"To survive, Bashar Assad will have to fight his family," By Seale

To survive, Bashar Assad will have to fight his family

By Patrick Seale
Monday, October 31, 2005

The political storm caused by the Mehlis report into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has, paradoxically, provided Syria's President Bashar Assad with a golden opportunity. For the first time since he came to power in 2000, he has a unique chance to impose his authority on rival power centers and emerge as the real ruler of Syria.

In their different ways, both the international community and his own public are urging him to act. They are encouraging him to carry out a "corrective movement" against undisciplined barons of his regime, including men close to him, similar to the palace coup which brought his late father, Hafez Assad, to power in 1970. The choice before Assad is clear: either continue to claim that Syria is innocent of the murder of Hariri and that the charges in the Mehlis report are unsound and politically motivated or recognize that mistakes have been made and carry out a purge of the top security officials named in the report.

The first course would inevitably condemn the regime to international isolation and to wide-ranging sanctions, including the freezing of overseas assets of its leading members, a travel ban, and possibly even the issue of international arrest warrants. A destabilized Syria would then be vulnerable to attempts at "regime change" by its enemies.

In contrast, the second course would stabilize the country and the wider region, and win Assad immediate domestic and international support. But to manage a crisis of such unprecedented proportions, Assad would need to display unusual qualities of courage and political acumen. This is the most difficult moment in the president's career. Moreover, he is under pressure to act fast. It is likely that the window of opportunity will be open for only the next few weeks. The United Nations has given Mehlis until December 15 to complete his investigations and submit a more detailed report. Within this limited time-frame, Assad will enjoy a certain freedom of maneuver, largely for the following reasons:

First, although the Mehlis report confirmed his quarrel with Hariri, it did not suggest that he was personally implicated in the murder; second, members of the Security Council have asked Syria to conduct its own investigation into the murder, which Damascus has, in fact, now agreed to do so. This is a clear signal from the international community urging Assad to act; third, tens of thousands of people came out on the streets of Damascus, Aleppo and other cities last week in support of Assad. Although it was not clear whether the demonstrations were organized by the security services, the Baath Party or Assad's own men, the message was clear. The public wants the president to show strength to protect the country from enemies abroad and wild men at home; fourth, even the so-called "patriotic opposition" is ready to back the president against external, largely American, pressures, if he undertakes to clean up corruption and crime, rein in the security services, and give more space to civil rights activists; and fifth, by far the most important factor in Assad's favor is the support he appears to enjoy from the commanders of Syria's armored and mechanized divisions, and from the elite Republican Guard. Among staunch Assad loyalists, for example, is Manaf Tlass, a prominent officer in the Republican Guard, and the son of the former long-serving Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass.

The Syrian Army is a highly secretive organization. The names of the most influential and powerful officers are largely unknown. But the army remains the guardian of the state's legitimacy. Its chiefs were not implicated in the Mehlis report. They obeyed the political leadership in withdrawing from Lebanon. Today, they have a vital role in defending the country's institutions, including the presidency itself.

Observers of the Syrian scene believe that the backing of these men could allow Assad to face down his younger brother, Maher, who commands a powerful praetorian unit, the 4th Corps, which controls the immediate approaches to the capital. If a confrontation were to occur between the brothers, it would be a replay of the clash in 1984 between Assad and his younger brother Rifaat, who at the time also commanded a powerful unit known as the Defense Companies. That confrontation ended in Hafez Assad's triumph and Rifaat's eventual exile.

This is a moment of great fluidity in Syrian affairs. The present situation is untenable. The country is expecting some sort of a showdown between rival forces. In these difficult times, the inclination is to keep one's head down and not take sides. For example, leading luminaries of the Baath Party have not spoken. The new Regional Command formed after the party congress last summer has so far not issued a statement in support of Assad, who is the party's secretary-general.

Something of a mystery also surrounds the position of Foreign Minister Farouk Sharaa. Rumor has it that he has not been seen at the office recently. A meeting he was due to have in New York last week with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was cancelled. The Mehlis report accused him of providing false information.

It is also no secret that Syria's powerful security and intelligence services are deeply divided. They are at the center of the Hariri scandal. The president's brother-in-law, General Assef Shawkat, head of military intelligence, was named in the report. The recent suicide or killing of Minister of Interior Ghazi Kanaan points to a situation of extreme tension between the strongmen of the regime.

Assad may derive small comfort from the gap in American and French positions regarding Syria. The prime French interest would seem to be to arrive at the truth concerning Hariri's murder and to protect Lebanon from further Syrian interference. France is cautious about endorsing regime change, in spite of President Jacques Chirac's apparent personal animus against Assad. Nor does France share Washington's wider agenda use the Hariri murder to pressure Syria into changing its regional policies.

In particular, the Bush administration would like Syria to prevent any help reaching the Iraqi insurgents across its border. It would like to break Syria's alliance with both Iran and Hizbullah. And it would like Syria to end its support for radical Palestinian factions.

Looking beyond the outrage over the Hariri murder, most Syrians would argue that a grave injustice is being done to their country. Israel appears to enjoy complete immunity, while the United States and Britain are guilty of waging an illegal war in Iraq. Why is Syria alone in the dock? Is there a more flagrant example of international double standards than this?

Patrick Seale, a veteran Middle East analyst, wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.

Anthony Shadid on Alawites and the Regime

Anthony Shadid is cleaning up in the race to report from Syria. His deep knowledge of the region, ability to speak Arabic, and sensitivity to his informants means he is getting the real story, as his last two articles, copied below, make clear. He does not get bogged down in tired metaphors like "the mafia inc.," no matter how compelling they are or how useful in short-handing messages to the US audience. Most Middle Eastern states are variations on the Mafia structure. Wealth, jobs and influence are distributed through patronage networks. Syria is no exception to this rule. True democracy, the rule of law, and meritocracy should sweep away such political and economic structures. That is the theory, at least. Of course, this is the long-term outcome that Syrians hope for, but they know better than to expect anything like that in the short term. What will happen, should the Asad family and Alawi hierarchy be displaced, is that another patronage system will be established in its stead. What the pillars of that system are likely to be, or how long it will take before they can be established, no one knows.

The Kanaan story Shadid outlines for us is about what happens to one Alawite region when its main patron dies. Its people are cut off from jobs, money, and a direct connection to the state. In turn, the state loses the loyalty and backing or the region. The shift from the "old guard" to the "new guard" under President Bashar has meant a vast displacement of patronage networks throughout the Alawite coastal region. Hafiz al-Asad and his security chieftains all emerged from villages in the Alawi Mountains. They competed among themselves to deliver jobs and infrastructure to their own and neighboring villages. As the old guard has been removed from power by Bashar, these patronage networks have also been removed, one after another.

The members of the "new guard," Bashar's generation, are not attached to their village as their father's were. The "sons of power" were brought up in Latakia, Damascus and other cities, only visiting their father's villages from time to time. They do not know the names of all their cousins and relatives, nor do they feel obliged to help them in the same manor that their fathers did. The new generation spends its money in the cities not in the villages nor among the farmers that many of them look down on as city people have a want to do. Increasingly the mountain villages are feeling cut of from the state. They do not feel that Bashar is "ta'ifi" or sectarian as his father was. They accuse him of ignoring his people. One hears such Alawi complaints as, "Bashar might as well be a Druze or Kurd. We have been ignored." Bashar's effort to modernize Syria has meant dumping the old patronage system in an effort to build a new one. Some explain this new system in terms of "crony capitalism," but it is not yet well formed. No one knows what it means for the future of the state and the presidency. Can the shift between the old mafia and the new, between countryside and city, between security chieftains and crony capitalists be carried off? As the weight of the regime moves from the countryside to the city, can the Alawite leaders of Syria retain their authority and legitimacy, or will it evaporate along with their connection to their social base in the villages?

Bashar has only begun to oversee this transformation of power - or "modernization," as it is sometimes called. The body blow his regime is now taking from the United States and France may very well catch him at a time when he is between horses.

Death of Syrian Minister Leaves A Sect Adrift in Time of Strife

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 31, 2005; A01

BIHAMRA, Syria -- In this scenic village, along terraced hills of pine and palm trees, the body of Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan rests in a coffin draped in a Syrian flag, a leather-bound Koran at each corner. His death on Oct. 12 was certain. Less so are the shadowy circumstances that removed from the scene one of Syria's most powerful men, an interlocutor between the religious sect known as the Alawites, who have long ruled the country, and a government they controlled but increasingly see as distant and corrupt.

A suicide, officials said, closing the case the day after Kanaan died. A relative, Mazen Kanaan, smiled at the thought.

"He was a man of confrontation," he said. "Suicide is an escape. He wasn't a man to run away from something."

How did he die then? the relative was asked. "That is for you to figure out," he answered.

The timing of Kanaan's death has also raised suspicions. Only recently he had been questioned in a U.N. investigation that implicates senior officials in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister.

In the sometimes brutal politics of Syria's elite, in which violence is intertwined with cunning, the 63-year-old Kanaan was a man of many faces: self-made Alawite strongman, ruthless politician and potential contender for power. In his village of Bihamra and the region that spills beyond it, he was something else: a feudal-like lord who tended to members of his Alawite minority, cultivating their support and defending their interests. To them, his death -- murder or suicide -- has become more than the passing of a figure who bordered on the iconic. It is an instance, writ small, of the growing frustration and fear in the religious sect that has served as the backbone of 35 years of Baath Party rule and is still viewed as the linchpin of President Bashar Assad's five years in power.

"No one can replace him. Maybe in a thousand years someone else like him will come," said Mazen Kanaan, sipping a small cup of bitter coffee in the courtyard of Ghazi Kanaan's now-shuttered mansion. "People need help but they have no one to go to."

These are difficult days for Syria's Alawites, and in their sentiments may be hints of the vulnerability of Assad's government as it faces a crisis over the U.N. investigation. In villages like Bihamra, across forbidding mountains that spring from the Mediterranean coast, there is deep anxiety that in a time of strife, Alawites will bear the brunt of vendettas dating to the decades when they provided the leadership of the government, military and feared security services.

That apprehension comes as frustration surges that the very state they are tied to has abandoned them. The military that ended their historic marginalization is neglected and disrespected, some of their villages remain without running water and, many say, the government, despite its Alawite cast, no longer defends them.

"It's like people don't know we live in the country," said Kharfan Khazin Ahmed, a 61-year-old retired government employee from the Alawite village of Qarir. "Every person sitting in the chair of power cares about money, not about the people."

Rise to the Top

Alawites are a small but pivotal community in Syria's tapestry of sect and ethnicity. Syria is predominantly Arab, with a Kurdish minority in the northeast. But among the Arabs are many Muslim sects: Sunni Muslims are the majority, along with minorities of Alawis, Druze and Ismailis, all of whom trace their origins back to Shiite Islam. The Alawites are the largest of those religious minorities, representing probably about 12 percent of Syria's 18 million people. They are centered in the region around Bihamra.

For centuries, Alawites faced withering discrimination, in part over the suspicions generated by their secretive, loosely Shiite religious traditions. Their secluded mountain villages are a relic of that ostracism, and they were some of the poorest, least educated and most rural of Syria's inhabitants. As with other religious minorities in the Middle East, many Alawites turned to the Baath Party, drawn to its pan-Arab, leftist and secular ideology, hoping it might dilute Syria's Sunni dominance and provide a more inclusive notion of identity. To escape grinding poverty, they joined the military, soon filling the ranks of its senior officer corps. In modern Syria, those two institutions -- party and military -- have ruled for 35 years.

Assad is an Alawite, and during the presidency of his father and predecessor, Hafez Assad, the sect emerged from behind the scenes to command the government's most sensitive positions in the military and security services. While the elder Assad was careful to give a Sunni face to portfolios such as the defense and foreign ministries and to forge alliances with other groups, his inner circle was drawn from his own community, often his own Qalbiyya tribe and family. In that sense, he was not only Syria's strongman, but also the leader of his sect, responsible for its fortunes.

"You will remain eternal in our hearts forever," reads a billboard with the elder Assad's portrait at the entrance to Qurdaha, his home town, about a mile along a winding road of ancient, rounded hills from Kanaan's village of Bihamra.

Under the younger Assad, to a remarkable degree, the circle of Alawite dominance has narrowed to his family. Gone are some of the sect's most powerful men -- former intelligence chiefs such as Ali Duba and Mohammed Khouli, for instance. Kanaan, Syria's point man in Lebanon for two decades and later the interior minister, was one of the last and most prominent. A product of the feared Mukhabarat, or Syrian intelligence, his reputation in much of the country was of a fearsome, hard man; in Bihamra, it was of a charitable one.

"He helped everyone in the village," said a doctor who spoke on condition of anonymity. "He was like a father for this entire place. Any help you needed as a citizen, you could go to him. His door was open to both the poor and princes."

The doctor, Kanaan's relative and others sat in the courtyard of his stucco, red-roofed villa on a cool morning. They snacked on bananas and apples, drank coffee and smoked cigarettes, ignoring the dawn-to-dusk fast of the holy month of Ramadan. The Alawite region is one of Syria's most secular, reflecting the imprint of a Baath Party that saw tribe and religion as barriers to modernization. The veil is hardly seen; missing are the most conservative Arab traditions that discourage interaction between men and women.

Bihamra itself shows the legacy of Kanaan's power and influence: He provided money to build the Jaafar Tayar mosque, opened a library with seven computers and built a community center named for his father, Mohammed Ali. While in Lebanon, he visited every month or two. On his return to Damascus in 2002, he visited at least once every two weeks, more often for funerals. As a young man, the story goes, in one of the myths that can overshadow life's excesses, he gave part of his first lieutenant's salary to villagers.

