Fundamental and Applied Researches In Practice of Leading Scientific Schools, 2016

13 Pages·2016·0.77 MB·English

International Scientific Journal

Fundamental and Applied Researches
In Practice of Leading Scientific Schools

2016 – 1 (13)
ISSN 2313-7525
https://fdotadotr.wordpress.com

SEEKING LEVERAGE IN THE LEVANT. THE US’S
BATTLE WITH SYRIA OVER LEBANON
Richard Iserman
Dr.H.C. in Political Psychology, USA

Article info Of the places in the Middle East that the United States might seek to
Received dominate, Lebanon at first seems an unlikely choice. The tiny nation has a
30 November population barely larger than that of Los Angeles, few natural resources, and a
2015 fragile political structure still emerging from the trauma of a fifteen year long

civil war. But despite these factors, the US has shown a growing interest in
Accepted
Lebanon in recent years, raising questions about the motivation for this
25 January 2016
attention. Frequently, when the US casts its sights on the Middle East, pundits

are quick to explain it as quest for oil or other direct enrichment. But Lebanon’s

scarce exploitable resources require a more nuanced analysis of the US’s

intervention. Rather than a source of material gain, the US sees Lebanon as an

opportunity to establish a valuable strategic gain over its last remaining Arab

rival for regional dominance: Syria. Since 2001, the Bush administration has

sought to broaden the US’ hegemony in the Middle East by openly confronting

Syria over control of Lebanon in three spheres: political, military and legal

strategy. In the following pages I will examine these areas and conclude by

considering whether challenging Syria via Lebanon has successfully 365
strengthened the US’s position.
Keywords: Regional Struggle, Political Confrontation, Military Confrontation,
Legal Confrontation.
This research was finished at December, 2007
Copyright © 2016
All rights reserved.

Introduction
Background: Why Lebanon?
The United States is a latecomer to the regional struggle over Lebanon,
which has its origins in the 1967 Six Day War between Israel and its Arab
neighbors. Prior to that conflict, Syria held possession of the Golan Heights, a
strategic outpost from which Syria had been able to launch limited attacks on
Israel.1 After losing this territory in the Six Day War, Syria became fixated on
recovering it again. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War Syria briefly succeeded in
recapturing the Golan territory, but it was soon overrun by Israeli forces and Syria

1 David W. Lesch, The New Lion of Damascus : Bashar Al-Asad and Modern Syria (New Haven Conn.: Yale
University Press, 2005), 20.
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was ultimately was forced to sign a peace treaty in 1974 leaving the territory in
Israel’s possession.
In 1976, only two years after losing the Golan Heights for the second time,
the first Syrian troops moved into Lebanon, where civil war had broken out the
previous year. Syria’s military presence at the outset was not visibly ambitious—
the original troops had been requested by the Lebanese President Suleiman
Frangieh to put down an attack on the presidential palace. Moreover, Syria
ostensibly had a legitimate military interest in stabilizing Lebanon for its own
safety. But Syria’s intentions soon became clear when the early Presidential
elections it had engineered replaced Suleiman with a candidate preferred by
Damascus. Over the course of the succeeding years Syria became an integral
player in the violent struggle between factions, becoming at times the chief
enemy of Maronite Christians who feared Syrian control would threaten their
political position. Even after a peace settlement was reached at Ta’if in 1989
Syria’s troops remained in Lebanon while Damascus continued to exercise control
over Lebanese politics.
What does Syria gain through Lebanon? Historically, Syria’s possession of
this territory fulfilled two major aims. First, control of Lebanon’s southern border
offered a level of strategic benefit similar to what it had lost with the Golan
Heights. Even though Lebanon’s coastal position lacks the advantage offered by
the Golan territory’s 1000 m elevation over the Israeli territory below, its 366
southern border comes within 20 miles of the Israeli metropolis of Haifa. While
Syria’s President Bashar al Asad would never openly mention that Haifa could be
a target for rocket attacks, Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah has often pointed
out the strategic importance of southern Lebanon in his own political messages.
During Israel’s war with Hezbollah in 2006, Nasrallah boasted: “We are ready for
it, a war on every level. To Haifa, and believe me, to beyond Haifa, and to beyond
beyond Haifa.”2 Apart from opportunities for ballistic attacks, Syria was able to
threaten Israel with the presence of as many as 25,000 troops near its border
until it was forced to withdraw them in 2005.
This is not to suggest that Syria wanted an actual conflict with Israel. Such a
conflict would be disastrous for Syria, whose military expenditures are only a
fraction of Israel’s, not to mention the roughly $240 million Israel receives per
annum in US military funding.3 But Syria’s policy of challenging Israel dates back
to another era prior to 1967, when Syria, Egypt and Iraq pursued a uniformly
antagonistic policy of confrontation towards Israel under the banner of Arab
Nationalism. Even though Syria was weaker than its partners, its potential to

