5. Syria’s Veto Power vs. Saudi Quest for Arab Consensus: 175
With reference to the Gulf War (April 1984–August 1990)

Conclusion 215

Notes 224

Bibliography 241

Index 259

PREFACE AND
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
‘How does Syria, far from a self-sufficient state by any standards, attract
enough overseas economic and political aid to ensure its survival?’ It was
over a decade ago that the question first entered my mind and gripped my
thoughts. I was soon introduced to the rich literature on Syrian-Soviet
relations, written by scholars of diverse nationalities, providing answers to
one piece of the puzzle, but leaving more questions to be asked about
how Syria used relations with the neighbouring states to its advantage.
Years passed before I set out to study Syrian-Saudi relations—another set
of bilateral relations which Damascus relentlessly attempted to tap for its
benefit. Only now, after the further passage of time, have I arrived at an
answer to the question, while making other discoveries along the way, all
to be tested and challenged by scholars in the future.
Many institutions and individuals have assisted me in this path, namely:
Ito International Foundation for Education Exchange, Matsushita
International Foundation Research Fund, the Nihon Ikueikai Award,
Institut Français d’Études Arabes de Damas (IFEAD) and the Gulf
Research Centre (GRC)—some of which provided me with generous
funding while others made available their facilities. At the London School
of Economics and Political Science (LSE), to which the first version of
this work was submitted as a doctoral thesis, my two supervisors, the late
Mr. Philip Windsor and Professor Fred Halliday, generously shared their
thoughts on the subject with formidable patience and much-appreciated
humour.
I have been looking forward to writing this page in part because it gives
me the opportunity to acknowledge the guidance and friendship of
ever-dependable Hiroyuki Aoyama (Institute of Developing Economies,
Tokyo), to whom I am most indebted. I would also like to thank: Ghassan
Mukahhal, Hassan ‘Abbas, Hussain Musa, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Saqr, F.
viii SYRIA AND SAUDI ARABIA
Tarabulsi, M. Kilu, R. N. el-Rayyes, P. Seale, C. Tripp, J. al-Zein, G.
Armanazi and K. Shihabi to name but a few. Some of the other experts
and specialists who have kindly given me their time and insights at
different stages of this research prefer to remain unnamed for the purpose
of their own security and convenience; I thank all collectively.
The limited space will not permit me to acknowledge all those who
have offered moral and practical support or sometimes just made
themselves readily available to listen. I am grateful in particular for the
friendship of: Simon Williams, Maartje Houbrechts, Chieko Shindo, Kiriko
Tokura, Yoko Takahashi, Deborah Hawkes, Victoria Robson, Susanne
Buckley-Zistel, Ayşegül Keçeciler, Osman Çatı, Özgür Çatı, Steven Colling
and the Kleins.
However, the project would not have even come close to completion,
had it not been for my parents’ understanding and Ross Everson’s patient
encouragement and sacrifice. I would like to dedicate this book to them.
Transliteration of Arabic words has been kept to the simplest with
minimum usage of the extra symbols and letters so as to maintain the
readability of the text. More detailed distinction of Arabic alphabets
would deem the text cumbersome to read for those with no knowledge of
Arabic, while others should be able to deduce the original. Preference is
given to an anglicised term, whenever it is widely understood—i.e. House
of Saud, but Sa’ud al-Faisal, and Aleppo, instead of Halab. Quoted texts
have not been modified to a unified method, and names of authors
maintain the spelling as in the original publication.
INTRODUCTION
An old dictum among Middle East observers reads, ‘There can be no
[Arab-Israeli] war without Egypt, and no peace without Syria’, to which
some have recently come to add, ‘no normalisation without Saudi Arabia’.1
The adage attests to the centrality of the so-called Damascus-Riyadh-Cairo
tripartite axis in shaping the Arab regional order; it briefly materialised in
the mid-1950s and the mid-1970s but collapsed with the foundation of the
United Arab Republic in February 1958 and the then Egyptian President,
Anwar al-Sadat's visit to Jerusalem in November 1977, respectively. The
theme was revisited more than a decade later upon the 6 March 1991
proclamation of the Damascus Declaration or the '6+2' formula, in which
the six states of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) plus Egypt and
Syria committed to play a central role in securing Gulf security, thereby
linking the Gulf issues to the wider Arab concerns, especially the
Arab-Israeli sector (Hollis, 1995: 37). Most recently, further evidence of
the triangle at work was reported between December 2005 and January
2006, when Syrian President Bashshar al-Asad found himself under heavy
international pressure to co-operate fully with the United Nations
International Independent Investigation Commission (UNIIC) in its
investigation of the ex-Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri’s murder
case. Saudi King ‘Abdallah bin ‘Abd al-‘Aziz and Egyptian President
Husni Mubarak embarked on joint diplomatic campaigns, promising Asad
of their support while seeking to persuade him to fulfil all requests from
UNIIC (Daily Star, 9 and 14 January, 2006).
Despite its undisputed weight in shaping Middle East regional events,
the relationship between Damascus and Riyadh—one side of the
triangle—is commonly noted as a ‘paradox’, in which, ‘On the one hand,
[the two capitals] differed on almost every major policy issue in the
[Middle East]; on the other, both conveyed the impression that there
existed some kind of an alliance, albeit an uneasy one’ (MECS, 1984–