"The difference is that he would help someone and expect nothing in return," his relative said.

"They're going to feel the emptiness," he added.

An Ally Is Lost

Two weeks after his body was found, Kanaan's death remains the talk of Damascus. Most often heard is speculation that he faced disgrace on corruption charges and chose suicide instead. But many speculate that he represented one of the few potential rivals to Bashar Assad, giving rise to a slew of conspiracy theories: that he was forced to kill himself or that he was murdered, possibly poisoned. One well-informed Syrian said that the day after Kanaan died, all the coffee cups from his Interior Ministry office were seized to conceal evidence of foul play.

"They committed his suicide," said a Syrian dissident, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The talk in Bihamra, though, is more visceral and perhaps more telling. In the repercussions of Kanaan's death lies a truth about Syria and its government today: The younger Assad is viewed as less ta'ifi , or sectarian. His outlook is ostensibly more modern, possibly reformist; bucking tradition, he took for his wife a Sunni, not an Alawite. But as he struggles to put a more contemporary veneer on his rule, he faces a society still suffering deep cleavages that reflect unresolved questions of identity. The Baath Party offered one answer: The country is Arab. But other identities still compete -- Alawi, Sunni, Christian and so on -- in a zero-sum game of communal survival.

And in that question of survival, villagers say, Alawites lost one of their last, most prominent defenders in Kanaan. In his place, some Alawites say, is a government that cares about the military only to ensure it doesn't rebel; a ruling family most worried about its survival; and a state that promotes not the sect's interest, but networks bound by patronage and power that are growing richer. Even some Alawite intelligence officials are said to be disenchanted over the higher profile of Assad's family at their expense.

"Sadma," Kanaan's relative called his death, a shock or a blow. "Not just for the village, but for the entire region."

"He served the people. He transferred their words," said Shaalan Asad, a 51-year-old former teacher who runs a grocery store in Jobat Berghal, about a half-hour away. "He was a connection between the people and the government and their officials."

Asad, sitting on the porch of his shop, reflected on his village's story. In the 1970s, after the elder Assad took power, electricity finally arrived. The main road was paved, bringing cars where donkeys long trod over dirt paths along rocky ridges that spilled into verdant valleys of apples, cottonwoods and olives. Schools were opened in the 1980s, and the town had a sports club and a community center. Today, they are closed, unstaffed and in disrepair. He said villagers are still waiting for running water.

"We really need more," he said. "It's slow. They can't do two or three projects at the same time."

In Damascus and other Syrian cities, there is the perception that the Alawite roots of the Assad family have meant hamlets like Jobat Berghal have received favorable treatment. That view often inspires anger among the Alawite villagers here.

"The opposite! The opposite!" shouted Ahmed, the retired government employee, his face leathery from the sun.

"We're all Alawites here and when you come here, you can't find anything," he said.

As Ahmed spoke, years of grievances poured out. He ignored the coded language often employed in Syria's repressive climate. The courts? They are suffused with bribes and corruption, he said. The law? It protects the powerful and wealthy. He still pumps water into his home from a steel vat. He and other villagers have filed thousands of loan applications and still await an answer.

"President Hafez Assad said it was the right of any citizen to raise his voice if he sees injustice. You should speak out against it," Ahmed said. "Now they say it's not your right to talk. They say it's not your business, even if there's something wrong."

A Question of Identity

It is sometimes a joke among Alawites that, in the event of turmoil, they would flee to their villages near here, the same mountain redoubts that offered protection over centuries of ill will.

They laugh, but a hint of anxiety shadows the remarks. So does a sense of injustice: While some Alawites have profited under the Assads' rule, at times profligately, many have seen little benefit.

"They worry about the regime and about the accusations against the regime," said Tareq Abad, a 30-year-old sailor in the village of Shadaita, who belongs to another religious sect known as the Murshidis. (Numbering possibly 200,000, they are followers of a Syrian holy man and populist from the region who was executed in 1946.) "What would they do if the regime collapsed?"

He sat with two friends, who looked at the ground as he spoke, perhaps fearing his forthrightness. He sensed their unease.

"Let's face it," he said, shaking his head, "the government is Alawite."

Many Syrians take pride in the coexistence of the country's sects. Asking someone their identity is often seen as rude. But sectarian fault lines lurk beneath the surface. Some Syrians argue that the divisions were deepened by the battle between the government and the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Muslim movement, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Over more than a decade, the Sunni community itself has grown increasingly religious, with greater manifestations of piety such as the veil. This summer, a clash in the village of Qadmous, in the coastal province of Tartus, took a sectarian bent, pitting two minorities, Alawites and Ismailis, against each other.

In the village of Mzaraa, a 33-year-old grocer, Firas Deeb, dismissed the talk of sect. He was Syrian, he insisted. Still, he said he expected his relatives to return if there was conflict in the country. There was no other choice.

"That's certain," he said, nodding.

"The people in Damascus will return to the village, and they'll find protection with their people. You can hide here," Deeb said. "They're going to hide behind the rocks and the stones. In the city, there are no rocks and stones."

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Inner Circle in Syria Holds Power, and Perhaps Peril

By Anthony Shadid and Robin Wright
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 28, 2005; A01

DAMASCUS, Syria -- The brother is an impetuous officer, who wields control over the praetorian Republican Guard. The sister is nicknamed "the Iron Lady." Her husband is a burly general who rose methodically through the ranks of Syria's feared intelligence services. Presiding over them is Bashar Assad, the Syrian president who runs what some have called "a dictatorship without a dictator."

Diplomats and analysts say that together, the four represent the corporate leadership of Syria, a country facing its greatest crisis in decades following the release of a U.N. investigation that implicates senior officials in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. In this crisis, they say, the Assad family circle is a source of the president's strength. It may also be his weakness. If his relatives are directly linked to the killing, the scandal could bring down his government.

Both Assad's brother Maher and his brother-in-law, Asef Shawkat, were named in earlier versions of the report, although many diplomats here said the evidence was spotty. The Syrian government has repeatedly denied any role in the killing.

"It is about interests at the end of the day," said a Syrian intellectual familiar with members of the government but speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of harassment. "They say, 'We have to protect our own, otherwise we will all go down together.' "

As the U.N. Security Council debates a resolution demanding Syria's cooperation with the investigation, Assad's inner circle is the focus of attention in the country, where reading the Kremlin-like tea leaves is an intellectual pastime. Many here believe any change in the government would come from within. But as long as the circle remains unbroken, many also suspect the government can endure the short-term crisis, even if few can sketch out a scenario that would end Syria's isolation.

"As long as [the family members] are not trying to act against him, it will be hard to pull off a successful coup," said Flynt Leverett, a former National Security Council staffer in the Bush administration who is now at the Brookings Institution. "That doesn't mean people may not try, but it'd be hard to pull off as long as they're in his corner."

The reliance of Syria's leadership on family is not unusual in the Middle East, where an array of authoritarian republics and monarchies have reserved strategic positions for sons, brothers and other relatives.

But interviews with Syrian analysts, diplomats, dissidents and intellectuals paint a picture of a tightknit circle that has dramatically narrowed over the five-year tenure of Assad, who succeeded his father, Hafez, in 2000. Most stalwarts of his father's rule have been forced out, many hailing from the minority Alawite clan that has buttressed the rule of the Baath Party in Syria for 35 years; one of the last, the powerful Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan, was said to have committed suicide this month in Damascus.

Divisions are said to abound. But many analysts say those differences were set aside this spring, after Hariri's assassination forced Syria to end its 29-year military presence in Lebanon and prompted the U.N. investigation. But some Syrians blame the circle's small size for a string of foreign policy decisions in Lebanon and Iraq that have left Syria as isolated as at any time in its history.

"Nobody listens, nobody reads," said Marwan Kabalan, a professor at Damascus University and analyst at its Center for Strategic Studies. "You have a very small circle of decision-makers in charge of decisions in the country. What do you expect?"

In style and structure, the Syrian government is distinctly the product of one man, Assad's father, whose cult of personality presided over an elaborate overlay of institutions and alliances built across a 30-year reign. While Assad's leadership today relies on an inner circle, it has inherited some of the durability of that past era: The government has cultivated support within the public sector, the military, the Baath Party and a merchant class, some of whose powerful members are sons of government officials.

For key security and military positions, Assad's father relied on his Alawite community, a long-underprivileged minority along Syria's northwest coast, and in particular his own Qalbiyya tribe. But some Alawites grumble that the younger Assad has shown less of an inclination to patronize the community, even families that long represented pillars of the government.

Feeding that resentment is the perception of high-level corruption, both within the government and the families of senior officials. The Makhloof family, related to Assad through his mother, has become one of the wealthiest in Syria, with interests that span banking, Syria's free-trade zones, duty-free shops and nascent mobile telecommunications.

"The father led not only the country but also the family, the sect and the army, while, with President Bashar Assad, this kind of strong leadership is not available," said Sadiq Azm, a Syrian writer teaching this year at Princeton University.

One of the most dynamic figures in the circle is Shawkat, a tall, husky general with black hair and a mustache. Since February, he has run Syrian military intelligence, the institution that keeps the closest eye on threats to the government. He is a natty dresser, known for expensive tastes. A diplomat recalled that at one function for Assad's father, he was the lone person not wearing a military uniform. He chose instead an expensive Italian suit, the diplomat said. Those who have met him describe him as confident, businesslike and security-conscious, imbued with street smarts that came from his rise through the intelligence ranks.

Hafez Assad's oldest son, Basil, opposed the marriage of the divorced Shawkat to Bushra, Assad's only daughter. He was fully welcomed into the family only after Basil's death in a car crash in 1994, Syrians say. Diplomats and Syrians recall an incident, though unconfirmed. In the late 1990s, the story goes, Bashar Assad's brother Maher shot Shawkat in the stomach after he insulted Maher's uncle. Relations between the two, though strained, have improved, Syrians say.

As a young operative, Shawkat earned a reputation in the confrontation with Islamic activists in the late 1970s and early 1980s that culminated with the brutal suppression of an uprising in Hama in 1982.

"Asef Shawkat is the man who's done the best job at consolidating power with his own resources and his own levers," another diplomat said. Added the Syrian intellectual: "He's ruthless and very ambitious, but he knows what he's doing. He's not stupid."

Maher is Assad's younger brother, born in 1968, shorter than the lanky Assad but more stoutly built and, many Syrians say, more thuggish. A colonel in the Republican Guard, he serves as an acting brigadier, a diplomat said. He commands the brigade in the region around Damascus, the elite force that would most likely be called on to suppress any coup attempt.

He is rarely seen in public and, by reputation, has an explosive temper, leaving those around him skittish.

Assad's older sister, Bushra, a doctor, is often described as a power behind the throne, promoting her husband's ambitions as well as her own. Strong-willed and tough, she might have been her father's choice as successor had she not been a woman, one Syrian said.

Five years into his reign, Assad himself remains liked in Syria, and people often make a distinction between him and the unpopular government. He has shorn his rule of the iconography so familiar to his father and goes out in public with his family. To many younger Syrians, he and his wife, Asma, the daughter of a renowned surgeon from a prominent Sunni Muslim family, represent a more modern vision of Syria. She was born, raised and educated in Britain, where she worked as an investment banker.

Bashar studied ophthalmology in Britain. Unlike his brothers, he never demonstrated an ambition for a military or political career. But his father began to groom him as his successor in the late 1990s after the death of Basil: He rejoined the military, spearheaded an anti-corruption drive and was given day-to-day control over Lebanese affairs.

The complaint often heard about Bashar Assad is not his personality but a lack of experience and forcefulness. Few doubt he is in charge, but diplomats say he seeks collective decisions and consensus.

"He's not a natural autocrat," one diplomat said. A Syrian dissident, who asked that his name not be used for fear of harassment, added: "Perhaps he's polite. Perhaps he's not as fierce as his brother and brother-in-law, but he's weak."

There's an adage in the Middle East: If the government survives a crisis, it can claim victory. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein did so after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. So did the elder Assad's government after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Diplomats and Syrians say the Syrian government's working logic in this crisis is survival. But they said the diplomacy so far adopted -- making measured concessions -- may be outdated today and more in tune with a Cold War world, where Syria could rely on its Soviet ally and a more restrained U.S. policy.

"What pushes them together is their family ties but also the awareness that they have to stick by each other in order to perpetuate their power," said Murhaf Jouejati, director of the Middle East Studies Program at George Washington University.

Since the waning days of Assad's father, stalwarts of the old guard have fallen away, further focusing power in the hands of the inner circle. One Syrian intellectual said he had often heard complaints by senior intelligence officials that they were being marginalized. That the complaints come from Alawite officials is significant, diplomats say.

The death of Kanaan, the interior minister, was perhaps the most spectacular change. The Syrian government declared it a suicide; accounts differ in Damascus, but most often elaborated is the view that he was forced into suicide under threat of disgrace. His death Oct. 12 removed the sole figure that many analysts believe represented a potential alternative to Assad's rule.

To many analysts, the narrowing of the circle has played to the benefit of Shawkat, who is seen as having most successfully built his own networks of influence within the intelligence and military.

"Everything's happened to the advantage of Asef. He's pushed away all the strong men," said the Syrian intellectual familiar with figures in the government. "The field is empty now, and that will fit him more."

In that milieu, a U.N. investigation that directly implicates officials such as Shawkat would drive to the very heart of the regime's survival, diplomats and analysts say. Most see a decision by Assad to turn against the inner circle as a red line that cannot be crossed.