2 “Hizballah Leader Hasan Nasrallah, Message to the Lebanese People,” Journal of Palestine Studies 36, no. 1
(Fall, 2006), 176.
3 "CIA - the World Factbook - Israel," CIA, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/geos/is.html (accessed 11/30/2007).
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challenge Israel from a strategic location allowed it to multiply its measure of
power. But almost as soon as Syria set its sights on Lebanon, this order began to
break down when Egyptian President Anwar el Sadat signed a peace treaty with
Israel in 1979. After Saudi Arabia’s invitation to US forces in 1990, Syria was the
only remaining neighbor of Israel standing against its regional hegemony. By 2003
with the fall of Saddam Hussein, the old order had completely vanished and Syria
was surrounded by US-friendly regimes, except for Lebanon itself.
But although the strategic benefit from dominating Lebanon weakened
over time, Syria had a second aim in controlling its smaller neighbor: to
strengthen its position in negotiations with Israel for a final peace settlement.
Since 1967, Syria has continued to seek an opportunity to regain the Golan
Heights, and its leverage through Lebanon has offered two advantages in these
negotiations. First, Syria’s dictation of Beirut’s policy effectively grants it a second
seat in any regional peace talks. This has been clear since the Madrid conference
in 1991, where the Lebanese delegation was clearly acting under orders from
Damascus.4 Second, Syria had hoped to use its option to withdraw militarily from
Lebanon as a quid pro quo for the return of the Golan Heights. Although Syria
had tacitly held open this possibility for some time, its plans were revealed when
it reacted harshly to forced withdrawal thanks in part to US pressure in 2005
(more about which below). Even in the aftermath of that loss, Syria sought to
emphasize that its position remained the same by rallying Hezbollah to hold pro- 367
Syrian demonstrations.5 The visible reminder of Syria’s influence over Hezbollah’s
20,000-odd force was a clear sign that even after three decades Damascus is
dependent on its Lebanon strategy to obtain its goals: the return of the Golan
Heights and ultimately, the preservation of its autonomy and regional hegemony.
1. Political Confrontation
The first avenue of attack by which the US has sought to challenge Syria for
hegemony over Lebanon has been the easiest: a war of words. Here the primary
weapon has been the word democracy, the meaning of which the Bush
administration has reshaped to make it better suited for use against Syria. In
Bush’s parlance, democracy is a malleable concept, adaptable in any context to
exclude Syrian influence in Lebanon. As an example of this type of expression,
consider Bush’s statement from September 2007, speaking on the eve of
Lebanese elections: “The United States opposes any attempts to intimidate the
Lebanese people as they seek to exercise their democratic right to select a
president without foreign influence.”6 The juxtaposition of democracy with the

