シリアの外交戦略と対米関係 -対レバノン、対イスラエル政策とイスラーム運動の動向を中心に-

The aims of this paper are (1) to analyze Syria's foreign-policy strategy, particularly towards its neighboring states, Lebanon and Israel, and (2) to discuss significance of this strategy for the international political arena with reference to Syria's relations with the United States.<br>Syria has been ruled by the Ba'th party for decades, which calls for Arab unity based on the idea of Arab nationalism (Pan-Arabism). However, Syria's foreign policy should not be exclusively dealt with in the context of “Arabism” (either Hafiz/Bashshar al-Asad's pragmatism), but with in that of Greater Syria as a region still undergoing various and competing attempts at state-building, which include, for instance, Arab nationalism, Phoenicianism, and Zionism. This drive towards state-building is traced back to the time of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire when the present nation states (Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine/Israel) were created as a result of the geographical division of Greater Syria by Britain and France. As a result, one can say that these nation states are not constructed with a “hard-shell” and their political and territorial frameworks as a nation-state are perceived as “provisional, ” at least at the ideology level, by most of the political forces active throughout the region.<br>The Ba'thist regime has often given priority to Greater Syria in its foreignpolicy and has utilized the ongoing political liquidity of the region in order to control the post-civil-war Lebanon and to gain an advantage over Israel in the peace talks. Since the beginning of the 1990s, Syria has tried to strengthen its cross-border relationship with non-state actors, the radical Islamic movements and organizations in Lebanon and Palestine, such as Hizb Allah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad Movement. By vitalizing their militant activities through financial and logistical support to them, Syria attempts to keep the given political situation in Lebanon and Palestine/Israel unstable with the aim of holding hegemony over the two countries and reproducing the cause and legitimacy of Syria's Pan-Arab and hard-line policy towards them.<br>The United States, soon after the “end” of the 2003 Iraq war, began to intensify its criticisms of Syria's foreign policy and apply pressure on the Ba'thist regime to modify it according to the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 and UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1559 (2004). By so doing, George W. Bush's Republican administration seems to try to bring an end to the political liquidity of Greater Syria and to rearrange its political order, essentially based on the principle of Israel's security. Accordingly, Syria-US relations should not been regarded as mere bilateral relations, but as a competition over the question of “how Greater Syria politically ought to be.” However, the Bush Administration has not so far implemented an iron-fist policy with military power towards Syria because high-level diplomatic relation are established between the two countries. This relatively “calm rivalry” over Greater Syria between Syria and the US is one of the major components that has created the present regional order.