"He does not have the power," the Syrian intellectual said.

Wright reported from Washington.

Flynt Levertt, "Syria's Wobbly Godfather Jr."

Flynt Leverett writes an important opinion piece warning that Washington does not have a plan for the day after. Secretary Rice explained the other day that Washington would "let the chips fall where they may," in the struggle to bring Syria's regime principals to justice for the killing of PM Hariri. This policy toward Syria is proper conduct for a court of law, but it may be unwise foreign policy. As Leverett warns, "Policymakers are not just passive members of the audience in this drama. On the real world's stage, they share responsibility for what happens next, regardless of Bashar's fate."

Syria's Wobbly Godfather Jr.
Will the Hariri Affair Be a Turning Point in the Assad Family Saga?

By Flynt Leverett
Washington Post
Sunday, October 30, 2005; B01

The recently released United Nations report on the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri reads, at least in places, like a script for a new installment of "The Godfather." In one passage, the second-generation head of Syria's ruling family, President Bashar Assad, is depicted barking orders to Hariri; in another, key Assad family lieutenants, including the president's brother-in-law and younger brother, allegedly order Hariri's murder in a meeting with Lebanese security chiefs.
One can easily draw out the analogy between the Assads and the Corleones. Bashar's father, Hafez Assad, takes the role of the Sicilian patriarch, Vito Corleone. Hafez's first son, Basil, a charismatic figure who died in 1994 when he crashed his speeding BMW on the road to Damascus International Airport, stands in for Santino Corleone, the Don's oldest son who also was killed through his own impetuousness. From this perspective, the great unknown in Syrian politics today is which Corleone son has taken over the Syria's ruling family. Is Bashar, with his medical degree and soft-spoken talk about reform, like Michael Corleone, who aspired to take the family business "completely legitimate" but failed? Alternatively, is Bashar more like the hapless Fredo, simply not up to the job of national leader? Or, is he a synthesis of the worst qualities of the two, a kind of evil idiot who combines ruthlessness with incompetence?

In looking at Bashar's tenure in office, it is important to remember that he is still relatively young, not only as a man (he turned 40 last month), but as a Middle Eastern leader. Bashar has been president of Syria for a little more than five years -- a fraction of the 30-year tenure of his father. In the United States, an elected president who has been in office for five years is facing lame duck status; in the Middle East, a national leader in office for five years is just beginning to be taken seriously because he hasn't been shot.

But just as Bashar might have expected to settle into life as a middle-aged autocrat, the U.N. International Independent Investigation Commission under Detlev Mehlis has come along and ripped open the lid on his regime and revealed just how seemly it is. And in doing so, the commission's report has helped bring the long, strange relationship between the Assads and the United States to a crisis point.

It would be easy to write off Bashar anyway because he's a pale imitation of his father, but his father achieved the personal authority he enjoyed in the last half of his rule only by first surmounting a series of defining challenges. In consolidating his political position during the 1970s, he turned Syria from a coup-ridden, volatile polity into a case study of authoritarian stability. He intervened in the Lebanese civil war in the late 1970s, establishing Syrian hegemony there, then defended that status in the early 1980s against military challenges from Israel and the United States. In 1982, the old man put down a Sunni fundamentalist insurgency -- in the process killing between 10,000 and 20,000 people -- and a year later fended off a bid by his own brother to take his job. The name "Assad" means lion in Arabic, and after all that, Hafez Assad was truly the lion of Damascus, but not before then.

For all of the upheavals of the last five years in the Middle East, Bashar has yet to negotiate anything like these challenges. Lacking his father's authority, he has had to share power with others to a greater extent than his father ever did. The most powerful men in Syria today, besides Bashar, are Asef Shawkat, the president's brother-in-law and head of military intelligence, and Maher Assad, the president's younger brother and effective commander of the Republican Guard -- the best equipped part of the Syrian military, with primary responsibility for regime protection.

These two have been implicated in Hariri's assassination, and thanks to an alleged computer glitch, their names were briefly published online even though they were deleted from the Mehlis report in the final round of editing. It remains an open question whether Bashar ordered Shawkat and Maher to carry out Hariri's assassination, or whether they overreacted to the president and his dislike of the Lebanese prime minister like modern-day versions of Henry II's henchmen who followed through on the king's plea, "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?"

If the U.N. and the Western powers insist that Syria turn over these two to an international judicial process to answer charges over Hariri's murder, Bashar will face a difficult, but intriguing moment of truth because Shawkat and Maher are both crutches and rivals to him. On the one hand, as long as they're both working with Bashar, it would be difficult for anyone else in the country's power structure to mount a successful coup, which makes them useful to the president for now.

But Shawkat and Maher may have ambitions of their own. Shawkat's wife, Bashar's older sister Bushra, is by all accounts the most politically astute and ambitious of the Assad children, but because of her sex, she must pursue politics through her husband. Shawkat himself is no shrinking violet; he eloped with Bushra over her family's objections when Hafez Assad was at the height of his powers. Bashar's younger brother Maher has been described by an astute Western diplomat who knows him as a brutal and primitive man, possessing "all of Basil's appetites but none of his qualities." Maybe, just maybe, Bashar will treat the U.N. investigation as a chance to get rid of one or both of his most potent long-term rivals, and be the only man left standing at the end of the day.

This moment of truth comes amid a dramatic deterioration in U.S.-Syrian relations. For at least 25 years, Syria has displayed all the characteristics of so-called "rogue states" in the Middle East, such as Iraq under Saddam Hussein or the Islamic Republic of Iran, including state sponsorship of terrorism and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

But, until recently, American administrations have stopped short of treating Syria as a full-fledged rogue. Washington has consistently maintained diplomatic relations with Damascus, and never imposed comprehensive economic sanctions. The first Bush administration recruited Syria to the 1991 Gulf War coalition. Later, because of the Clinton administration's focus on Arab-Israeli peacemaking, including an active Syria track, Secretary of State Warren Christopher made more then 20 visits to Damascus, giving the Syrian regime a measure of political cover for its less-than-savory policies.

All of this has changed over the last five years. The Syria-Israel peace track collapsed in the spring of 2000. With the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada later that year and the election of Ariel Sharon as Israel's prime minister in early 2001, those negotiations were put on indefinite hold. The election of George W. Bush also altered U.S. policy toward the Middle East. Particularly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, it became clear that this was not his father's Bush administration. In the context of a U.S.-led global war on terror, Syria's status as a state sponsor of terrorism pursuing WMD capabilities became riskier.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Syria provided the United States with actionable intelligence on al Qaeda affiliates, as administration officials publicly acknowledge. While I was serving on the National Security Council, this information let U.S. and allied authorities thwart planned operations that, had they been carried out, would have resulted in the deaths of Americans.

Nonetheless, neoconservative theology prevented the Bush administration from using carrots and sticks to transform tactical cooperation with Syria against al Qaeda into a broader rapprochement. Some influential neoconservative administration members scorned past relations with Mideast autocrats. They argued that strategic accommodation, exchanging better relations for policy shifts in Damascus, would effectively reward Syria's support for terrorism. Following the Iraq war, with U.S. troops at Syria's doorstep, relations plummeted further over Syria's unwillingness, absent a broader strategic understanding with Washington, to stem the flow of people and supplies into Iraq in support of insurgent activity there.

Throughout this period, Bashar Assad has been climbing a slow learning curve as diplomat and strategist. He has been forced by changing circumstances to adapt the foreign policy script he inherited from his father -- with some dismal results. His overly aggressive handling of the Lebanon "file," documented in the U.N. report, alienated French President Jacques Chirac and set the stage for the passage of Security Council Resolution 1559 in 2004, which mandated the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon. The draft resolution that the Security Council is debating, threatening sanctions if Syria does not cooperate with the U.N. investigation, is endorsed by the Bush administration -- but it is sponsored by France.

Yet it remains unclear what outcome France, Britain and the United States are ultimately seeking. If the international community imposes sanctions on Syria, the regime may be able to hunker down like Saddam did in the 1990s, an unsatisfactory outcome for the West as well as for the Syrian people. If, on the other hand, the regime implodes, that could pose even greater dangers. Ethnic and sectarian violence could feed into and off of instability in Iraq while an anti-American, heavily Islamist leadership could fill the political vacuum in Damascus. Even if Bashar did order Hariri's killing, do we want to treat him like a Milosevic-type criminal figure? Or do we want to offer him a way out as an inducement for Syria's strategic realignment, much as we made a deal with Libya's Moammar Gaddafi, whose regime killed not 22 people, but 270 people (mostly Americans) in the bombing of Pan Am 103?

It may be tempting to see Bashar as a Macbeth-like figure, driven to paralysis by his victim's ghost and doomed. But policymakers are not just passive members of the audience in this drama. On the real world's stage, they share responsibility for what happens next, regardless of Bashar's fate.

Author's e-mail:

fleverett@brookings.edu

Flynt Leverett, author of "Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial by Fire," is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy. He served as senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council from 2002 to 2003 and as a senior CIA Middle East analyst from 1992 to 2001.

Yasin Haj Salih, "Sn Appeal for Salvation"

Yassin al-Haj Saleh is a Syrian journalist who writes for, among other publications, Al-Mulhaq, the literary supplement of Lebanon's Al-Nahar, and Al-Hayat. He is also one of the most articulate spokesmen of the Syrian opposition and lays out in this article the challenge faced by the Syrian opposition as it tries to present itself as a viable actor in mapping out Syria's future. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.

From Damascus, an appeal for salvation

By Yassin Al-Haj Saleh
Commentary by
Friday, October 28, 2005

On October 16, four days after the violent death of Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kenaan and five days before Detlev Mehlis released his report to the United Nations on the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, several Syrian parties and individuals signed a historic document titled the Damascus Declaration for Democratic and National Change. The timing was one reason why the document is important; two others were its contents and those who signed it.

The Damascus Declaration spoke about the necessity for radical change in Syria, which has been ruled by a military-Baath Party complex for more than four decades. The signatories held the regime responsible for the terrible situation inside the country as well as Syria's appalling regional status. They called on all Syrian parties aspiring for democracy - "people of the regime" not excluded - to engage in "a salvation task of change that takes the country from being a security state to a civil state." They also called for democracy, and though the signatories refused "change coming from the outside" and expressed an aspiration for the independence and unity of the country, they also refused, and in a way that was unusual for the Syrian opposition, "isolation, political adventurism and irresponsible attitudes."

The signatories also promised to "work together to put an end to despotism, and [declared] their readiness to make the required sacrifices to achieve this aim and to do whatever is necessary to launch a process of democratic change in the country."

However, the main importance of the declaration derived from the identity of the parties that signed it. The original document was signed by five parties and gatherings, namely the Democratic National Gathering (composed of five parties with leftist and nationalist roots), the Committees for Civil Society Revival, the Democratic Kurdish Alliance in Syria, the Democratic Kurdish Front in Syria, and the Future (Al-Mustaqbal) Party. Also, nine prominent figures co-signed the document, of whom Riad Seif, a jailed parliamentarian, was the most prominent.

No sooner had the declaration been issued than the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood also joined in and called on others to sign it. The Brotherhood described it as a starting point for a new national consensus. Soon other smaller groups and individuals, both within Syria and outside, joined - the most problematic of them being the Reform Party of Syria headed by Farid Ghadry, which is based in the United States.

The Damascus Declaration was a historic initiative. For the first time since the Baath Party seized power in 1963, a broad understanding was reached between the main body of the Syrian opposition and a majority of Kurdish parties, between secular parties and the Muslim Brotherhood. Groups and individuals from across Syria's social spectrum, whether religious, ethnic or sectarian, agreed to join their efforts in a struggle for democratic change at a critical moment of Syrian history. How coherent this "alliance" will prove to be is unclear, but it is a strong expression of large sections of society.

The Damascus Declaration could be seen as an early Syrian reaction to the Mehlis report. The intention of the signatories was to propose an option different than what the Syrian regime has been offering: either the regime on the one hand or chaos or extremist Islamism on the other. The signatories sought to say that there would not be a vacuum of power should the doors of the country be opened to the unknown, and should the regime collapse under international pressure.

As George Sabra, a speaker from the Syrian People Democratic Party, put it, the document was intended to show that "Syria is not politically an empty shell." He underlined that there do exist popular forces in the country, with a long history of democratic struggle - trustworthy groups that can be dealt with. These forces are united in their support for democratic and national change, and have a program that dovetails with the spirit of modernity in this era of world history.

So far the Assad regime has shown tolerance for the declaration and those who signed it. However, it used some of its proxies to wage a campaign accusing those behind the declaration of betrayal and sectarianism. One cannot be sure that the nervous regime will not soon use other weapons against Syrian democrats who are building up their courage and experience.

Now that the Mehlis report is out, it is becoming increasingly clear that it will be difficult, perhaps impossible, for both Syria and its regime to be saved together. The Damascus Declaration, in calling for change, has the aim of separating the fate of Syria from that of its regime. This is the great challenge that the Syrian opposition will have to face up to in the coming months. The stronger and more united and active the democratic opposition is, the less grim the future of the country will be.
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The gathering storm
by Massoud Derhally
Arabian Business
30 October 2005

When it finally came, the findings of Detlev Mehlis's report unleashed all the pent-up frustration the Lebanese people developed in the wake of the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. The reaction on the streets in Beirut was foreseeable — as were the demonstrations in the streets of Damascus. Syrian officials stuck to their guns and lambasted the Mehlis Report as being politicised — coincidentally, they directed similar criticism at the first UN probe into Hariri's killing.