4 Lesch, The New Lion of Damascus : Bashar Al-Asad and Modern Syria, 54.
5 Flynt Lawrence Leverett, Inheriting Syria : Bashar's Trial by Fire (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press,
2005), 12.
6 George W. Bush, "Statement on the Death of Parliament Member Walid Eido of Lebanon," Weekly Compilation
of Presidential Documents 43, no. 24 (06/18, 2007), 798-799.
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putative polar opposite of Syrian influence is a constant for Bush. A positive
understanding of what is actually meant by democracy is noticeably absent.
In practice, supporting “democracy” in Lebanon has meant intervention in
the precarious balance of Lebanese politics to engineer an opportunity for US
control. In 2004, Bush found his opportunity when Syria tried to manipulate the
Lebanese political system to secure a three-year term extension for the pro-
Syrian President Emile Lahoud. This move further antagonized French President
Jacques Chirac, who had long sparred with Bashar al Asad over the treatment of
Chirac’s own favored leader, Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. France’s
longstanding tension with Syria provided the US a chance to form a partnership
in the UN Security Council to pass a Resolution denouncing Syria’s involvement.7
In September 2004, the Security Council passed Resolution 1559, which calls not
only for “strict respect” for Lebanon’s sovereignty, but also demands that “all
remaining foreign forces withdraw from Lebanon.”8 Without naming any
particular power, the Resolution is aimed directly at Syria’s control of Lebanese
politics, making careful note to twice mention the “upcoming presidential
election” that Syria had sought to reschedule to 2007.
The US’s struggle for control of Lebanon finally came to a head not over
Lahoud’s extension of term, but over the open assassination of Prime Minister
Hariri.9 Prior to this moment, Bashar miscalculated the US’s ambitions as being
solely directed towards Iraq, and took Resolution 1559 as nothing more than a 368
tool to force improved security on Syria’s border with Iraq.10 But in light of the
open violence of the assassination, the United States was able to seize on its
international partnership with France to put heavy international pressure on
Lebanon for full compliance with Resolution 1559, including the clause requiring
the withdrawal of troops. The convergence of international pressure and arousal
of domestic opposition by the assassination brought about a loss for Syria as it
was forced to comply. At a stroke, the US won not only a military setback for
what had become an open rival, but also a parliamentary victory for the US-
friendly March 14 Coalition. To cap it all, the Bush administration’s rhetoric
smoothed over its involvement in the affair, coining the phrase “Cedar
Revolution”11 to depict the event as a triumph for democracy, rather than US
control.

7 Leverett, Inheriting Syria : Bashar's Trial by Fire.
8 The Situation in the Middle East, 1559, 5028th sess., (September 2, 2004),
http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/unsc_resolutions04.html.
9 I leave the controversial question of whether Syria ordered the killing or not open, since it is not essential for
my thesis.
10 Raymond A. Hinnebusch, "Syria: Defying the Hegemon" In The Iraq War: Causes and Consequences, eds. Rick
Fawn and Raymond A. Hinnebusch (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006), 138.
11 Paula J. Dobriansky, "Remarks on Release of Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2004," US
Department of State, http://www.state.gov/g/rls/rm/2005/42793.htm (accessed 12/7, 2007).
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Since that victory, Bush continued to redefine democracy in Lebanon not as
an institution of governance, but as support for his own favored factions or
candidates. In the runup to the 2007 Lebanese general election Bush has
campaigned heavily on behalf of representatives of the March 14 Coalition.
Through public appearances with Sa’id Hariri (Rafik Hariri’s son) and invitations
for March 14 representatives to the White House, Bush has sought to provide
assistance for the strongest supporter of US interests in Lebanese politics. In an
interview with al-Arabiya, Bush declared “I have no specific candidate [that I’m
backing],” but proceeded in succeeding paragraphs to enumerate the
commendable acts of Hariri’s faction in opposing extremism and Syrian
intervention.12 In short, the White House has shown an unusual interest in the
outcome of Lebanese elections, and expended no small amount of energy in
seeking to ensure that the winner will be someone who is amenable to US
regional interests.
2. Military Confrontation
Like Syria, the US has little interest in Lebanon as a staging ground for an
actual military attack, but rather for its strategic opportunities. Just as Lebanon’s
southern border reaches dangerously close to Haifa, its eastern border is only 14
miles from Damascus. This geographic reality poses a challenge to Syria, which
has seldom had to contemplate a threat from its western border. The
unprecedented threat became even greater following the US’s invasion of Iraq in 369
2003. Although the US is deployed on a massive scale in Iraq, with over 165,000
troops (not counting contractors and other forces), these resources are still
largely tied up with the effort of battling insurgents and other forces. 13
Nevertheless, the mere presence of a US-friendly regime in Baghdad offers the
US an opportunity to erect a cordon sanitaire around Syria. Nearly all of Syria’s
other neighbors are amenable to US interests: Turkey (no friend to Syria thanks
to longstanding territorial disputes), Jordan (which still bears a grudge after Syria
invaded its territory in 1970),14 and Saudi Arabia. Only one link remains in this
chain of Syria’s neighbors: Lebanon.
The Cedar Revolution is not a guaranteed opportunity for the US to
accomplish its strategic goal of fencing in Syria. But the US has a long history of
seizing on small openings to build strategic military positions in the Middle East.
In 1981, for instance, Ronald Reagan set a precedent by selling an Airborne

