Arab fling: how the feckless meddling of Syria's neighbors made the civil war there worse.

• Author: Wood, Paul
• Position: The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East - Book review

The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East

by Christopher Phillips

Yale University Press, 320 pp.

A dozen men climbed single file up a steep slope covered in shale. Each footfall sent down a stream of rocks. They were Syrians, going home to join the armed uprising. The Lebanese border town below was hazy in the dusk, and from it the wind carried a distant pop: the Ramadan cannon, fired to tell the people they could eat. It was the first night of the holy month of fasting, prayer--and battle. We had heard talk of a big rebel offensive during Ramadan. Ramadan was a good time to fight, people said: Ramadan would see the end of the regime. I fell into step with a skinny kid wearing glasses, called Ali. He was eighteen and was supposed to be in Jordan, where his parents had sent him to avoid the war. They thought he was still there, studying computer science. He hadn't told them he was on his way to Damascus to help overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. "I am ready to die for that," he said.

This was August 2012, the second summer of a war now in its sixth year. As a journalist, I explained the war as the outcome of countless individual choices made by Syrians like Ali. That is only half the story. Christopher Phillips tells the other half in his new book, The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the Middle East. Phillips, a university lecturer and associate at Chatham House in London, writes that outside powers "played a major role in escalating the uprising into a civil war.... [T]he policies pursued by regional and international actors shaped its character and, importantly, ensured that it continued." His is an account of what six nations did in Syria: Iran and Russia, with the regime; and Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United States, with the rebels. After six years of war, it is an important book. As Phillips says, these countries are stained with Syrian blood.

Phillips spoke to officials from all six countries but also relied on news reports and other secondary sources. Given Syria's "war of narratives," the truth is hard to get at. But this is a remarkably clear account of the real motives behind the blizzard of propaganda enveloping Syria. There are no revelations, but the story is still able to surprise. Phillips reminds us that the anti-Assad coalition was not in place from the start. Qatar and Turkey had close ties with President Assad and did not want him dispatched like Hosni Mubarak of Egypt or Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. The Turkish leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was friendly with Assad, the two men holidaying together. The emir of Qatar's sister emailed Asma al-Assad--wife of the president--to offer safe haven in Doha. King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia had a personal connection, too: one of his wives was Syrian, from the Assad family. He called the Syrian leader to offer support.

Larger forces were also at play. Turkey wanted to avoid a war on its border, while the Saudi royal family was terrified that popular unrest might spread...