Though from a legal perspective the findings of the Mehlis report may not be conclusive and are circumstantial, they nonetheless have had a political impact as far as Syria is concerned.

"Building on the findings of the Commission and Lebanese investigations to date, and on the basis of the material and documentary evidence collected, and the leads pursued until now, there is converging evidence pointing at both Lebanese and Syrian involvement in this terrorist act," said Mehlis in his report. "It is a well-known fact that Syrian Military Intelligence had a pervasive presence in Lebanon at the least until the withdrawal of the Syrian forces pursuant to resolution 1559. The former senior security officials of Lebanon were their appointees. Given the infiltration of Lebanese institutions and society by the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services working in tandem, it would be difficult to envisage a scenario whereby such a complex assassination plot could have been carried out without their knowledge."

The fact that Syria has not fully cooperated with the investigative team puts Damascus in a precarious position. According to the Mehlis report, Syria had refused to have some witnesses questioned beyond Syrian borders, nor allowed taped conversations and testimony from witnesses that implicates Syria or its apparatus in the killing of Hariri outside the country.

The death of Ghazi Kanaan — Syria's interior minister, who ruled Lebanon for decades — just days before the Mehlis report was released was also indicative of uneasiness within the Assad regime.

Kanaan's death "points to very serious tensions at the very top of the regime", Patrick Seale, an eminent writer on the Middle East and the only biographer of former Syrian president Hafez Al Assad, told Arabian Business. "It would be surprising if under such intense pressure there was not a very fierce debate going on about what to do, who was responsible, and how they reached this stage."

Inevitably, the onus now is on Syria to prove beyond reasonable doubt, that it did not have a hand in the killing of Hariri, as most Lebanese suspect and as the Mehlis report alludes it did. This largely is a result of a history of complicity of the Lebanese security apparatus with the Syrian intelligence services that ruled Lebanon for 30 years. Syria will also have to comply and hand over or try anyone culpable in the killing of Hariri. This may mean turning over or trying Maher Al Assad, the brother of the Syrian president, Assef Shawkat, the brother-in-law of Assad, Hassan Khalil a former Syrian interior minister and Bahjat Suleyman, the Syrian Internal Security Forces chief in the General Intelligence Department.

"There are question marks over several important elements of the Mehlis Report. But, nevertheless, one has to say that the massive evidence is fairly convincing, even if it wouldn't necessarily in its present state, stand up in a court of law," says Seale.

But the report is not over yet and the German investigator will now have until December 15 to continue his investigation, with the full backing of the United Nations Security Council. It is currently engaged in the drafting of a resolution, likely to be tabled for October 31.

Syria must cooperate with Mehlis and his team of 30 investigators from 17 countries, allowing access to officials and other personalities or else risk isolation, and, as the text of a draft resolution indicates, the onset of "further measures".

Ostensibly, this means the possibility of sanctions or worse, a military option — something that US president George W. Bush continues to say is on the table.

"We can safely say that the Assad regime is in a very unenviable situation," says Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian novelist and social analyst at the Brookings Institute in Washington, who was recently in Damascus.

Still, for their part, the Syrians have largely been quite nonchalant and, to an extent, in denial. In the run up to the release of the Mehlis Report, there was an air of ambivalence in Syria. By the same token, there was a systematic message repeated by Syrian officials that the investigation has largely been orchestrated as part of a political agenda to increase pressure on Damascus because it was standing up for Arab rights.

"It's a tactic, I think," says Seale of Syria's indifference to the Mehlis report. "They don't want to recognise that the situation is very grave. On the other hand, an important issue is that a lot of Syrians feel that they are facing an injustice. There is a sort of patriotic fervour there and when they feel under attack they respond in this way."

Though it was not on the scale of the demonstrations of the Lebanese Cedar Revolution, the protests in Damascus in the wake of the Mehlis report certainly illuminated the sense that Syrians were being victimised. Protesters carried signs that read "No to the Mehlis Report" and others that read "Yes to Bashar Al Assad."

There was also a reaction in some corners of the Arab world that the report was an instrument that was part and parcel of a Western-Zionist agenda to carve up the Arab world.

In Beirut, Lebanese took to the streets and Martyrs' Square, bearing T-shirts and placards that said, "I love you Mehlis". Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora visited the grave of Hariri flanked by several ministers in his government and waved the victory sign, but was very measured in his words and urged Syria to cooperate with the UN investigation committee. Saad Hariri, the son of the slain premier hailed the report's findings in a speech televised from Jeddah and called for an international tribunal to try those involved in the assassination of his father.

"Without justice we don't have hope," Hariri said after meeting Britain's foreign secretary Jack Straw. "This would be a strong message in the Middle East to bring those (killers) to justice ... because if you commit a crime and you get away with it, it will be like a jungle tomorrow in the Middle East.

"The crime was not committed against a family, it was committed against a system, a government in Lebanon."

"Undoubtedly there are mistakes in the handling of relations with Lebanon of course," Seale says, when describing the frame of mind of the Syrian regime. "But on the other hand, Syrians feel that the pressure on them is not really about the Hariri assassination. It's about their regional role," he adds.

To the Americans, that role comes down to the thousands who continue to infiltrate Iraq from Syria, who have strengthened the insurgency that has unleashed an unabated stream of bloodshed there. This, coupled with the presence of some of its intelligence services in Lebanon, the continued support of Hezbollah, and its alliance with Iran has angered Washington as well as France and Britain a great deal.

"The whole Tehran-Damascus-South Lebanon axis, after all, is the only opposition to American and Israeli hegemony. Syrians feel that they are being targeted for that reason. It is important to separate the two issues; the Hariri murder on the one hand and the geopolitical struggle on the other in the region," explains Seale.

The path before Syria is clearly a prickly one. The Assad regime will have to make some difficult choices, but as Seale says it is still very dangerous to make predictions. Changes of some form or another will have to take place in Syria. However, "this doesn't necessarily mean a change of regime," says Seale, adding that it does certainly mean, "some purges of bad apples will need to take place".

Ammar Abdul Hamid of Brookings believes it is the beginning of the end for Damascus. "This is a regime that has almost intentionally moved to weaken its own hand over the last few years, paving the way to this current predicament. As such, it is highly likely that we are witnessing the impending collapse of the regime," he says.

Likely scenarios, according to Abdul Hamid, include the Syrian people led by opposition figures orchestrating a velvet revolution, forcing the Baathist regime which has ruled Syria since 1963 to resign.

Another possible outcome, he says, is the abdication of Bashar Al Assad, which could result in an internal power struggle among the periphery of the present regime. In such an event, Abdul Hamid says "whoever wins will have to present a reform agenda and a few scapegoats to legitimise their position with the international community and the Syrian people". There is then the unlikely event that Assad could turn against his own family, and try to appeal to the Syrian people for support as he tries to launch a "new corrective movement", says Abdul Hamid.

"Assad could be deposed in a coup and accused of plotting the act himself in cooperation with others. The names involved will depend on the identity of those leading the coup, but they [would] most likely include Rustom Ghazali."

In all likelihood though, Assad will remain in power with Syria being isolated internationally and suffering from sanctions. In such an eventuality, according to Abdul Hamid, the regime is likely to strengthen its grip on power initially, but the move will essentially "take a drastic toll not only on the Syrian people, but on the regime itself, due to the lack of resources".
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Also see this commentary by Tony Badran:
Syria: Après Assad Le Deluge?

What Washington is Thinking about Syria

NOTE: I will be on al-Jazeera tomorrow (Saturday) night at 10:00 pm Lebanon time and 9:00 Syria time on with Riyad Muhsin Agha and Michel Kilo. The moderator will be Riyad Ben Jiddou - Hiwar Maftuh. I will be speaking in Arabic!! A first for me. I am nervous.

Here is a letter from a friend who is a well plugged in Washington analyst. He asked that I not use his name if I posted this. This is a shame because he is smart. This is the best overview of dominant themes being discussed in Washington. The big question is will there be violent chaos in Syria should the regime collapse. I hope my readers will respond in the comment section so we can get a good cross-section of opinion. Let us know if you are actually a Syrian, who has lived in the country during the last few years. Lebanese perspective is always welcome as well, as they probably know more about the probability and dynamics of violence than others. All views always welcome.

1/ My conclusion is that Washington prefers a weak Syria at the moment

- No insult intended – I have an utmost respect for those in the opposition in Syria – but the alternatives are not yet credible, and opposition figures themselves acknowledge that they are not ready to govern yet. The Damascus Declaration is a good platform, but probably not enough to precipitate change anytime soon. The good news is that Syria is not seen anymore as only a hard security problem in Washington policy circles: thanks to Syrian opposition members inside and outside Syria, and to mediums like your blog, the debate has qualitatively moved forward.

- Washington cannot pull off a new military adventure
The maximum it can do is something along what the Turks did in 1998: use the threat of force to get the Syrians to comply. But it would have a hard time convincing the US military that this will not lead to a new military adventure and contrary to Turkey which had a very specific demand that Syria could meet (and smartly met), the US is embroiled in a major conflict and its list is much longer. Even the hot pursuit option will be carefully examined: its implications could be such (think Laos and Cambodia) that the US military will say no. Where do you draw a line?

The key questions that derive from this conclusion are the following:

- Will Washington consider a Libya-type deal? Maybe, but not anytime soon. The London Times report may or may not have been on target. It does not really matter: it contains the essence of what the US wants short of regime change. If Syria had accepted something along these lines before the Mehlis report (something highly improbable), it would have been called a deal. It did not, and now it will take a new form: UN-sanctioned demands that will be presented by the Syrian government as unacceptable diktats.

Syria lost many opportunities to shape the outcome in previous years: it could have left Lebanon on its own terms, it could have toned down its anti-US rhetoric, it could have better managed its relations with France and the EU, and it could have granted citizenship to the Kurds… The list is long, but Syria did not seize these opportunities and that’s mainly Syria’s own doing.

- Does this strengthen the position of the opposition in Syria? I don’t know. A weak regime vis-à-vis the international community does not necessarily mean that the Syrian opposition will benefit from the new dynamic. A tough sanctions regime would hurt the Syrian people more than the regime (something US officials are aware of), and could bring the people closer to the regime. If the regime were smart, it would try to initiate a rapprochement with opposition figures, but the Damascus Declaration clearly says that the regime is part of the problem, not the solution. And in any case, who honestly believes that this regime can be that smart? We have been hearing rumors about reconsidering the status of the Kurds for the past several years. Today, the news surfaced again. Same for the legal framework regarding political parties. Typical of this regime. But does it have any credibility left with its own people?

- Does this default policy meet Washington’s other needs (i.e. secure borders with Iraq)? Probably not entirely, but under the current conditions, a weak, contained Syria might not be as risk-taking as it currently is.

2/ Examining all the options does not mean that a policy of regime change has been adopted

- Meeting with Ghadry or drawing up lists of names of potential alternatives to Assad does not mean that the policy has been set. A good bureaucrat will always consider all the alternatives: that is the essence of working in a foreign policy or national security bureaucracy. Of course, this administration has clear preferences, but preferences do not always translate into policy, especially in the current conditions. It has moved a long way in recent months.

- People at State and especially the NSC are not the stubborn ideologues one might suspect. And they seem to acknowledge that they don’t know everything about Syria. So far, they have proven very smart, especially on the Lebanon file. And Bolton (not a big fan of his – see D. Ignatius today) does not set the policy! He is a negotiator, not a policymaker. He can say tough things, but those who call the shots are in Washington.

- They also realize that the US is not the only country with leverage over Syria: the role of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states is key. Every time Bashar or Sharaa meets with an Arab head of state, he pretends that all went well even though he has been scolded once again (are Amr Moussa and Ahmadinejad helpful allies?). And France is moderating the US position. A US-French rift would probably jeopardize much of what has been achieved so far.

In short, US officials are playing their hand very astutely. So far, and despite reservations many might have, the Lebanon-Syria file is this Administration’s real success story in the Middle East (along with Libya, for more complex reasons that it acknowledges). The US government will make its best that it remains so.

3/ Damascus is finally coming around the fact that the Mehlis investigation and UNSCR 1559 have become the substance of US policy toward Syria (and also of French and UN policy toward Syria). Or has it?

Syrian officials have long operated under the assumption that both tools were only pretexts to pressure Syria. Once again, they were wrong. Why? Because there are no strategists or foreign policy thinkers in this regime.

Essentially, many agree with Young and Perthes regarding their assessments of Bashar (not always their conclusions): he is no reformer, he has proven immature when it comes to both foreign policy and domestic policy, he seems to be a real believer while his father was a shrewd realist, he has managed to convince some that he has introduced reforms when all he did was to dismantle the business interests of the regime’s older barons to the benefit of his inner circle, that the June Baath conference would jumpstart a new cycle of reform when it actually served as a venue for a non-violent purge to further consolidate power etc…

My (open and speculative, I admit) question for those of you living in Syria and who know Syrian society better than us is the following: what is the potential for violence in Syria?

Recently, there have been many instances of communal, ethnic and religious, violence. My questions are - no insult intended: how violent is Syrian society? Was it brutalized by the regime to a point that it has integrated violence and sees it as a normal tool, or did state violence (Hama, political prisoners etc.) and previous experiences (MB in the 70s and 80s) lead to an intense dislike of violence? Did the regime use coercion smartly? Where do people in the opposition stand? What does Iraq tell us about fractured societies? How fractured is Syrian society?

