The Syrian Surprise.(Iraq crisis)

If there was a real diplomatic surprise last week, it wasn't that 14 members of the United Nations Security Council voted for a tough resolution calling on Iraq to disarm, it was that the 15th member, Syria, got on the bandwagon. What's Damascus's thinking? Having narrowly escaped inclusion in the "the axis of evil" when President George W. Bush coined the term earlier this year, could Syria now be scrambling to accommodate Washington? Few men are better positioned to judge than British journalist Patrick Seale, author of a respected biography of former Syrian dictator Hafez Assad and a widely syndicated columnist for the London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat. Now living in Paris, Seale spoke last week with NEWSWEEK's Christopher Dickey. Excerpts:

DICKEY: Two or three months ago it seemed that the United States would be going it alone against Iraq. Now even Syria is onboard at the U.N. How do you account for that?

SEALE: I think something quite important has happened in the last two months. First of all, Secretary of State Colin Powell has scored a very notable victory inside the Bush administration against a phalanx of neo-conservatives and hard-line Zionists who entertained a geopolitical fantasy. They imagined that you overthrow the regime in Baghdad, you install a pro-American government, you put tremendous pressure on Syria and Iran--and somehow you can make the whole of the Middle East pro- Israel and pro-America. This is a dangerous fantasy. And the battle against it focused on the Security Council resolution. Powell was greatly aided by the French and to some extent the Russians, who were determined to stop a unilateral exercise of military power by the United States against Iraq.

But why did the Syrians support this?

First of all, because this is not a resolution to go to war. And what the whole Arab world wants to avoid is a war against Iraq. This gives Iraq a chance to disarm peacefully and rules out the pre-emptive use of force.

Syria has flourishing trade with Iraq, over $1 billion a year now, and this is very important for the broken-backed Syrian economy at the moment. The Syrians are, of course, concerned, as are their Iranian friends, that if there is a pro-American government in Baghdad, this would put tremendous pressure on them. The fear is also that if there's a war in Iraq, the Israelis would seize on this to try to destroy Hizbullah, perhaps attack Syria, perhaps try to break the back of Palestinian nationalism once and for all and open a ...