Why Syria Goes to War (review)

Abstract

172 SHOFAR Spring 1998 Vol. 16, No.3 processes in their evaluation ofIsrael's economic policies and their consequences. More attention might have been paid to the role and status ofwomen; to higher education and cultural institutions, including their heavy debt to a devoted diaspora; to the implications of the new consumerist ethos in the emergent post-Zionist era; and to the recent transformation ofisrael's economy to one dominated by a dynamic high technology sector closely linked to American multinational firms. These, however, do not detract from the usefulness ofthis book as an introduction for serious non-specialist readers to Israeli society and government. Milton 1. Esman Department of Government Cornell University Why Syria Goes to War, by Fred Lawson. Ithaca and London: Cornell University . Press, 1996. 222 pp. $29.95. Lawson's argument is that domestic factors drive Syria's war making. I)War originates in crises of capital accumulation which cause economic decline and social conflict over the shrinking pie. 2) Spreading opposition threatens the survival of the regime which often splits over how to respond. 3) Regimes initiate aggressive foreign policies to ameliorate their internal splits, rally public support, and get access to external resources needed to satisfy domestic opponents and supporters. 4) Ifthe regime remains cohesive in the crisis, it will more likely limit the risks of foreign involvement and when the economy is doing well, states have no incentive to go to war. This model is promising as a hypothesis, but Lawson so overstates his case that it loses credibility. Since his argument is counterintuitive-that foreign policy is not shaped by foreign affairs-the burden of proof lies on him to demonstrate: I) the existence of accumulation crises; 2) their linkage to social conflict, political opposition, and intra-regime conflicts; and 3) the impact of these factors in the decision-making process. Lawson gives us separate narratives on these factors for each of five crises, the 1967 war with Israel, the 1970 and 1976 interventions in Jordan and Lebanon, and socalled confrontations with Iraq and Turkey in 1982 and 1994. For the most part, he fails to make the connections between the three factors persuasive, largely asserting rather than demonstrating them. Part ofthe problem is that the research needed to test the argument is unavailable. Socio-economic data is too crude, while Lawson has had nothing like the access to documents and participants required to support his claims about class and intra-elite conflicts and their links to the opaque foreign policy-making process. His approach is to cobble together pieces ofinformation gleaned largely from current events journalism, Book Reviews 173 and to erect towering edifices of speculative inferences, sometimes requiring the most eccentric interpretations of events I and issues, in order to make the data fit his preconceived model. A good example of how Lawson's arguments strain credibility is his account of Syria's 1976 intervention in Lebanon which he attributes to capital shortages, made worse by the loss ofaccess to Lebanon's economy, which jeopardized the incorporation I ofthe bourgeoisie into the regime co~lition. Yet, Lawson's own evidence shows soaring private capital formation and a boothing 9-13 percent GNP growth/year in 1975-76 (pp. 79, 87-88): far from economic cpsis fueling conflict with the bourgeoisie, plentiful regime expenditures encouraged the private sector. Lawson argues that Asad intervened I to get access to Lebanese economic assets and to stabilize Lebanese conditions so the Syrian private sector could continue! to benefit from Lebanese financing and imports. But there is no evidence economic i~sues were considered in Syrian decision-making or that the private sector had access to it. Nor is business likely to have seen the Lebanese crisis as a threat since it h~d alternative (expatriate, Gulf) sources of capital and imports (West European). Limited military intervention, itself costly, could hardly be seen as a solution to economic ptoblems or have allowed Syria to seize Lebanese economic institutions or harness its; bourgeoisie. Finally, rather than Asad's foreign I policy being driven by economic needs, he has consistently sacrificed them to strategic goals, in Lebanon as elsewhere; thus, Ithe intervention antagonized his Soviet patron and...