Tabler and Young on Syria's Future

Here are two editorial from the IH Tribune. Both journalists know that that Syria is unlike to cooperate with the international investigation so long as all the leaders of the regime are targets. Andrew Table, a Syrian based journalist, proposes that America offer Bashar al-Asad a way out by refraining to target him personally and by offering to open the oil pipeline between Iraq and Syria as a sweetener. Michael Young, a Lebanese journalist, suggest that the Syrian opposition take maters into its own hands, become a more effective force, and overthrow the regime.

Addendum: Michael Young just sent me this correction. He is right, of course. Sorry Michael:

Josh,

Thanks for highlighting my IHT piece, but can I ask you to write a correction on your blog. You write: "Michael Young, a Lebanese journalist, suggests that the Syrian opposition take maters into its own hands, become a more effective force, and overthrow the regime." In fact I didn't say that at all, and am far more ambiguous about the issue than you make it sound. All I did, as you can clearly read in the last paragraph, is say that persistent uncertainty in Syria might lead to that outcome. I wasn't advocating anything here, and I'm surprised you should state this since the paragraph is quite clear.

Best regards,
Michael

America should test who's in charge in Damascus
Andrew Tabler, International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2005

DAMASCUS The UN investigator Detlev Mehlis's implication of "senior Lebanese and Syrian officials" in the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri is sure to set off a firestorm of debate on how to pressure Damascus to comply with the ongoing investigation. As all eyes turn to President Bashar al-Assad and what he will do next, it is imperative that Washington not miss an opportunity to determine who is worth dealing with in Damascus.

For nearly five years, I have worked as a journalist and researcher in Syria covering the country's reform process. Over dinner with diplomats and other foreign visitors in Damascus, one question arises more frequently every year: Is Assad in control of Syria?

CNN even asked Assad himself the question last week. Assad answered, "You cannot be a dictator and not be in control." Or can you? Since Assad came to power in July 2000, everything from the slow pace of reform to Damascus's reticence to pull its troops out of Lebanon has been blamed on Assad's weakness vis-à-vis the "old guard" -regime members who remain from the 30-year rule of Bashar's father, Hafez.

When this belief began to affect relations with America - most notably U.S. demands on Syria concerning Iraq - Washington changed its Syria policy from one of "constructive engagement" to "constructive instability." This has included increased sanctions, public threats and even reported cross-border skirmishes along the Iraqi-Syrian frontier. And most notably, there has been a conspicuous lack of incentives for good behavior.

Then last week, out of the blue, with the Mehlis report looming, a high-ranking U.S. official confirmed rumors that Washington had offered Damascus a deal to get it off the hook in Lebanon for its accused involvement in Hariri's assassination in exchange for halting its alleged support for the Iraqi insurgency, ending all interference in Lebanese affairs and cutting off support for Hezbollah and Palestinian rejectionist groups. Damascus has reportedly turned down the offer.

It is perhaps understandable that such a proposal went nowhere, since it is unclear that there is anyone in Syria with enough authority to rewrite its foreign policy of the last 30 years. The penultimate version of the Mehlis report that was accidentally released, which names names, indicates just how fragmented this regime might actually be. The possibility that the president's brother and brother-in-law took it upon themselves to organize the assassination of a Middle Eastern statesman shows that, at the very least, Syria might be ruled by committee.

We need to find out if someone on this committee is in a position to negotiate with the United States, even as the sanctions process rumbles forward. Sanctions by themselves could be disastrous, creating chaos when the last thing we need is chaos in another Middle Eastern country. Multilateral pressure will only increase nationalist sentiments and regime paranoia that will hamstring an already troubled reform process.

Damascus's reform program is heavily assisted, if not sustained, by UN and European Union projects. Increased multilateral pressure on the regime could politicize Syria's already limited reform space, grinding progress to a halt. Such a situation needs to be avoided at all costs. Syria's high population growth rate of 2.85 percent, combined with pitifully low labor and capital productivity, means that current unemployment levels of 11 percent to 20 percent would only increase rapidly - something that could serve to fuel Islamic radicalism in Syria and the region.

So instead of just using the Hariri investigation to push Damascus to the brink through sanctions and watch Syria sink into the abyss, Washington should give Assad a chance to prove he is in charge. America could offer him a very special carrot to go along with the sanctions stick.

Allowing the reopening of the oil pipeline between Kirkuk in Iraq and the Syrian port of Banias, to see if Assad can keep it operating without acts of sabotage, would be a good first step in determining the degree to which he controls Syria. This would also alleviate U.S. troubles in exporting Iraqi oil and give Assad and the Syrian people a material incentive to help stabilize their neighbor. And, perhaps most important, this would open the door to a peaceful solution to what is looming as the next big crisis for the United States in the region.

There are some signs that Assad could be in a position to make good on such a deal. After the Hariri assassination in February, it appears that Assad has been consolidating power. Several high-ranking officials were retired during the Baath Party conference in June. Interior Minister Ghazi Kanan, a possible rival to Assad, died last week in what officials are calling a suicide.

At least for now, America needs someone inside the Assad regime it can deal with. But the Assad regime does not necessarily need America. The regime has plenty of experience surviving sieges, however chaotic. Damascus has been under U.S. sanctions since 1979, and it has become skilled at sneaking around them. It also has about $18 billion in cash reserves, the equivalent of about three years of current imports. Syria's Baathists are masters of the waiting game: Even if Bashar can't outwit or outplay George W. Bush, history shows that an Assad is capable of outlasting two-term U.S. presidents.

(Andrew Tabler is a fellow with the Institute of Current World Affairs based in Damascus and Beirut, and consulting editor for Syria Today magazine.)

Assad's dilemma
Michael Young, International Herald Tribune
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2005

BEIRUT The release last week of a United Nations report on the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon threatens to create a perfect storm of adversity for the regime of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. By satisfying the international community's call that Syria cooperate with the inquiry of the UN prosecutor, Detlev Mehlis, Assad would undermine his domestic hold on power; by avoiding this, Assad would ensure Syria's almost total isolation and perhaps the imposition of international sanctions.

On Tuesday, the UN Security Council began discussing the Mehlis report. This came after Assad wrote a letter to the council, dated Sunday, in which he affirmed that while Syria was "innocent" of Hariri's Feb. 14 assassination, he was "ready to follow up action to bring to trial any Syrian who could be proved by concrete evidence to have had connection with this crime." The question now is how will Assad interpret his pledge.

In his report, Mehlis stated that his "investigation is not complete," and the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, subsequently extended the inquiry until Dec. 15. But the prosecutor had enough confidence in the information he had garnered to add that there is "converging evidence pointing at both Lebanese and Syrian involvement in this terrorist act." The investigators further underlined that the Hariri assassination was prepared over several months, and was "carried out by a group with an extensive organization and considerable resources and capabilities."

Most damning, the report offered a context in which to interpret the findings, implying that individuals at the top of the Syrian and Lebanese political systems were aware of the Hariri plot: "Given the infiltration of Lebanese institutions and society by the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services working in tandem, it would be difficult to envisage a scenario whereby such a complex assassination plot could have been carried out without their knowledge." This hit close to Assad: His brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, heads Syria's military intelligence.

There was more: A witness also pointed to the involvement of Assad's brother, Maher, who as commander of the Republican Guard is another essential regime prop. While his name was removed in the official version, in the initial Microsoft Word document released to the media, the deletion was plainly visible after activating the "track changes" option. This has led to speculation that Mehlis allowed the name to be conspicuous as a warning to the Syrians that the investigation could hit very high, perhaps reaching the president himself.

If the revelations did anything, however, they made it more likely that Assad will be inflexible. His letter to the United Nations (where for some reason the promise to bring Syrians to trial was only included in the text sent to the United States, France and Britain) will provoke more questions than answers. Where would the Syrian suspects be put on trial? In a recent CNN interview, Assad hinted that because he considered Hariri's murder "treason," so a Syrian court might be the appropriate venue. What evidence would Syria consider "concrete" enough to mandate handing over suspects?

Mehlis has asked that Syrian officials be interviewed outside Syria, and it is obvious from his report that he would include both Shawkat and Maher Assad. Indeed, the investigation team had asked to speak to the president himself, but this was rejected. Fulfilling these requests would be the minimum required of Damascus to stave off the prospect of punitive action at the United Nations. But it is highly improbable that either Maher Assad or Shawkat would agree to leave Syria.

Where does this leave Assad? Bogus cooperation will not go far, nor will efforts to try the possible suspects in Syrian courts, unless this follows an internationally endorsed Syrian investigation. It is unlikely that a political deal - where Syria might be offered breathing room in exchange for ending its support for the Iraqi insurgency, leaving Lebanon alone and cutting its ties to Palestinian militant groups and Hezbollah - could avert a handover of officials who might have participated in Hariri's assassination. At best, Assad can play for time and avoid giving Mehlis anything to strengthen his case.

This may be suicidal, but the logic is compelling. Assad knows his final card is the uncertainty surrounding what would follow the demise of his regime. He also knows that if he avoids addressing Mehlis's demands, the Security Council will move into a divisive debate over sanctions and retribution. The Americans and French can push, but can they shove, given Russian and Chinese reluctance and American difficulties in Iraq? Assad will enforce unity inside, but may also accept confrontation outside.

Can it work? The probability isn't very high, but it's all Assad has. The real question, however, is whether political forces inside Syria will sit idly by as the regime takes the country into a period of prolonged uncertainty. There may be no alternatives today to Bashar Assad, but as his regime prepares for a siege, political spaces may be filled by those who do not wish to suffer for the Assads.

(Michael Young is opinion editor of the Daily Star in Lebanon, and a contributing editor at Reason magazine in the United States.)

Investments in Syria? Fighting Islolation by Derhally

Massoud Derhally, a Dubai based journalist who recently came through town, talked to Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Dardari about the large Emaar real-estate deal. He explains how Abdullah Dardari is trying to keep an up-beat attitude about investment prospects in Syria and insists the Syrian economy will soon be growing at 7% because of recently progress in liberalization and banking advances. The Emaar deal is a bit misleading. Although it has been advertised as a 4 billion dollar deal, only one half billion is planned for immediate investment; the rest is contingent on the success of the first part. Clearly, the government is hoping that part of the recent flood of petrol dollars into the Gulf will wash up on Syrian Shores. Can this help Syria weather the isolation that is coming from the UN?

Syria will have to do much more to liberate the economy from its own lack of competitiveness, however. That is what Dardari said, when he slammed private and public sector monopolies in Syria. "The Syrian economy is subjected to public and private monopolies. For the economic reforms to succeed, it is necessary for these monopolies to stop," he was quoted as saying by Tishrin newspaper.

Also: "La Syrie se lance dans le développement de ses régions orientales"

La Syrie se prépare à investir l'équivalent de 523 millions de dollars pour le développement des régions orientales durant les cinq années qui viennent. Ces investissements font partie du prochain plan quinquennal préparé par les autorités syriennes qui débute l'année prochaine et court jusqu'en 2010.

Le gouvernement prévoit d'investir près de 17 milliards de livres (323 millions de dollars) dans la région de Hassaké, une augmentation de 140% par rapport au dernier plan quuinquénal et plus de 10,2 milliards à la région de Deir al-Zor, ce qui représente une augmentation de près de 300%. Dans cette région une nouvelle raffinerie ainsi qu'une zone industrielle devraient voir le jour.

Selon Abdallah al-Dardari, le vice-Premier Ministre en charge des affaires économiques qui a fait cette annonce au quotidien al-Sharq al-Awsat, ces investissements ont pour but de faire de la région orientale de la Syrie une plateforme de développement vers les deux pays voisins que sont la Turquie et l'Irak.

Moment of truth
by Massoud A. Derhally
Arabian Business
Thursday October 20, 2005

SYRIA is on the cusp of a new era of constructive change, introspection and improvement — at least that's how government officials and the state media in Damascus are portrayng the country's present environment. Talking to them, there seems to be a sense of ambivalence towards the storm brewing outside the borders of this embattled Arab nation.

International pressure on Damascus in the wake of the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri — which led to an exodus of Syria's 14,000 soldiers from the country in April — may have embittered Syrians who lost their jobs there. It may also have caused those in power in Damascus to be resentful about leaving a country they long saw as inherently part of Syria. But this is the least of their worries at the moment.

The findings of a UN report on the killing of Hariri are to be released to the UN Security Council on October 25 — but there seems to be little apprehension in Syria. Newspapers and the media abroad may be pre-occupied with the conclusions of Detlev Mehlis, the chief of the UN probe, but in Syria, the main story on the front page of the state run Tishreen newspaper last week was about a meeting convened by government officials to address ways to improve cleanliness.

During the day and in the evenings the Al Hamidiyah market, adjacent to the famous Oumayed mosque that is next to the shrine of Salah ad-Din, the Kurdish warrior who came to establish the Ayyubid Dynasty, is still buzzing with tourists and shoppers.

The Syrian government is also on a charm offensive. Officials are actively courting investors from the oil rich Gulf States, as part of the country's reform strategy, which aims to open up an economy that has been relatively stagnant for the past 30 years.

Just days before the Mehlis report is to be released to the Lebanese government and the UN, the Syrian deputy prime minister, Abdullah Al Dardari, who is very likely to be the next prime minister, held an event at the Palais de Nobles to celebrate with much pomp a US$3.9 billion real estate development spearheaded by Dubai based Emaar Properties and a Syrian group of businessmen.

Both Dardari and the chairman of Emaar, Mohamed Alabbar reiterated that the occasion marked an important juncture in the development of Syria's economy, that the country is open for business and has little to worry about.

Though the situation for Syria appears to be tense in the international arena, Alabbar said he wasn't concerned.

