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Syria Syrian-Iraqi Hostility
Another important Syrian security consideration in early 1987
was Syria's twenty-four-year-old antagonism toward its eastern
neighbor, Iraq. Since 1963, when the Baath Party came to power in
Syria and became a rival of the Iraqi Baath Party, relations
between these two states have been marked by political intrigue,
attempts at subversion, assassinations, and concerted propaganda
campaigns by each against the other. Since both Syria and Iraq
are ruled by the ostensibly pan-Arab Baath Party, the conflict
has been over which "true Baath Party" was to dominate the whole
movement
(see Political Dynamics
, ch. 4). Both states
considered themselves vulnerable to attack because the border
between them is little more than a line drawn across a vast,
open, thinly populated desert.
In 1975 a dispute over rights to the waters of the Euphrates
River--a waterway essential to both countries--took Syria and
Iraq to the verge of war. Syria limited the water flowing out of
its newly completed Euphrates (Tabaqah) Dam, thereby slowing the
flow into Iraq. For two months both countries hurled invective at
each other, and Syrian troops massed along the Iraqi border. Only
Saudi Arabian mediation induced Syria to release more water from
its Tabaqah reservoir "as a gesture of goodwill."
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, both sides committed frequent
acts of terrorism and subversion. Syria routinely blamed Iraqi
agents for a multitude of internal ills. Disaffected army
officers who had left either country served as prized sources of
intelligence and propaganda. Tensions between Damascus and
Baghdad have been exacerbated by Syria's support, including
weapons shipments, to Iran in the Gulf War. Just as damaging to
Iraq was the 1982 cutoff of the pipeline which runs through Syria
and through which Iraq pumped oil to Mediterranean ports
(see Industry
, ch. 3).
Data as of April 1987
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