The Last Word

Syria is a pivotal country, one that, for per-haps a decade, has balanced uneasily between two contrary impulses. On the one hand, it carries the banner of Arab national-ism against threats to the Arab world from Israel and the West; hence Syria was the only Arab country to defy world hegemony and oppose the US invasion of Iraq. On the other hand, the heir of a rich mercantile tradition, Syria yearns to rejoin the world economy and was just recently on the brink of joining the Euro Mediterranean Partnership. Syria, a complex country, with diverse traditions accumulated over centuries, remains poised between these different orientations. Which way it goes is not entirely under its own control since the “struggle for Syria” that Patrick Seale showed to be pivotal to the course of the whole Middle East in the 1950s, is now being played out again. As it was in the 1950s, the outcome will be crucial not just for Syria but also for the future of the entire region.