12 "Interview with Elie Nakouzi of Al Arabiya," Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 43, no. 40 (10/08,
2007), 1303-1312.
13 Damien Cave, "2007 is Deadliest Year for US Troops in Iraq," New York Times (November 6, 2007),
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/world/middleeast/07iraq.html?ex=1352178000&en=59865d5904e8594a&ei=5
124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink.
14 William Harris, Bashar Al-Assad's Lebanon Gamble.(Syrian Involvement in Lebanon), Vol. 12, 2005), 1.
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Warning and Control System (AWACs) to Saudi Arabia.15 The AWACs sale in itself
was only a small first step, but it initiated a relationship of mutual trust between
the US and Saudi Arabia. In time, the Saudi Arabia continued to seek additional
weapons from the US, and became amenable to the construction of strategic
facilities for US armaments. By the time of the US’s first invasion of Iraq in 1990
and 1991, Saudi Arabia had become a full-fledged partner with the US, and had
offered its territory as a base for US troops, an arrangement that continues to
this day.
Today this scenario is playing itself out again slowly in Lebanon. Like Saudi
Arabia, Lebanon faces a distant regional threat from Iran. These circumstances
are somewhat different, since Iran no longer has the strength of the former USSR
behind it (despite Moscow’s continued support, it is no longer the juggernaut it
once was). Iran is also considerably farther from Lebanon, although this
difference is made negligible by the presence of Iranian-supported forces such as
Hezbollah inside Lebanon’s own borders. Apart from Iran, Lebanon is also
threatened by an overpowering force from its large neighbor Syria, just as Saudi
Arabia faced an immediate threat from Iraq in 1990. In short, the conditions in
Lebanon are ripe for the US to follow Ronald Reagan’s example and gain a
military advantage through influence over Beirut.
And this is precisely what the US appears to be doing, primarily on the
pretext of providing support to Lebanon in the aftermath of Israel’s attacks in the 370
summer of 2006. Immediately after the conclusion of these attacks in early
August 2006, the US Department of Defense announced it would use the new
authority it had been given under section 1206 of the 2006 National Defense
Authorization Act to purchase military equipment for Lebanon.16 Whereas the US
had only authorized $36 million in aid to Lebanon in fiscal year 2005, the Bush
administration secured over $181 million in funding for Lebanon in 2006 via
section 1206. For 2007, the amount requested has jumped to $770 million, all
directed towards the strengthening of the Lebanese armed forces.17 What began
as a trickle of support for Lebanon has already been multiplied almost 20 times in
less than two years. Although the extension of US aid to Lebanon does not in
itself guarantee the US will gain control, it is a small step that leads in the same
direction that Saudi Arabia as well as many other nations in the region have
taken.
3. Legal Confrontation