"Not in my business. I'm in the business of making money for my shareholders. I've been in [negotiations] with them for six months. I think these guys are doing a good job. They are very welcoming and they are forthcoming.

"The laws are changing positively. These guys are very serious people and I like to do business with them.

"We have to be optimistic as well. You can't live your life and worry," Alabbar told Arabian Business.

With such words there is little reason to believe in the onset of a political hurricane. But the prospects for Syria could very well turn grim, should the Mehlis report implicate its government in the killing of Hariri. In all likelihood it will, according to a source close to the investigation committee who spoke to Arabian Business earlier in the month, on condition of anonymity — as well as the most recent news reports that indicate the probe has drawn up a list of 20 suspects.

Though Syria has largely been able to swim against the tide and withstand American sanctions against the country, it also faces the worrying possibility of sanctions from the European Union and UN as well.

Such an eventuality would make an already sticky situation all the more tenuous for Damascus as the bulk of its trade is with Europe.

More importantly, the graver implication for Syria is the effect on the stalled EU-Association Accord, which Syria has been hoping would be finalised, enhancing its reform process of trade liberalisation. But this has largely been kept on hold due to the ominous political situation with Lebanon.

Still, this hasn't subdued Syria's deputy prime minister Abdullah Dardari, who was largely upbeat in an extended interview with Arabian Business. "I don't see any reason why we should always look at the worst-case scenario when we make our planning. Of course, in planning you take consideration of these possibilities, however you cannot plan your future based on a doomsday scenario," says Dardari.

"My projection actually is that the relationship with Europe will steam ahead; the association agreement will be signed, and trade and investment between Syrian and Europe will expand.

"Maybe there is talk about increased American sanctions against Syria, but there are already very strict American sanctions on Syria and, as you can see, investors are coming in full force, knowing in advance that the Syrian economy is moving ahead.

"We are adopting fully free trade, free investment, an open investment climate, we are liberalising our monetary and fiscal policies, and we are liberalising and deregulating our banking sector and financial system. Investors are not worried about either UN sanctions on Syria or European sanctions on Syria. There are already strict US sanctions on Syria, but that hasn't deterred investors to come to the country," adds Dardari.

Despite a recent economic report by Bank Audi that claimed "widening political uncertainties" and a "relatively slow reform process" have dampened Syria's growth performance to 2%, Dardari remains bullish. "In a country of 18 million and growing, a growth rate projected to reach 7% in the next few years, if I were an investor I would come to Syria."

Dardari estimates no less than US$10 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) will make its way to Syria from the Gulf states — a figure that is estimated to reach US$16 billion if European investment is accounted for as well.

Sensing what some observers say is its gradual isolation in the international community, and a media that paints it as a pariah state, Damascus has also been courting the international media. Its president Bashar Al Assad, for example, made his debut on CNN earlier in the month.

While this may allow Syria's government to score points at home, it is clear that the opinion of the international community matters most, and Syria believes it is making headway here as well.

"I don't think Syria is losing the publicity war. Syria is trying to reach out to the international community and to tell the world what Syria stands for and what are the real difficulties in achieving peace in the region — in achieving security, prosperity and establishing democracy in the region," says Bouthaina Shaaban, minister of expatriates.

"It is not Syria that is the obstacle. It is the parties who refuse to establish peace in the region. We believe that a just and comprehensive peace is the only solution for this region and no matter how may attempts they have for partial solutions they are not going to work.

"Arab people are not going to give up their rights," she adds.

But even as Damascus tries to rehabilitate its image in public, there is also an indication that it is pursuing secret negotiations with the US to reduce the impact of a damaging conclusion of the Mehlis report. There are unsubstantiated claims that the government is trying to cut a deal with Washington, similar to that it struck with Libyan leader Mohammed Qadafi, to bring the country back into the international fold.

But deputy premier Dardari vehemently denies such negotiations are taking place. "If there were any backdoor negotiations why should we hide them?" he says.

"Syria is not in the business of backdoor negotiations. Syria is in the business of transparent, open and honest talks to establish good working relationships with the United States. We feel that we have so many interests in common between Syria and the US in the stability and the prosperity of the Middle East. When the Americans are ready for such an open and transparent dialogue they will find open arms in Damascus."

There have also reports that Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to Washington, has been engaged in shuttle diplomacy in an attempt to alleviate the pressure on Damascus.

Though Dardari would not confirm or deny Bandar's involvement, he did indicate some form of dialogue was being conducted by outside parties.

"I don't want to specify names. There are many Arab and non-Arab third parties who offered help and we are telling everybody we are ready for an open, transparent, substantive, in-depth dialogue with the United States on issues of common concern towards establishing peace and stability and prosperity in the region," Dardari explains .

Syria, according to Dardari — who doesn't belong to the Ba'ath party which has ruled the country since coming to power in 1966 — is on solid ground, and not concerned that its ties with Arab states such as Saudi Arabia are endangered by the Mehlis report.

"They are [solid] as you can see today," says Dardari about his country's relations with the rest of the Arab world. He also discloses further capital inflow from Gulf States heading for the country. "We will announce considerable investment from other Arab countries in the very near future and, therefore, I really don't see any concerns. There will be considerable investments announced with Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Dubai."

However, relations with Lebanon may be a great deal trickier to master.

Both countries have openly voiced their displeasure with one another, with reports claiming that the Syrian prime minister refused to take calls from his Lebanese counterpart Fouad Siniora three times. The vitriol is also likely to increase some time after the Mehlis report is issued.

The Lebanese press is awash with information, both substantiated and unsubstantiated, that reiterates Beirut's suspicions that Syria or a fringe of those in power had a hand in the killing of Hariri. "I am sure it will impact," admits Dardari, when asked if the Mehlis report will affect Syrian-Lebanese relations. But he adds: "Our Lebanese brothers must realise that Syria is completely exonerated of the blood of Rafik Hariri. Whoever assassinated Rafik Hariri had in their minds the target of undermining Syrian-Lebanese relations."

Dardari wants to take a wait and see approach and is reluctant to hypothesise about the Mehlis report as some in Syria have, alleging it has largely been driven by a political agenda.

"Let's first see the findings. We are certain that if these findings were based on technical and criminal evidence, Syria is 100% innocent. We really have nothing to worry about. Whether the report will exonerate Syria's name or not because of political motivations, that's a different story," explains Dardari.

"If it is politicised we will deal with it then. However, we know, we are certain we are innocent and, as the president said, if there is any Syrian individual involved in this crime they will be treated as traitors and they will be punished accordingly."

Shaaban — who has largely been Syria's face in the Western media — says her country will continue along the same lines, secure in the knowledge that it has done nothing wrong.

"Our approach has always been consistent that we are against anything that makes the region more turbulent. We believe that the problem is not our approach. The problem is that Syria is targeted or threatened because it is clinging to the rights of Arabs and it has a stand against occupation. Syria does not have a policy of assassinations," she says.

That however, may be a hard sell in Beirut. Before Hariri was killed on February 14, thousands of Syrians worked in Lebanon and the capital they repatriated back home played an important role in reviving Syria's largely impoverished economy.

The death of Hariri, and the ensuing hostile environment in Lebanon towards Syrians — who are viewed not only as culpable in the death of their former premier, but also responsible for the wide spread corruption in the country — led to an exodus of Syrian workers and a souring of relations.

The road to reconciliation, at least in Dardari's view, is through old mercantile relationships and a history of trade that ties the two countries together.

"Both sides have to sit down and review, at least from an economic point of view, the future of the relationship. The Syrian economy is moving in a direction of opening up, setting up its own financial services, free trade, an open investment climate and therefore the role of the Lebanese economy, as the breathing lung of the Syrian economy as it [was] in the past, is no longer valid," explains Dardari.

"Lebanon and Syria must iron out a new economic relationship based on the developments of the Syrian economy. Our Lebanese brothers must tell us what exactly they want from Syria. We know what we want. We want a good, brotherly, open, solid, economic, relationship — reflecting the historical relationship between the two peoples. It's up to our Lebanese brothers to define what role they want to play."

Damascus and Beirut don't have diplomatic relations. To many Lebanese, the absence of a Syrian embassy in Beirut is an affirmation of Syria's belief that Lebanon is inherently part of it.

Asked if he envisions a change in the present status quo, with embassies being established in both capitals, Dardari is indirect. "When the Lebanese authorities come and request it, we will look into it," he says. "We are open to our Lebanese brothers and what they think is good for them, we think is good for us."

Bolton: The Bull in the Mosaic Shop

I wrote the other day that the US NSC Chief Stephen Hadley had asked the President of Italy's Senate, Mr. Pera, about possible replacements for Bashar al-Asad. People close to Hadley wrote me to ask where I had gotten this plum. They insisted it made "no sense" for Hadley to ask the Italians.

Fortunately several Italian journalists read Syria Comment and ran down the story as best they could.

Simona Poidomani of ADNKRONOS press came up with this:

Dear Dr. Landis,

According to a senior official working with Mr. Pera, there has been no phone call from Stephen Hadley to the president of the Italian Senate. Pera actually met Hadley in Washington last September (which coincides with the one-two month ago timeline you mentioned to me on the phone) and they discussed several issues, including Middle East). This has been confirmed to me by another source in the government.

best regards,
Simona Poidomani

Simona, I love you! One has to admire real reporters. Where would we be without the forth estate. God bless them. One caveat: This does not prove that Hadley asked Pera about a Bashar replacement! We must not conclude that Washington wants regime change in Syria. And if they did want it a month ago, maybe they don't today? Maybe all the talk about chaos in Syria is seeping into US consciousness and we are not being run by a bunch of clowns? But don't count on it.

How good is American diplomacy?
A number of fine American journalists have assured me that Washington is determined that its diplomats are going to do things differently in Syria. "It's going to be different this time around," Deborah Amos of National Republic Radio told me yesterday. She just flew in from London, where she is now based for several months. "The neocons are not in charge any more."

Others have given me the same reassurance. The only fly in the ointment, they say, is John Bolton, who is perched at the UN. "But he will be constrained," they insist, knitting their brows. The French are worried. "It is a big test for him. Ann Patterson is no longer at UN to back him up." Paris fears he will be Samson in the temple. They are not sure he is the chef to shape, sugar, and sauté this resolution along its cordon blue path. But the Americans are confident. "Texan barbeque is better than frog brew anytime. This man has got the right glaze." That is the line I am hearing.

Well what happens yesterday? Bolton goes off like a roadside bomb, leaving blood on the tarmac.

Earlier in the day, President Bush gave a long interview on al-Arabia. It was good. Even using my mother-in-law test, it was good. She was impressed. (If you get a kind word out of Umm Firas about Bush, it's a lucky day) Reporters tried to get Bush to go on the record about when and how he would bomb Syria. He faced them down directly and said something along the lines of, "Why do you want me to say this? We don't want to use force and are not planning force. Of course, force is always a last option and I cannot say it will never be an option, but we believe this must be solved diplomatically, etc." Umm Firas was up-beat.

But this evening when I got back from iftar, al-Jazeera was running a clip of Bolton saying, "We want a resolution saying that every Syrian will testify if called by the investigation. - even President Asad." Bingo! The improvised explosive devise. (Have I mixed my metaphors enough?)

It was clear. America is still thinking of how to take down the Asad family. No door is going to be left open for a political solution. The last few days have been spent by everyone here wracking their brains to figure out a way in which the regime might be able to cooperate with the process without committing suicide.

My own little scenario was: Syria plays along with the investigation which centers on Shawkat Asef, the new bad guy who the West molds into a symbol of the mafia side of the regime. How to separate him from his brothers-in-law? The investigation proceeds. Syria cooperates but all the regime principals sing from the same script as they did the first time around: "We know nothing; we hear nothing; we see nothing."

Mehlis comes up with a lot of gray. His main witnesses to Syria's involvement remain under a cloud of suspicion, as they are now, and he must fall back on the argument that Syria had the motive, the means, and were in control of the geography and Lebanese bad guys. The investigation drags on for a year. Everyone gets tired of it. Lebanon is in a mess. All real government business in Beirut has been delayed, reform has foundered, and the economy is running on fumes and foreign dollar infusions. It has reached the apex of its pyramid scheme. The US is distracted by presidential elections, Europe is looking for a way out. The Arab states are anxious about continuing chaos in Iraq and worried Syria will go down the same path. Everyone is tired of keeping Syria in the freezer. Then Bashar cuts a deal.

The Asad family leans on Bushra and Asef, telling them they must save the regime. Asef agrees to resign and takes up residence in Dubai or some other gilded cage, much as Rifaat did before him. Bashar repents, changes some policies, uses the foreign pressure to promote many of the technocrats like Abdullah Dardari and Daoudi, etc., that he has been trying to promote as the non-Mafia, law-and-order face of his regime. He promises things will be different. He lets it be know that he only came into real power following the June 2005 Baath Party congress when he pushed out the last of the old guard. He needs time to be the real reformer. "Let Bashar be Bashar" becomes the new catch phrase within diplomatic circles. Syria will open up, move forward with reform, and have Egyptian type elections in 2007. The democrats come to power in the US, and slowly Syria wiggles its way back from the precipice and into the "community of peace-loving," non rogue nations. The democrats decide that to staunch the flow of blood in Iraq, they must draw Iraq's neighbors into the political process.

That was the only way I could see a way out for this diplomatic impasse. It depends on the West making a very clear line between the President and Asef Shawkat, allowing the brother-in-law to become the fall guy. This deal does not have to be complete white wash. Syria has to make some major changes in foreign policy, and Bashar is put on notice that Syria must really be out of Lebanon and crack down on Jihadists traveling through the country with a proper visa regime for foreigners, embassy in Lebanon, etc. It becomes a win-win for Syria and the West.

