Syria's surprise vote for the United Nations Security Council resolution demanding that Iraq disarm showed that President Bashar al-Assad may have inherited some of his father's skill at playing a weak hand well.
Assad's decision to back the resolution, which gives Iraq a last chance to disarm or face "serious consequences", stunned Syrians suspicious of what they see as a US-orchestrated prelude to an invasion of a neighbouring Arab country.
But analysts said the youthful president, who succeeded his formidable father Hafez al-Assad two years ago, had chosen a course that he could portray as defending Iraqi, Syrian and Arab interests, without exposing his country to US wrath.
"I think Hafez would have done the same," Murhaf Jouejati, a Syrian scholar at Washington's Middle East Institute, said. "I'm thrilled to see some political maturity coming out of Damascus."
Syria, the only Arab country now on the 15-nation Security Council, had been widely expected to abstain, or even oppose, the resolution adopted a week ago after weeks of negotiation.
Rapprochement with Iraq is, after all, Syria's main foreign policy change under Bashar, who has set aside the rancorous rivalries between two states which share Baathist political ideology to build lucrative trade ties with Baghdad.
Yet rather than take a lonely stand which would leave it powerless to alter the outcome, Syria went with the flow, saying it had worked with other council members for changes in the US-British draft to ensure the resolution did not amount to a green light for war.
The resolution asks the council to convene to consider its response if Iraq fails to cooperate with UN arms inspectors, but contains no automatic "trigger" for military action - and Syria says it received assurances on this point.
It is barely conceivable that Syria would take part in any military strike on Iraq, even one that had UN blessing, though it has told Baghdad to cooperate with weapons inspections.
Twelve years ago, in different circumstances, it sent troops to Saudi Arabia with other Arab contingents within a US-led coalition formed to expel Iraqi occupation troops from Kuwait.
Washington recompensed then-President Hafez al-Assad with a free hand to achieve supremacy in Lebanon, as well as a US promise to the Arabs to sponsor peace negotiations with Israel. Syria also received substantial funds from Gulf Arab countries.
No such rewards beckon this time round. Abdel Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of the London-based Arabic daily al-Quds al-Arabi, argues that, in Arab eyes, Syria's support for the Iraq resolution could irreparably damage its cherished image as the principled defender of Arab causes.
"The Gulf Arabs know they are US tools, but Syrians are not used to this," he said, adding that Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states would now feel freer to let the US use their bases and airspace for an invasion of Iraq.
However, other analysts say Syria has saved face and can emerge with its Arab nationalist credentials intact by insisting its motive was to spare Iraq an invasion seen as promoting what Damascus views as US-Israeli designs for regional hegemony.
"It won't damage their image because everyone knows they are not backing the Iraqis from the heart," said Lebanese journalist Khairallah Khairallah. "The Syrians know what the Iraqi regime is and have suffered more than others from its foolish actions."
What must be taken at face value is Syria's sincerity, shared with the wider Arab world, in wanting to avert a war that threatens incalculable consequences for a volatile region.
"Our concern is about entering the unknown," Bashar told Reuters in an interview last month. "Even the United States does not know how a war in Iraq is going to end."
Jouejati said Syria, like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, far prefers the status quo. "They believe Saddam is too weak to threaten the region, but strong enough to keep Iraq united."
Syria fears the territorial disintegration of its eastern neighbour and the impact on its own Kurdish minority of any autonomy bid by Iraqi Kurds, which could tempt Turkey into a military intervention, worried about its own restive Kurds.
It stands to lose supplies of cheap Iraqi oil and a captive market for exports of low-quality Syrian manufactured goods, while potential trade benefits from the eventual reconstruction of the Iraqi economy could carry their own dangers.
"The Syrian regime keeps a tight grip on who has access to economic opportunities," said Daniel Neep of the Royal United Services Institute think-tank in London. "The moneymaking might develop at a rate they can't control."
He said installation of a pro-Western government in a post-war Iraq would heighten Syria's sense of encirclement.
"The Syrians are trying to reconcile themselves to US dominance in the region and come to terms with it," Neep added.
Syria remains on the US list of states sponsoring terrorism, mainly due to its backing for Lebanese Hizbollah guerillas and radical Palestinian groups.
Nevertheless, the Syrians have taken out insurance against becoming a target for "regime change" in the US "war on terror" declared after the September 11 attacks, partly by offering significant intelligence cooperation in the hunt for members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.
Jouejati saw this as part of a "growing, but timid intimacy" between Damascus and the US administration which had helped keep Syria out of President George W. Bush's "axis of evil".