Israel’s Interests in Syria
by Prof. Efraim Inbar
May 20,2013

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 205

http://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israels-interests-in-syria/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=israels-interests-in-syria

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: It is a mistake for Israelis to express support for
Bashar Assad’s victory in Syria. Israel should stay out of the Syrian
conflict altogether while hoping for the fall of Assad. Ultimately Israel
would be better served by having a failed state next door than by having a
strong, Iranian-backed entity there.

Several prominent Israelis have expressed their preference for a Bashar
Assad victory in the civil war in Syria. This is a mistaken attitude for
moral and strategic reasons.

First, siding with a dictator that butchers his own people, and even uses
chemical weapons in order to stay in power, is morally disgusting. At the
normative level, Assad’s brutal dictatorship is not an acceptable preference
for a democratic state like Israel, even if the alternatives to Assad are
not very enticing. (The Syrian opposition includes radical Sunni elements –
such as al-Qaeda – that have not displayed great sensitivity to human rights
either.) In the real world there is sometimes a tacit necessity to tolerate
a dictatorship for a variety of reasons, but explicit support for it is a
moral embarrassment.

Second, Israeli statements that favor a side in the domestic struggles
within Arab entities are always a mixed blessing. Nobody in the Arab world
wants to be “tainted” by an association with the Jewish or Zionist state.
While links with Israel could be very useful, explicit closeness to Israel
has an undesirable delegitimizing effect. Therefore, even if Israel has its
favorites, Israeli leaders should keep their mouths shut.

Third, the idea that Israel can help engineer a certain political outcome
among its unruly neighbors displays incredible intellectual and historical
ignorance. Great Britain and France ruled the Middle East for decades and
were not very successful in changing the ways the “natives” ran their
affairs. In 1982, Israel was tempted to create a new political order in
Lebanon and failed miserably. Additional grand failures include the
twenty-first century efforts of the US to create an Iraq and an Afghanistan
in its image. Change in this part of the world can come only from within by
local leaders. Unfortunately, the Middle East has bred only despots of the
worst kind, such as Saddam Hussein and the Assads, hardly leadership
material that this region desperately needs to escape obscurantism, poverty,
and oppression. The notable exception is Kemal Atatürk, whose
accomplishments are currently being eroded by the AKP-led government in
Turkey.

Fourth, and most importantly, support for Assad reflects flawed
understanding of regional strategic realities. Syria under the Assad family
has been the most stable ally of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Middle
East. Iran is the greatest strategic challenge to Israel’s national
security, particularly because of its quest for nuclear weapons. The
survival of the Assad regime is a paramount Iranian interest, in order to
consolidate the Shiite crescent from the Gulf to the Mediterranean, which is
precisely why Iran uses its influence in Iraq and Lebanon to send Shiite
fighters to prop up the Alawite regime in Syria.

Iran is Israel’s arch-enemy and therefore weakening it should be Israel’s
first priority in its foreign policy. The fall of Assad would be a great
blow to Iran’s ambitions for Mideast dominance. It is in Israel’s interests
that Iranian influence in the region be rolled back.

Ascribing moderation to the Assad family because it has kept the Golan
Heights border quiet is somewhat misleading. During all those years, Syria
did not hesitate to bleed Israel via its proxies in Lebanon, Hizballah and
radical Palestinian groups. Moreover, the “moderate” Assad tried to develop
a nuclear option with the aid of North Korea and Iran. If Assad stays in
power he may try again. Moreover, open Israeli support for Assad puts Israel
at loggerheads with much of the Sunni Arab world. At this stage, such
posturing is not wise. Whatever the formal positions Sunni states display on
Israel, they are Israel’s allies in the attempt to prevent Iran from going
nuclear. Siding with Assad undermines cooperation in this endeavor. A Saudi
corridor for attacking Iranian nuclear installations is not a far-fetched
scenario if Israel plays it smart in the Middle East.

Finally, the understandable preference for having strong states, rather than
failed states, on Israel’s borders – because such states are easier
deterred – is not necessarily a good rule of thumb. Instability in Syria,
the probable outcome of the opposition’s victory, seems more dangerous than
an Assad regime that has internalized the rules of the game. Yet, a stable
Syria can become a rogue state like North Korea. History tells us that
states do not always behave rationally and in a responsible way. Moreover,
the fundamental truth is that states have greater capabilities than
non-state organizations to inflict pain on their neighbors. Therefore, by
definition strong states are more dangerous than failed states. Only strong
states can support a long-range missile program or develop nuclear weapons.
For example, a strong Salafist regime in Egypt is potentially more dangerous
than an Egypt that has problems enforcing its sovereignty over all its
territory. Chaos among Israel’s neighbors should not be altogether feared,
as it weakens them. The most significant result of the Arab upheavals in
recent years is the weakening of the Arab state, which has increased the
power differential between Israel and its neighbors.

The Middle East must be approached with humility, particularly by small
states such as Israel. Jerusalem cannot choose its neighbors and their
regimes; it can only minimize their abilities to harm Israel. Therefore,
Israel’s interests are very clear: stay out of the domestic struggles in
Syria, and destroy any enemy military capabilities there that have a
significant potential for harming Israelis.
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Prof. Efraim Inbar is a professor of political studies at Bar-Ilan
University, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and a
fellow at the Middle East Forum.

BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the
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