But what does Bolton do last night? "The President must testify," he says. He nails Bashar. Everything Bush did to suggest that there might be a diplomatic solution to this stand-off was blown out of the water. Bolton broadcasted loud and clear: "America is still dreaming of regime change." Buckle your seat-belts ladies and gentlemen. There are no grounds for building an understanding between the Asad regime and Washington. This is going to be a rough ride to the bottom. That is what I understood from Bolton's words.

To my friends who are telling me that Bolton will not be the bull in the China shop this time around or that he will do things differently than he did with North Korea, I can only say....... Inshaallah, may God protect us. To my French friends: "Get this guy to a cooking class."
-------

Alix Van Buren of "La Repubblica," Italy's leading paper, and an old Syria hand who got the first interview with Bashar al-Asad on the subject of Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon, writes:

Here is an update on the French-American diplomatic "pas-de-deux" over Syria.

Interestingly, Le Monde today has a take on that issue. An article typically inspired by the Quai d'Orsay. The gist of it is: "The French-American joint effort could be down to its last hours". Here is an extract:

"Since the Mehlis report was published, France has played a very difficult balancing act in preserving its cooperation with the Americans while pursuing different priorities. The question of how long the joint approach can survive is now definitely on the table (...) To the French the most urgent issues are "taking time", avoiding all politicization of the report, allowing full completion of the inquiry, and preserving full consensus within the international community."

Here is where France and the U.S. diverge:

"(The aim of France) is to restore its standing in the former Lebanese protectorate, while also repairing some transatlantic tensions, and this through a pragmatic and well defined cooperation. George Bush's entourage however holds a broader regional perspective: its difficulties in Iraq, the infiltration of foreign combatants across Syria's borders, the presence of Palestinian camps in Lebanon"

Note: would this suggest Washington's desire to rid that Country of the 400,000 plus Palestinian refugees? that probably merits more attention, as such topics have been bouncing around Lebanon recently). "(...) While France will stick with the US on pressuring Syria to cooperate with the inquiry - though Paris has noticeably refrained these past days from all aggressive language towards Damascus - any semantic slip by Washington regarding ideas of "war against terrorism" or of "regime change" would be cause to break off the "partenariat". The whole concept of the French-American rapprochement, recently hailed in Paris by Nicholas Burns as "a situation where the axe of war has really been buried" is now in doubt."

And here is a Reuters' item that
just came in re Russia's stance on Syria - quite an open
challenge to the U.S.
October 26, 2005

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia,
Syria's close ally since Cold War times, will do all it takes to block any attempt to slap economic sanctions against Damascus, a Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

"Russia will do
everything necessary to stop attempts to introduce sanctions against
Syria," spokesman Mikhail Kalmynin told Interfax news agency and other Russian media on the sidelines of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's trip to Israel.

Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, angered the United States earlier this year by announcing plans to sell advanced missile systems to Syria, which Washington has accused of having links to terrorism.

(...) Lavrov will seek at next week's discussions at the Security Council in New York to make sure any resolution calls for the investigation to be fair and objective, Kalmynin said.

Timur Goksel of AUB writes: "Hizballah people are not so concerned with Mehlis report, yet. They are very focused however on the forthcoming Larsen report and their comments on Larsen are not exactly endearing. I am told to watch out
for Nasrallah's speech at Friday's Jerusalem Day parade."

Ibrahim Hamidi, al-Hayat's bureau chief in Damascus, has two good stories: One in Arabic, in which Walid Mualem, the Deputy Foreign Minister, warns against a Sykes-Picot 2 in which the region is cut into statelets based on religion and ethnicity and Riyad al-Daoudi says that Syria will cooperate with the on going international investigation.

The other was printed by "Syria Today."
RUNNING TO STAND STILL
By Ibrahim Hamidi

I was not one of those Syrians who applauded the unanimous election of Syria to occupy a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council, representing the Arabic-Asian group for the period 2002-2003.

Syrian officials and government media warmly welcomed the 160-vote majority as reflecting Syria’s powerful influence on the international stage, while I simply saw it as an American trap, similar to that of Yemen in 1991.

When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the United States forged an alliance under the cover of the UN to drive it out. The Yemen of Ali Abdullah Saleh was then on good terms with Saddam so it did not support this “international legitimacy”, but neither could it support Saddam. Yemen simply abstained from voting, but this neutrality turned out to be extremely costly during the 1990s, until the country was able to improve relations with the Gulf states and the US after September 11, 2001 by showing unlimited support to Washington’s war against terrorism.

The Syrian case looks similar, but more painful. During 2002-2003 Syria was expected to represent “Arab legitimacy” in any international resolution concerning two critical issues: Iraq and Palestine. However, it failed in both cases to take a comfortable attitude, and her presence in the Security Council turned into a burden rather than a breakthrough in the country’s foreign relations.

Three examples prove the point.

The first was on March 1, 2002, when Syria abstained from voting on behalf of UN Resolution 1397 - the first ever to explicitly mention the “Palestinian State”. Damascus had to make significant political and media efforts to explain why she had refrained from supporting a “Palestinian State”, despite her hard won reputation as a supporter of the Palestinian cause and a pan-Arab hardliner.

The second was in April 2002, when the then Syrian Ambassador to the US, Michel Wihbeh, left the meeting hall in New York and refrained from taking part in the vote on Resolution 1402 that called for Israeli forces to withdraw from Palestinian territories reoccupied after the Intifada.

Syria was not able to vote for the resolution because she did not want to show any kind of support to then Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, with whom relations were poor, but neither was Damascus able to vote “no” because it would have been impossible for the government to openly oppose the embattled leader of Palestinian cause. The result: the empty seat approach. No vote. No decision.

This was repeated in May 2003, when Wihbeh failed to take part in the vote on Resolution 1483 that called for an end to the 13-year sanctions regime on Iraq. Syria could not vote “yes”, because of her opposition to the US-led war in Iraq, but also she could not vote “no” because of fear of directly upsetting Washington. She simply preferred not to resist the international, American and Iraqi will to lift the sanctions; another “empty seat”.

So we had a situation where Syria could not support Resolution 1483, which called for the end to crippling international trade sanctions on a fellow Arab state, but did support Resolution 1441, which held Iraq in material breach of its obligation to disclose its weapons programmes to inspection, and was used as a central plank for the US’ case for the military invasion and overthrown of Baghdad.

Syria’s presence in the Security Council was a bitter experience indeed. It proved beyond doubt that such presence was a political achievement only in the eyes of those who fail to see beyond the surface of things.

This bitter experience continued after Syria’s departure, because of its incorrect interpretation of other international resolutions.

The first example of this was at the end of last year, after the issuing of Resolution 1559. Some Syrian officials considered the resolution a “diplomatic victory” because it had not mentioned Syria by name, and that Syria had nothing to do with the call for the “withdrawal of all remaining foreign forces from Lebanon”.

This proved an incorrect interpretation, because American and European support was able to enforce the interpretation that Syria was the main target of the resolution, and Damascus’ position was weakened further by its reputation as an assiduous supporter of the UN and “international legitimacy”, because the latter provides a good argument to demand a complete Israeli withdrawal from Syria’s Golan Heights.

Due to the great international pressure behind Resolution 1559, Syria announced its complete military withdrawal from Lebanon on April 26, 2005.

The same mistaken understanding was repeated with Resolution 1595, which called, in Article 8, for all countries to cooperate with the UN investigation into the assassination of the former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri, without mentioning any country in name.

Syria looked hesitant at first, but soon realised that the international interpretation was the right one, and the reality of how the world works would soon mean any small country would be forced to cooperate. That is why Syria later agreed to receive Detlev Mehlis, the chief UN investigator, and allow him to question senior Syrian officials regarding Hariri’s assassination.

So now we have a new reality: Mehlis will submit his report to the Security Council by the end of October. There will be a legal reading and charges against those responsible for the murder. There will also be a political reading by America and Europe, who look likely to want to use the report to isolate Syria.

The big question is: How is Syria going to read the Mehlis report? Will she stick to the Syrian interpretation only?
ENDS

Adib Farha, a political analyst and former adviser to Lebanon's finance minister, wrote this for the Globe and Mail:

Not that we are or should be enamoured of the Syrian leadership -- but until and unless a viable alternative is ready to replace the Assad dynasty, anything other than a soft landing for the rapidly faltering regime would have severe repercussions on the stability of the entire region. Should the Syrian leadership implode or, worse yet, if the United States and its allies should launch military strikes against it, the ensuing anarchy and the possibilities of a sectarian/tribal civil war or the emergence of a Sunni fundamentalist-led regime would be catastrophic for all the region's countries, friend and foe alike.

We should continue to use every peaceful means to steer the Syrian leadership toward changing its evil ways. The goal should be behavioural change, not regime change. A premature fall of the Assad regime could "open up the gates of hell" (to borrow a phrase the Syrian Prime Minister recently used to threaten the U.S.), and everyone would be in deep trouble.

So, a word of caution to cheerleaders for immediate regime change: Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it.

Landis at "Daily Kos:" Readership of "Syria Comment" doubles

Thanks to Sue Hudgens at the Booman Tribune little "Syria Comment" has been getting some traction in the US.

Her story NSC Chief Hadley asked Italy for Syria Replacement Name which relies heavily on Sryia Comment, was run as the lead story on the "Daily Kos," which is read by millions, and the European Tribune. It is a good read and doubled Syria Comment's readership overnight. Thanks Susan. You are the woman!

Frosty forecast for Syria's democratic Arab Spring
(Taken from a Farid Gadry and the Syrian Reform Party circular)

UN report reignites opposition's debate about whether Assad can be toppled

Washington DC, October 24, 2005/Globe and Mail - MARK MACKINNON

The man seen as the de facto leader of Syria's opposition took a few rapid puffs on a cigarette as he considered the question: Are the country's democrats ready to challenge President Bashar Assad's hold on power if international pressure succeeds in weakening it?

"No," came the one-word confession from Riad al-Turk, the 75-year-old former political prisoner who is Syria's most broadly respected opposition politician.

He acknowledged that the country's democrats, persecuted by the regime and divided until recently into myriad factions, are in no position to stage the sort of mass demonstrations that took place in Lebanon earlier this year, which sparked talk of an "Arab Spring" that optimists hoped might eventually reach Damascus.

But Mr. al-Turk was quick to add that if the United Nations Security Council decides to put even more heat on the Syrian government at its meeting tomorrow, the pendulum could rapidly swing in the opposition's favour for the first time since Mr. Assad's father, Hafez, seized power in 1970.

The United States and Britain ratcheted up pressure on Syria yesterday, saying a UN report that implicates Syria in the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri was "very serious," and the world must act, Reuters reported. They, along with France, are said to be considering sanctions or other measures aimed at further isolating Mr. Assad's regime.

In the first arrest since the report was released, a suspect accused of calling pro-Syrian Lebanese President Émile Lahoud minutes before the killing was detained over the weekend. (Mr. Lahoud has denied any involvement in Mr. Hariri's death.)

"The internal opposition is against the regime, and the international community is against the regime, so our interests should meet," Mr. al-Turk said yesterday. "Right now, the system appears very strong, but if you analyze it carefully, it is really very weak. A small kick could cause it to fall."

That blow, Mr. al-Turk hopes, will spring from the report, which was released last week. The evidence compiled by UN investigator Detlev Mehlis is damning in its suggestion that the killing was organized at the highest levels in Damascus.

Although the Syrian government yesterday repeated its denial that it had anything to do with Mr. Hariri's death, one or more resolutions condemning Syria are expected to be proposed at tomorrow's Security Council meeting.

Mr. Hariri's death sparked street protests in Beirut last spring and eventually forced an end to Syria's 29-year military occupation of its smaller neighbour.

But Syrian politics, unlike the politics of fractured Lebanon, have been dominated for three decades by one party and one family. Strict state control of the media during that time has meant that most ordinary Syrians know little about the opposition or its platforms.

There's no single figure who could be named as a serious rival to Mr. Assad. Mr. al-Turk is revered in opposition circles as a symbol of resistance to the regime, having spent some 17 years in prison for membership in the banned Communist Party. But he said he would refuse the mantle of leadership even if others tried to thrust it upon him. Stooped and frail, he said the country needs hundreds of new leaders to emerge, not just one man.

The chances of that happening, he said, were advanced last week by the signing of the Damascus Declaration, a two-page document in which a hodgepodge of Communists, Islamists and liberal democrats came together to demand peaceful regime change in Syria. It was the first time the disparate parties were able to put aside their quarrels about what should follow the Baathist regime in Syria, and agree to work first on their common goal of ending Mr. Assad's rule.

"There's a window of opportunity right now," said Farid Ghadry, president of the Reform Party of Syria, a U.S.-based pro-democracy group. "With the Damascus Declaration and the Mehlis report, it feels like it's all coming together and that real change could happen. When it's going to happen, or how, we don't know."

Mr. Ghadry, like Mr. al-Turk, said he hoped the UN would be careful to impose only targeted sanctions on the Syrian leadership. Broader economic sanctions, he said, would do unnecessary harm to the Syrian people, an estimated 30 per cent of whom already live in poverty.

While much of the world was shocked by the allegations contained in the Mehlis report, it contained few surprises for Syrian opposition figures, who say they've known for decades that they're up against a regime that has no qualms about using violence to achieve its desired ends.