15 Steven A. Yetiv, Crude Awakenings : Global Oil Security and American Foreign Policy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 2004), 79.
16 Donna Miles, "Lebanon to be among the First Beneficiaries of New Department of Defense Funding
Authority," DISAM Journal of International Security Assistance Management 29, no. 2 (Spring, 2007), 1.
17 Jeremy Sharp, US Foreign Aid to Lebanon: Issues for Congress (Washington DC: Congressional Research
Service,[2007]), http://www.opencrs.cdt.org/document/RL33933/ (accessed November 17, 2007).
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The US has sought to confront Syria legally on two levels: domestically and
internationally. On the domestic level, the US kept up a sustained effort to pass
laws that isolate and weaken Syria since the US invasion of Iraq. In December
2003, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Syria Accountability and
Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, an opening salvo in the legal battle
over Lebanon. The Act was largely symbolic, a fact made evident by comparison
of its lengthy introduction devoted to denunciation of Syria’s malfeasance with
the short section spelling out the weak measures available to Congress to arrest
intervention in Lebanon’s internal affairs.18 The Bush administration has kept up a
constant drumbeat pushing for renewal of these same legal measures, although
with the loss of Republican control of Congress he has been forced to find other
avenues to effect their force. In August 2007, President Bush issued an Executive
Order freezing the assets of those whose acts have the purpose of undermining
Lebanon’s democratic processes or institutions, contributing to the breakdown
of the rule of law in Lebanon, supporting the reassertion of Syrian control or
otherwise contributing to Syrian interference in Lebanon, or infringing upon or
19
undermining Lebanese sovereignty.
Here we see the same rhetoric of democracy and autonomy for Lebanon
discussed earlier being backed up by the harsh force of international sanctions on
an individual basis. But the Executive Order is also straightforwardly explicit in
stating that these sanctions are being taken in order to defend and promote the 371
US’s own “national security and foreign policy.”20 In other words, the Order uses
the legal force of sanctions to supplant Syrian influence with that of the US.
On an international level, the US has focused its attention on the passage
of UN Security Council Resolution 1757, which is widely understood to serve US
interests primarily. From Syria’s perspective, the Resolution, which calls for a
tribunal to investigate the assassination of Rafik Hariri, appears to draw further
attention to the catalytic event that forced its withdrawal in 2005. Regardless of
what the tribunal may eventually find, the Resolution offers the US a chance to
capitalize on the anti-Syrian sentiment that surfaced in the wake of the
assassination. Following the passage of UNSCR 1757, pro-Syrian factions in
Lebanon responded with outright violence, including several bombings in
Beirut.21 Syria’s attempts to destabilize Lebanon were part of a well-established
tactic to assert regional dominance. By resorting to this measure, Syria
demonstrated its concern that the US’s efforts threatened that dominance.

18 Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, Public Law 108-175, (2006): ,
http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d108:H.R.1828: (accessed December 7, 2007).
19 George W. Bush, "Executive Order 13441--Blocking Property of Persons Undermining the Sovereignty of
Lebanon Or its Democratic Processes and Institutions," Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 43, no. 31
(08/06, 2007), 1035-1037.
20 ibid.
21 Jay Solomon, "Lebanon Tribunal in Peril," Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition 249, no. 119 (05/22, 2007), A5.
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Apart from Syria’s concerns, others in the international community
expressed their own reservations about UNSCR 1757. At the passage of the
Resolution, China and Russia (along with three other non-permanent Security
Council members) abstained, calling the Resolution an illegitimate intervention in
Lebanon’s domestic affairs and contrary to the principle of domestic sovereignty
on which the UN Charter is based. The Russian Foreign Ministry further justified
its hesitation because of the Resolution’s use of Chapter VII of the UN Charter,
which calls for the possibility of using “economic sanctions and other measures,
including military force,” against an offending state.22 Iran added its voice to
these concerns, calling the Resolution an outright attempt by the US to curb
Syrian power.23 These reactions reflect an international and regional
apprehension that the US’s legal challenge to Syria over control of Lebanon may
be the first step toward more direct conflict.
A possible objection: the US is merely backing Israel’s interests
One might counter this paper’s thesis by claiming that the US has not been
seeking its own advantages in Lebanon but only blindly supporting Israel in its
opposition to Hezbollah and Syria. The strongest evidence for such a claim may
be found in the US’s behavior during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, when the US
aided Israel in two ways: by stalling for time and providing material support. The
US enacted the first strategy by ignoring the 7-point proposal submitted by Fouad
Siniora on July 25, 2006 for nearly two weeks. 24 When UN Security Council 372
Resolution 1701 (which ended the conflict) was finally adopted, its substance was

