American relations with Syria have always been strained. In the late 1960s, Soviet support of Syria's dictatorship put this country of 17 million on the enemies list.

Then Syria attacked American ally Israel in 1973. Syria lost the war and a contested chunk of land called the Golan Heights, but Syria is still hostile to Israel, and an Israeli passport stamp will keep the intrepid traveler out of Syria entirely.

Now Syria threatens the American export of democracy to the Middle East because it allegedly allows foreign terrorists to stream across its borders into Iraq to fight the jihad.

American neo-cons, led by Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, have encouraged attacking Syria, and perhaps even occupying Abu Kamal, a city of about 70,000 on the Euphrates at the Iraq-Syria border.

Syria, of course, denies that foreign fighters abuse Syria's lax visa policy to cross the border into Iraq's Al Anbar province, mainly the city of Al Qaim, Abu Kamal's sister city a few kilometers into Iraq.

American military operations regularly target insurgents in Al Qaim and its 125,000 residents. People in Abu Kamal say they feel the bomb blasts and the ground shake, and stray American ordnance has killed at least six Syrians on the border, and wounded dozens more.

It is the kind of treatment that creates more terrorists, and it isn't difficult to reach the Iraqi border. I traversed the 650 or so kilometers between Damascus and Abu Kamal in about two days.

I landed in Damascus on a Thursday at 3 a.m. and by Saturday at 10 a.m., I found myself standing at the edge of Iraq, staring at the American military base threatening the Syrian border. I went to Syria because I wanted to see how the war was affecting the people there.

News from Syria has been slim since the start of the war. Obscure but credible reports trickle in that U.S. forces have crossed into Syria many times. I wanted to add to the dialogue about the consequences the American invasion of Iraq had on neighboring countries.

I didn't expect to meet any U.S. soldiers snooping and pooping on the border, but I wanted to hear from Syrians who lived within spitting distance of the war.

Buses for the Syrian-Iraqi border leave daily from Damascus' chaotic Baramke Haraj. Hundreds of people walk toward offices of dozens of different bus companies. Trains and planes aren't real travel options in Syria.

Passengers mill around the buses smoking cigarettes before boarding charters for Syrian points east like Deir Ez-Zur, Al Hasaka, and Abu Kamal—which doesn't even merit a mention in Lonely Planet, the back-packer's bible.

Arabic auctioneers stand in front of the coaches, reeling off destinations: "Dier Dier Dier Dier Dier Dier." The latrine costs a nickel, and 50 cents buys a falafel and an orange soda. Men crowd around a television watching videos, and the Arabic pop screeches loudly.

Among the dozens of men, women and children, two young men sat on a bench waiting for the bus to northeast Syria. They spoke no English. A Lebanese woman passing by translated. Ahmed Yunis, 19, lives in Hassake, Kurdish territory in Syria maybe 25 KM from the Iraqi border.

"Why do they kill children?" Yunis asks. "These children never did anything."

The bus boards and I sit next to a man in a keffiyeh. He spoke enough English to invite me to his farm in Qamishle, on the Turkish border. He, like most Syrians, held no grudge against me for being American.

This farmer disliked President Bush, though. "Bush brings fire to the Middle East," Faisal Ali, 50, said. "Bush wants petrol. He didn't ask, he took it." The seven-hour ride to Deir Ez-Zur traverses about 550 kilometers and costs 200 Syrian pounds, or $4 US.

From Deir, I'll meet a guide and go to Abu Kamal by taxi. But on the bus, passengers receive real Syrian hospitality. An attendant pours cups of water and tea, passes out candies and gum, and sprays air freshener often.

The attendant shows DVDs of Syrian sketch comedy or Arabic slapstick for passengers and potential terrorists alike. The Saturday Night Live-style skits draw from the Three Stooges' brand of physical humor.

The funny troupe of players parody obesity, married life, and military rule. A food skit featured a painter concentrating on a canvas. First, the camera captured the artist dabbing his brush on the palette, thinking, focusing and squinting at an unknown subject. The camera pan to the model – a donkey – elicited laughter.

But the painting itself delivered the punchline: a caricature of Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli Prime Minister, as a jackass.

Would-be suicide bombers could use the laughter, I suppose. Estimates on exactly how many terrorists enter Syria vary wildly, from one to 75 daily, but Syria stands accused of allowing terrorists to enter Syria its lax visa policy, slip through the police state, disappear in towns like Abu Kamal and resurface in Iraq.

The way the Bush Administration hypes that accusation, it would seem as though Washington sought to depose Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad. Yet internal police-state controls I experience make me think it is difficult to slip through the police state.

At the bus station in Dier, the host leads me off the bus directly to a police officer. The plainclothes cop takes my passport and won't let me leave the bus station until my hotel confirmed my reservation.

Within 20 minutes, I'm in a cab to Funduq Ziad, a modern hotel with satellite television, refrigerator and shower. While I wait in the lobby to meet my guide, I hear men chatting in Russian.

Dier is the heart of Syria's oil industry, and Syria last year signed a contract with a large Russian oil company. Yet Syria's oil reserves are estimated to run out in a decade. It isn't uncommon for buses to run out of gas mid-journey.

Part 1, 2, 3, 4.

11/22/06

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The Hartford Courant HQ seen from behind the Armory

A young man sells watermelons on the streets of Abu Kamal, about 7 km from the Iraqi border and an American military base.

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