Syria's blowback problem

THERE IS an intriguing back story to yesterday's historic announcement that Syria and Lebanon are establishing formal diplomatic relations for the first time since both countries achieved independence in the 1940s. It is a story about blowback from Sunni Islamist extremists who went to Syria from various Arab countries and were allowed to assemble there in the aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Unperturbed by Syria's all-seeing security services, these jihadists received indoctrination by radical imams and training for counter-insurgency and terrorist operations next door in Iraq.

Originally, Syria meant to tie down the United States in a draining war in Iraq - so that the Bush administration would lose whatever appetite it might have for regime change in Damascus. But as the situation changed in Iraq, and as Syria's President Bashar Assad fretted over isolation, economic sanctions, and an impending United Nations tribunal for the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, ut it was time for a change of policy.

Ever since Iraq's Sunni tribes - with American financial backing - turned against Al Qaeda early this year, Syria has pulled up the welcome mat for the Sunni jihadists flowing back into Syria and Lebanon. The reason for this change was the Syrian regime's interest in self-preservation.

That regime is dominated by Alawites, who make up only 11 percent of an overwhelmingly Sunni population. In the past, challenges to the ruling Alawite clique came from the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. In 1982, then-President Hafez Assad, father of the current president, crushed an Islamist rebellion, killing 20,000 people in the city of Hama. Afterward, the entire old quarter of the town was bulldozed, leaving an untold number of people buried under the rubble.

This year, as Al Qaeda fighters and others retreated from Iraq, the Assad regime's old fears were revived. Recent suicide bombings in Damascus and the northern Lebanese town of Tripoli signaled that the jihadists were now turning on the Alawite regime in Syria and its Shi'ite allies in Lebanon.

It was time for Assad to make peace with the West, particularly with Lebanon's key backers, France and the United States.

One way to do that is to talk peace with Israel, as Syria has been doing through Turkish mediators. The other way is to formalize relations between Syria and a sovereign Lebanon.

As Assad comes to grips with the unintended consequences of Syria's recent policies, the United States has an opportunity to revive diplomacy - and needs to make the most of it.