This essay analyzes the prospects for a Syrian-Israeli war in light of Syrian strategic objectives and their historical attitudes and perspectives towards Israel.  This essay challenges the position of those favoring full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights and Syria’s interest in achieving a lasting comprehensive peace.  Indeed, this essay argues that such a peace would have a deleterious effect on Syria’s ability to achieve its regional strategic objectives which would prove threatening to Hafez Assad’s domestic power base. Moreover, such a peace would lead to the collapse of the de facto Syrian-Iranian alliance and would likely lead Iranian supported forces in Lebanon to target Syrian forces.  This would create an untenable position for continued Syrian presence in that country.  However, while Assad has a vested interest in continuing the Arab-Israeli conflict, geo-strategic realities compel him to participate in the peace process. Consequently, this essay argues that while Assad is interested in participating in the peace process he is unwilling to make any of the requisite security, economic, or political concessions necessary to achieve "real" peace.

Rather, Assad is relying on the "stick" to secure Israeli concessions. By supporting Hizbullah actions in Lebanon, and by threatening a broader war if Israel does not withdraw from the Golan Heights, Assad hopes to facilitate an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights on Syrian terms. However, notwithstanding its enormous efforts to improve its military, Syrian conventional forces are no match for Israel.  Indeed, the Syrian military is plagued by a myriad of logistical and operational problems.  Moreover, the collapse of the Soviet Union has left Syria bereft of the political and economic support needed to sustain a conventional war. Should Syria initiate hostilities under these conditions, Israel would be free to unleash the full brunt of it's military unencumbered by superpower restraints. For these reasons, while a Syrian-Israeli war cannot be completely ruled out, it is highly unlikely, given the cost of such a conflict to Syrian regional strategic objectives.  Consequently, Assad is far more likely to pursue a strategy of "no war and no peace", rather than emulate Sadat's 1973 strategy of initiating a limited strategic war.

The analysis of this essay is quantitatively buttressed by the results of four decision matrices concerning the utility of Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights in both the short and long terms.  For the Syrians, both their optimal short-term and long-term strategic interest is to secure a full Israel withdrawal from the Golan Heights.  This explains the adamancy of the Syrian position in obtaining a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights and suggests that Assad will continue to make any peace agreement contingent upon a full Israel withdrawal.

From an Israeli perspective, the utility of Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights is dependent upon the perspective of Israeli decision makers.  The Israeli short-term matrix demonstrates that the optimal Israeli strategy is a partial withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Moreover, this strategy was only narrowly better than a full Israeli withdrawal and was sensitive to changes in terrorism and casualties.  Consequently, as Israeli casualties increased, the former Israeli government was willing to seriously consider full Israeli withdraw from the Golan Heights.  However, the results of the medium/long-term decision matrix illustrates that a partial or no Israeli withdrawal is favored by a full withdrawal by a ratio of more than 4:1.   This suggests that it would be detrimental to Israel’s long-term strategic interest to agree to a full withdrawal from the Golan Heights.  However, the matrices also suggest that a partial Israeli withdrawal is significantly more beneficial to Syria than no Israeli withdrawal and may present an opportunity for progress in the peace process.  Be that as it may, Until Assad truly inculcates the notion of achieving a "real and lasting peace", Israel would be prudent to give precedence to its security concerns

This article was published as the ACPR's Policy Paper No. 75, 1998