nearly the same as that of the 7-point plan. Bush also actively encouraged Israel
25
to ignore international calls for a cease-fire until the passage of Resolution 1701.
Apart from these stalling tactics, the US was found to have sped up arms
deliveries for use in the war against Hezbollah. To all appearances, the US was
through these actions filling its traditional role of allowing Israel’s interests to
dominate its policy in the Western Mediterranean.
But such a view ignores a critical distinction: the 2006 war actually exposed
a point of divergence between Israeli and US interests over the question of
whether Lebanon should be a strong or weak state. As previously discussed, the
US has invested considerable energy in efforts to strengthen US-backed
politicians in Lebanon as a bulwark against Syria. Furthermore, the Bush
administration increased its spending request for military aid to Lebanon in 2007
to 20 times what had been sent in 2005. In contrast, Israel has a clear interest in
keeping Lebanon in a weakened state, making this clear by the pattern of attacks

22 Yelena Suponina, "Russia Spots Flaws," Current Digest of the Post-Soviet Press 59, no. 22 (06/27, 2007), 17-18.
23 Solomon, Lebanon Tribunal in Peril, A5
24 "B3. Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, Seven-Point Plan for Ending the War in Lebanon, Beirut, 7 August
2006," Journal of Palestine Studies 36, no. 1 (Fall, 2006), 177.
25 Trita Parsi, "Iran and Israel: The Avoidable War," Middle East Policy 14, no. 3 (Fall, 2007), 79.
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in the war. Although the Winograd Commission appointed by Israel’s government
has not submitted its final report, its Interim Report submitted in September
2007 makes a note of the IDF’s excessive and unnecessary targeting of civilian
infrastructure, including roads and water systems.26 In addition, Israel
gratuitously targeted sites in southern Beirut and outlying suburbs with the
evident intention of weakening the state’s ability to function.27 The severity of
Israel’s military campaign against Lebanon actively undercuts US interests, and
demonstrates the rift between US and Israeli long-term goals.
Why, then, did the US support Israel in the war with Hezbollah? To answer
this question, it is necessary to understand the role that Hezbollah plays in
obstructing the US’s interests in Lebanon. After Syria withdrew its forces in 2005
it retained substantial control within Lebanon through a number of political
proxies, chiefly those in the Aoun Alliance and the Opposition bloc, the latter led
by Amal and Hezbollah. As mentioned above, Syria demonstrated its continued
presence in Lebanon in the immediate aftermath of the Cedar Revolution by
rallying these Opposition parties. Hezbollah continues to present a challenge to
the US’s attempts to dominate Lebanon because of its political and military
power. Politically, Hezbollah by itself holds 14 out of 128 seats in Lebanon’s
fragmented Parliament. Together with Amal and other parties the Opposition
Bloc totals 33 seats. Militarily, Hezbollah represents a force at least as large as the
size of the contingent Syria withdrew in 2005, around 20,000.28 The persistence 373
and growth of Hezbollah’s influence represented a threat to the US’s ambitions
for confronting Syria.
Thus, although the 2006 war’s destruction went farther than the US would
have wanted, the US did have a basic interest in seeing Hezbollah routed and
likely hoped that Israel could accomplish this. Just a few months before the
conflict started Bush denounced Hezbollah as a “force of instability” in Lebanon,
and described it as an obstacle to democracy.29 By now it should be clear what
this turn of phrase meant: Hezbollah threatened US interests. This understanding
provides the key to Condoleeza Rice’s perplexing and infamous description of the
2006 war as the “birth pangs of a new Middle East.”30 For the Bush
administration, the “new Middle East” is one in which the US has greater

