ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Iraq–Syria relations in the period from the Iraq War of 2003, particularly Syrian policy toward the Iraq War and its aftermath. It considers the impact on their relations of the Syrian uprising that began in 2011. However, the relations between the two countries can only be understood within the context of the previous 100 years of state formation. After an overview of the parallel evolution of the regional state system and of Iraq–Syria relations over this period, the chapter examines a pivotal movement—Syrian opposition to the US invasion of Iraq—and addresses how the deconstruction of the two states precipitated attempts by each to affect post-2003 outcomes in the other. The US determination to invade Iraq was the immediate catalyst of a deterioration in US–Syrian relations. The ISIS movement, which seized control over wide areas of western Iraq and eastern Syria, declared the abolition of the Syrian–Iraq border as part of the construction of a transnational “caliphate”.
