Some Israeli foreign policy figures–chiefly those linked to the Labor Party, including David Kimche–want to try to pry Syria away from Iran.
This idea is also popular with some Right Arabists in the US who want to break the Syrian-Iranian link in order bring Syria back into the Arab fold (recall that Syria backed Iran in the Arab-backed Iraqi war against Iran during the 1980s).
There could be lots of reasons to want to court the Syrians (not all at the expense of Iran). One crucial reason might be oil.
If you want to pipe oil to the Mediterranean from either the Kurdish north of Iraq it would be very helpful to have Syrian support, especially insofar as the Turks not so happy transporting Kurdish oil out of an increasingly independent Kurdistan. Look at a map.
Just a thought.
Interesting I wonder if this is in Assad’s interest as well given that Iran has an ideological mission opposed to his. Blair might have something to do with this he has always been pro Assad and pro Iran as opposed to Bush.