26 Official English Summary of the Winograd Panel Interim Report (New York: Wall Street Journal,[2007]),
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/winogradreport-04302007.pdf (accessed 11/30/2007).
27 Gilbert Achcar and Michel Warschawski, The Thirty-Three-Day War : Israel's War on Hezbollah in Lebanon and
its Consequences (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2007),
http://www.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip075/2006038808.html.
28 Leverett, Inheriting Syria : Bashar's Trial by Fire, 12.
29 Michael Slackman, "As Syria's Influence in Lebanon Wanes, Iran Moves in," New York Times (March 13, 2006,
2006), http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/13/international/middleeast/13beirut.html?_r=1&oref=slogin (accessed
11-30-2007).
30 Neil MacFarquhar, "Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah," New York Times (July 28, 2006,
2006), http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/28/world/middleeast/28arabs.html.
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dominance. The war against Hezbollah was an attempt to bring about this new
order by removing an obstacle to US control of Lebanon. By clearing the way to
US influence in Beirut, the US ultimately sought a chance to subdue Syria, the last
major Arab state to defy the US’s regional hegemony.
Conclusion: Has the US succeeded?
The US’s attempts to confront Syria have failed in three ways. First, the US is
finding that its attempts at influencing Lebanese politics are no match for Syria’s
decades of experience in manipulating leaders in Beirut. Syria is intimately
familiar with the delicate confessional balance of Lebanese politics, having helped
construct the Ta’if Accord of 1989. When necessary, Syria has proven adept at
knowing just how to touch the Lebanese political machine to make it break
down, requiring Syria’s aid to prevent chaos. Although the US made an advance
with the success of the Cedar Revolution in 2005, the March 14 Coalition faces
growing popular unease over US influence. Association with the US has become a
liability in Lebanon thanks to the war in Iraq. Lebanese voters have also come to
perceive a double standard between Bush’s denunciation of Syrian intervention
and continued attempts to sway Lebanese elections. In the preliminary
campaigns for 2007’s Lebanese presidential elections, Bush’s campaigning on
behalf of candidates from the March 14 coalition has had a noticeably negative
impact on their performance.31
Second, the US’s attempts to outmaneuver Syria have also weakened its 374
overall regional position. In seeking to extend the US’s direct influence into
Lebanon, the Bush administration miscalculated how strongly Syria might react
to being backed into such a narrow corner. Without the security of its client state,
Syria’s position becomes much more desperate, and as a result it might seek
other more dangerous avenues to ensure its autonomy. Although it is useless to
speculate about the precise nature of the site destroyed by Israel air forces on
October 7 near Damascus, the fact that it merited such a careful precision strike
suggests it may have been a serious military target. In any case, Syria’s military
capabilities overall are still not insubstantial, and attempts to stoke anti-Syrian
sentiment on Damascus’ doorstep while it remains powerful could have serious
consequences for the US.
Finally, by challenging Syria the US has lost a potentially valuable partner for
mutually beneficial cooperation. Prior to 2003, Syria willingly assisted US
intelligence efforts with substantial results. Simon and Stevenson note that
“Syrian intelligence apparently helped thwart a Spring 2002 attack on a US
military support facility in Bahrain, and Syrian authorities arrested at least one of
the al Qaeda operatives implicated in the September 11 attacks.”32 Syria could

31 Hassan M. Fattah and Lebanon.,Nada Bakri contributed reporting from Beirut, "U.S . Promotes Free Elections ,
Only to See Allies Lose," The New York Times, sec. A; Foreign Desk; Memo From Dubai, August 10, 2007.
32 Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, "The Road to Damascus," Foreign Affairs 83, no. 3 (2004), 110-118.