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بقلم:
أندرو لي باترز
مجلة
التايم الامريكية - 1/3/2007
Syria.
Thursday,
Mar. 01, 2007
By ANDREW LEE BUTTERS
What happens to a country when its population grows by more than 10% in
three years? In
Syria
, which has absorbed more than a million Iraqi refugees, you can see
cosmetic transformations. Iraqi-accented Arabic is heard
constantly in the cafés and streets of
Damascus
.
Real estate prices have skyrocketed. Food prices are
rising. There's even a neighborhood in the capital
called Fallujah that's popular with Iraqis.
The Iraqi-refugee issue is also changing
Syria
in deeper ways, altering the country's image in the
Middle East
--and bolstering its leverage with the
U.S.
While the Bush Administration has accused it of
supporting terrorism in
Iraq
,
Israel
and
Lebanon
,
Syria
has established itself as the lifeboat of the Arab world.
Having taken in 180,000 temporary Lebanese refugees
fleeing the war with
Israel
last summer,
Syria
is the only Arab country that has been equally welcoming
to all of
Iraq
's religious sects, according to Syrian human-rights
groups. Only
Jordan
--which has received 750,000 Iraqis but has stopped accepting more--comes
close to matching
Syria
's largesse. "The price of this disaster is being paid mainly by the
refugees themselves and by two countries:
Syria
and
Jordan
," says António Guterres, the U.N.'s High Commissioner for
Refugees. "The international community can't let
[them] bear this burden alone."
Syria
wants more than bromides for its openness. The
humanitarian crisis in
Iraq
could be the issue that brings
Syria
out of international isolation and into
semi-respectability. Although the Bush Administration
has long resisted diplomatic engagement with
Syria
, cracks are appearing. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has authorized
the
U.S.
embassy in
Damascus
to talk with Syrian officials as long as their
discussions are limited to the refugee crisis. Syrian
officials say their willingness to take in so many
refugees has helped stabilize the region. Now they want
something in return: a softer
U.S.
line on Syrian involvement in
Lebanon
and more pressure on
Israel
to give back occupied land in the
Golan Heights
. "One million refugees is a huge number," says Redwan Ziadeh,
director of the
Damascus
Center
for Human Rights Studies. "It is a card that
Syria
can play with the
U.S.
"
Damascus
may not have that card for long. Internally, the refugee issue poses
long-term dilemmas for the Baathist regime of Syrian
President Bashar Assad. The presence of so many needy
Iraqis has exposed the government's failure to make
economic reforms. The Syrian government--dominated by a
secular core of Alawite Muslims who rule a country that
is 74% Sunni Muslim--may have to stop the influx as a
measure of self-preservation. Assad is particularly
concerned about extremists re-entering the country from
Iraq
, according to Syrian security analysts. "We used to
call them the Afghan Arabs," a security analyst
says, referring to extremists who served with the
Taliban and al-Qaeda in
Afghanistan
. "Now we are worried about the Iraqi Syrians."
The government has begun to limit the amount of time it allows Iraqis
without residency status to stay in
Syria
, down from three months to two weeks. In mid-February,
Syria
shut its border with
Iraq
and wouldn't let any Iraqis enter for three days. The
border is back open, but the message to
Iraq
and the
U.S.
was clear: Stop taking Syrian help for granted. The
U.S.
still needs to prove to
Syria
that playing a constructive role in the
Middle East
can pay off too.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1595251,00.html
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