Reflections on five years of Iraq crisis

I once attended a conference on Iraq and its neighbours, where I was surrounded by Iraqi friends, all senior officials in the government, brainstorming on how they could bring security to their war-torn country.

When my turn came to speak, I said, "Gentlemen, wonderful thoughts, but with all due respect, you have the luxury of trial and error. You have the luxury of the Green Zone. The people dying on the streets and in the ghettoes of Baghdad do not!"

I advised the Iraqis to replace Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki with a strong central government that could rule and pull the state together.

"Not a strongman," because that would remind them of Saddam Hussain, "but a strong government". I was trying to be polite: I believed - and still do - that they need a strong leader to bring security and that the "democracy" parachuted on them in 2003, after so many years of military rule, was incredibly misused, misplaced and misunderstood.

One political heavyweight snapped back: "If our Arab friends like to live in military regimes they are free to do so. We are not retreating into darkness. Come to Iraq, Dr Moubayed, and see the brotherhood and love we have, after the fall of the dictator. Don't believe what you read in the newspapers."

I don't need to go to Iraq. I happened to live in a country that shares a 605 km border with Iraq and currently hosts around 1.5 million Iraqi refugees. I hear their stories on a daily basis and have never heard the word "love and brotherhood" being used in reference to post-2003 Iraq.

Syria started to apply strict regulations on refugees in September 2007. Some in the international community, and Arab neighbourhood, have started to use that against Syria, saying that Syria "abandoned its Arab brothers" when it could no longer bargain with them in its relationship with the US.

That is not true. Syria is actually suffering from the dwindling resources at the Ministry of Finance. Traditionally, there have been three sources of money for the government: oil, economic surplus and taxes. It is no longer a secret that revenue from the oil sector is now in the deficit. This means one of Syria's most important resources is now in danger.

The second source, surplus from companies and state-run agencies, also suffers from major problems. With regard to the third sector, taxes and tariffs, for the past few years the government has started decreasing all of them. Meanwhile, the country's expenditure has increased.

Topping this crisis is the 1.5 million Iraqi refugees. As of late 2007, they were arriving at 2,000 per day. Collectively the Iraqis have been a drain on an economy that has strained itself to provide them with basic services such as clean drinking water, sanitation, medical care and education.

Syria subsidises education, which is offered for almost free tuition for both Syrians and Iraqis. Currently, there are 100,000 Iraqi students in Syrian schools and another 40,000 in Syrian universities. Iraqi refugees are costing the Syrian state no less than $1 billion per year.

These were reasons, among others, for the Syrian government to issue its famed cut on government subsidises - this time affecting both Syrians and Iraqis - as of late 2007.

To date, subsidises accounted to 15 per cent of gross domestic product. It was one thing to subsidise 18 million Syrians, but another to be subsidising an additional 1.5 million Iraqis.

Additionally, the Syrians are preparing for the worse in neighbouring Lebanon and expecting around 2 million refugees to stream into Syria in the upcoming year, either because of an Israeli war with Hezbollah, or a civil war in Lebanon.

Indoctrinated

The Syrians, indoctrinated with strong ideals of Arab brotherhood, received the Iraqis - initially - with open arms. But there are limits to Syrian generosity. Al Maliki has been paying $840 for families that do return to Iraq. He himself fears a return of so many refugees from Syria.

Most of them are Sunnis and they would likely join political parties - or militias - that are opposed to his dominance over Iraqi politics.

Al Maliki believes that the minute they finish off Al Qaida, they would turn their arms on the Shiites then the Americans. He does not want the refugees to return - seeing them as too much of a problem at this stage - and this is worrying for Syria.

I am not sure if there is a category for "most dangerous city in the world" but if there were, I would bet a fortune that it would be Baghdad, thanks to the Americans and Al Maliki.

The veteran journalist Patrick Cockburn, author of an upcoming book on Iraq, describes how and when heading off to the headquarters of his Dawa Party, just half a mile outside the well-protected Green Zone, Al Maliki and his security "acted as if they were entering enemy territory".

The Prime Minister has much to fear; angry Sunni militias, Al Qaida, former Baathists and 2.5 million internally displaced Iraqis whose lives have been ruined since 2003. Life would be horrible if another 1.5 million returned from Syria.

Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.