Rapprochement Snag: Continued Syrian Support for Jihadis Moving to Iraq

By David Schenker

Following up on Secretary of State Clinton’s announcement on April 25 that “some of the recent suicide bombers [in Iraq] most likely came across the border through Syria,” the Washington Post today ran a story today on Syria’s ongoing jihadi pipeline.

The Post story comes just days after a US delegation headed by NEA A/S Jeffrey Feltman and the NSC’s Daniel Shapiro visited Damascus to try and make some progress on the US-Syrian diplomatic engagement. It’s unclear what was accomplished during this second trip. No doubt, any optimism for progress was dampened by the visit on May 5 to Damascus by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

During his sojurn in Syria, Ahmedinejad reportedly met with the leaders of ten resident Palestinian terrorist groups. At a joint press conference, in order to lay to rest any speculation about a potential “strategic realignment” away from Tehran, Syrian President Bashar Asad emphasized that the bilateral relationship remained “strategic.”

News of the reinvigorated jihadi pipeline in Syria should come as little surprise. In late April, according to Iran’s Press TV, “Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has warned Obama that Washington will face a crisis in the Middle East if he does not pull US troops out of Iraq.”

At the same time, however, Syria’s renewed efforts to destabilize Iraq undercut the only carrot that Damascus is offering Washington in return for diplomatic rapprochement, i.e, assistance on Iraq. The myth of coincident US and Syrian interest on Iraq was articulated by Syrian Ambassador to Washington Imad Mustapha at MEI on May 1st. According to the account in the Foreign Policy blog:

"He [Mustapha] explained that Syria no longer disagreed with the U.S. about Iraq, that it fully supported an American withdrawal on a responsible timetable and that Syria would do whatever it could to ensure that the withdrawal succeeds and leaves behind a stable Iraq."

Continued Syrian involvement in the jihadi pipeline—a longstanding Syrian Government policy that was confirmed by the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia in October 2008 when it levied a $414 million dollar civil judgment against Syria for "providing material support and resources to Zarqawi and Al Qaeda in Iraq"—is not going to help the rapprochement with Washington.

Meanwhile, on Friday May 8, the White House announced that it had renewed the IEEPA and SAA sanctions on Syria.