Anwar al-Bunni, a prominent opposition figure and human-rights lawyer, was attacked by thugs on Thursday, one day after he met in his apartment with a reporter. He believes the assault was related to a personal project he has been working on, drafting a constitution for a post-Baath Party, democratic Syria

"Nobody knows what they'll do next. This is a very dangerous time. Very serious."
RPS Notes

Although we support unity with other opposition leaders, we have some concerns about the Damascus Declaration the way it was drafted. We believe that separation of religion and State is essential to building a modern and peaceful country. We also believe that "Minorities" are Syrians and we must give them the room to decide what is best for them. We also object to dealing with the Assad regime as is suggested in the Damascus Declaration.
---

ISRAEL: "WE WILL NOT PLAY INTO ASSAD'S HANDS"

Ma'ariv -- The conclusions of the UN report on the assassination of Rafik Hariri have aroused a great deal of interest among the highest political and diplomatic echelons in Israel, but the silence of Israel is has been the loudest of all.

The entire upper Israeli echelon has refrained from commenting on the findings in the media, and Israeli officials said that a response would only assist the Syrians to present the report as an Israeli plot. "Any response on our part will play into Syria's hands, so Israel will not respond or comment on the matter," a high-ranking Israeli official said.

However, political officials said off the record that the report is impressive and interesting, and it will lead to aggressive measures by Washington. Israeli officials point out that the publication of the report will also increase the pressure on Syria to implement carry out Res 1559 to disarm Hizbullah. "It looks as though both the Americans and the French are determined to reduce Syria's involvement in terrorism," a high-ranking Israeli official said yesterday. State officials also said that this is a bomb that threatens Assad's regime.

At the moment, it appears that among the members of the Security Council, only Russia is trying to defend the Syrians. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavarov, who will be visiting Israel on Wednesday and will meet with Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, is trying to delay the Security Council meeting. Shalom is expected to put pressure on Lavarov to fall in line with the United States and the other members of the Security Council regarding the Syrians.

Sami Moubayed on the Mehlis Report - a must read

Once again, Sami Moubayed proves why he his Syria's best reporter in the English language - perhaps in any language. He does the hard analysis of the Mehlis report - the best analysis so far to point out its many weaknesses, contradictory evidence, and grey areas. All the same, he does not write it off as a bunch of politicized lies. He has the wisdom to point out the way forward for his country.

The ball is now in Syria's court
By Sami Moubayed
October 25, 2005

DAMASCUS - The findings of the United Nations-sanctioned Mehlis commission have ripped like a thunderstorm through Syria and Lebanon.

When parts of the 53-page report began to emerge at about midnight (Damascus time) on October 20-21, everybody turned on Arabic satellite TV. People were waiting to hear a clear sentence saying: "Syrian Mr X pressed the explode button on February 14, 2005, killing former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, under orders from Damascus."

Such an explicit statement was not made. A threat, rather than an accusation, was fired at Damascus in the Mehlis report, making it clear that it could not find concrete evidence against Syria. Had the investigation obtained something tangible to
incriminate the Syrians, by name, it would not have failed to include it in the findings.

Hariri, a billionaire politician, and 22 others were killed in a car bombing in the Lebanese capital of Beirut in February. The incident led to calls for the withdrawal of Syrian troops and intelligence agents who had been in Lebanon since the early stages of the country's civil war (1975-1980).

Despite suggesting the possible involvement of Syrian officials in the assassination plot, the authors of the report acknowledge that their findings are not conclusive. "The commission has checked and examined this evidence to the best of its knowledge," they wrote in the preface. "Until the investigation is complete, all new leads and evidence are fully analyzed, and an independent and impartial prosecution mechanism is set up, one cannot know the complete story of what happened."

Syria has to deal with another report this week, by UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen. It accuses Syria of continuing "to maintain its direct military control of Lebanon through its agents in the Lebanese presidential palace, the army and intelligence organizations", according to the Israeli Haaretz newspaper.

Syria also continues to supply the Shi'ite guerrilla group, Hezbollah, and Palestinian militants based in Lebanon with weapons, the report allegedly says.

Roed-Larsen's assignment is to oversee implementation of UN Resolution 1559, under which Syria withdrew its forces from Lebanon after almost 29 years of occupation. The resolution also calls for the disbanding of all armed factions in Lebanon, including Hezbollah and Palestinian groups.

"The findings [of the Mehlis report] require strong follow-up from the Security Council," US ambassador John Bolton said. He did not use the word "sanctions", but made it clear that in response to the investigators' findings, Washington was looking at "a range of options".

To follow up on both reports, the US and other countries have been discussing language for two resolutions on Syria that are likely to be introduced to the UN this week. Sanctions against Syria are also under consideration.

The Syrian general and Mr X
Syria fell out with Hariri the minute it brought President Emile Lahhoud to power in Lebanon in 1998. Had it empowered Hariri at Lahhoud's expense, it could easily have kept him a loyal friend of Syria.

Yet the Syrians, fearing Hariri's international standing, alliance with the French, and financial influence, concluded that Hariri would be a headache. In the Mehlis report, section 95 deals with how General Rustom Ghazali, the head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon, arrogantly dealt with Syria's "Hariri problem" with a Lebanese official named Mr X, generally believed to be Nabih Berri, the speaker of parliament who is Syria's number-one man in Lebanon.

The taped phone conversation took place on July 19, 2004. Ghazali recounted a complaint by Lahhoud, who said that he could no longer rule Lebanon with Hariri. The Lebanese Mr X asks Ghazali if Syria could appoint a new government, and Ghazali replies: "Yes, we can appoint one. What could be the problem? We could name Boutros Harb." Harb is a Christian, and what Ghazali meant was that the Syrians could break the rules in Lebanon and name a Christian as prime minister, although the premiership historically goes to a Sunni Muslim.

Although determined to wreck Hariri, Ghazali does not tell Mr X that he wants to kill him. He makes no reference to murder. He only tells Mr X that he should get people to demonstrate against Hariri, specifically in Solidaire (the part of downtown Beirut that he had built) and Qraytem, where the Hariri Palace is located.

He tells the Lebanese official to let the demonstrations carry on "until he is forced to resign like a dog". He even refuses a suggestion to send Hariri a message to resign, saying that it would be used against Syria by Hariri with his "American and French masters" and that the prime minister would say that "they" forced him to resign.

By saying all of this, Ghazali shows great disrespect for the Lebanese and intense hatred for Hariri. The important outcome of the conversation is that he did not order Hariri's destruction by a massive explosion. He wanted to get rid of him politically. He did not say, "Let us blow Rafik Hariri to pieces."

The report adds (section 105) that the former member of parliament, Nassir Qandil, who is a Syrian stooge, "was tasked to implement a campaign aimed at ruining Mr Hariri's reputation on a religious and media level", probably as part of Ghazali's plan to ruin him politically and make him "the laughing stock and be pointed at as the person who ruined and indebted the country".

At any rate, on the day after the conversation took place between Ghazali and Mr X, the late Hariri came out and declared from Beirut that "he would not step down" because of recent political movements directed against him. He said: "These campaigns are not new and have been going on for the past 12 years. They will not be behind my decision to step aside."

The controversial Assad-Hariri meeting
Then came the famed meeting between President Bashar Assad and Hariri on August 26, 2004. The Mehlis report based its findings on this meeting on the testimony of eight interviewed officials, none of whom were present at the Assad-Hariri summit in Damascus (section 27).

Reportedly, Marwan Hamadeh, Bassem al-Sabae, Ghazi al-Aridi and Walid Jumblatt (all former ministers under Hariri) had met at Jumblatt's place in Beirut awaiting Hariri to return from Syria. He had gone to Damascus to voice his opposition to the extension of Lahhoud's mandate.

He came back at 1 pm, meaning that his meeting had been brief. Each of the Lebanese officials told Mehlis that Hariri was tense, and one described him as "sweating". All of them said that Hariri described his meeting with Assad in very bad terms, saying that the Syrian president had threatened "to break Lebanon on your head and Jumblatt's" if "[French President] Jacques Chirac puts me out of Lebanon".

Hariri reportedly said that Assad told him, "This is not about Emile Lahhoud, it is about Bashar al-Assad." He also threatened that if Jumblatt had Druze in Lebanon, then he had Druze in Syria and that he (Assad) "is ready to do anything" to get his way in Lebanon.

An extra Lebanese witness is Gibran Tweini, a parliamentarian and publisher of the mass circulation daily an-Nahhar. More radical in his stance toward Syria, but at the same time more loyal to his convictions than someone such as Jumblatt, who had been a Syrian stooge in the 1990s, Tweini confirmed that Hariri told him in late 2004 that he had been threatened by Assad.

The Syrian president, according to Tweini, had "threatened to blow up" Hariri, along with members of his family. All these statements were confirmed and repeated by Saad Hariri, the eldest son and heir of the slain premier.

The report gives a lot of weight to these findings, without noteing that all of these men were some of the loudest anti-Syrian politicians in Lebanon. By logic, their words could be biased, since they were likely searching for an opportunity to incriminate Syria.

It is difficult to believe that Hariri would have confessed such a statement to Tweini, who was neither a close friend nor a member of the Hariri bloc. The Syrians who talked about this meeting were Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara and General Ghazali.

The Syrian minister denied that violent language had been used, and so did the general, who added that when he met Hariri right after the prime minister had returned from his meeting with Assad, "Hariri looked relaxed." He said that Hariri had told him that the meeting had been "cordial and brief".

Then comes the phone conversation between Hariri and Walid al-Moualim, the deputy prime minister of Syria, on February 1 this year. They discussed the extension of Lahhoud's mandate, and the conversation was tapped and given to Mehlis. In it, Hariri tells Moualim: "He [President Assad] sent for me and told me: 'You always say that you are with Syria. Now the time has come for you to prove whether you meant what you said or otherwise.' He did not ask my opinion. He said: 'I have decided.' He did not address me as prime minister or as Rafik or anything of that kind. He just said: 'I have decided.' I was totally frustrated, at a loss. That was the worst day of my life. He did not tell me that he wished to extend Lahhoud's mandate. All he said was, 'I have decided to do this. Don't answer me, think and come back to me."

This is the only recorded evidence by Hariri on the Assad-Hariri meeting. It certainly does not confirm the story that Assad threatened to kill Hariri, as relayed by his son and Jumblatt. It shows that Assad ordered Hariri over Lahhoud. He did not threaten him.

Planning to commit murder?
At the time of the reported conversation between Ghazali and Mr X, the Mehlis report adds, a decision was taken in Damascus to kill the Lebanese premier. The decision was made in July 2004 and planned until December 2004. The meeting in which the decision to kill was taken was reportedly held in the Syrian capital between Syrian and Lebanese officials, first at the Meridian Hotel and then at the presidential palace (section 96).

This information is gathered from a Syrian witness, who was not identified, who used to work with Syrian intelligence in Lebanon. Again, had this information been backed with evidence, such as recorded talks, pictures, more than one witness, then one could not but believe it.

But the only basis for such an accusation is the testimony of the unnamed Syrian witness. This raises several questions: How would an average agent in the Syrian intelligence service know of such a supposedly high-level meeting? And in planning such a crime, couldn't these Syrian officials have chosen a more concealed and less public place than the Meridian?

Afterall, such a crime requires great secrecy, and not only is the Meridian Hotel tapped (as everybody in Syria knows), but it is also filled with undercover agents of different intelligence agencies disguised as waiters.

And likewise, had the palace been involved, the least the organizers could have done is conduct meetings as far away as possible from the presidential palace to prevent suspicion and the slightest chance of a leak.

Finally, how would the Syrian witness know so much about these meetings if he were not a member of the very closed crime circle (which Mehlis claims he is not). Surely, such a delicate crime was not public knowledge that an officer in the Syrian intelligence in Lebanon "stumbled" across.

The Syrian side is that this unnamed witness was bribed into incriminating Syria, either by some Lebanese politician, or by Rifaat Assad, the dissident uncle of President Assad, who longs for power.

These Syrian claims have been backed by the prestigious German political magazine, Der Spiegel. It said that one of the witnesses, Zuhayr al-Saddik, on whom the Mehlis report relied heavily for its findings, was a dubious person who had a criminal record in Syria and therefore could not be trusted or believed.

The magazine raised serious doubts about Saddik's statements and surprise that the Mehlis report attached so much weight to them. The report adds that Saddik had been paid to incriminate Syria, and that he had contacted one of his siblings from Paris after giving his testimony last summer, saying: "I have become a millionaire."

The Syrians are now saying that Saddik is an imposter, claiming that the Mehlis report should verify if the witness made correct statements before publishing them as facts. Indeed, the report even says, "At the present stage of investigation, a certain amount of information given by Mr Saddik cannot be confirmed through other evidence."

If, after months of investigation, Mehlis could not confirm what Saddik said, why was it in the report? Probably, from a legal point of view, it was just to show what the witnesses said (which is professional), but the manner in which Saddik's testimonies are written brings the world to believe that Saddik has high credibility. People wanting to interpret the report politically can use Saddik's statements against Syria, similar to how former Iraqi officials who had fled to the US in the 1990s came out to "confirm" that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

This unnamed Syrian witness said that a senior Syrian officer told him in January this year that Hariri was a problem for Syria. One month later, this same officer said that there would be "an earthquake" in Lebanon that would re-write Lebanese history (section 97).

This statement, from a legal point of view, is ridiculous. Two unknown people are talking in ambiguities. How can Syria respond to such an accusation if it does not know the name of the witness or of the officer? Had the report said: Syrian officer X told witness Y said that an "earthquake" would happen in Lebanon, then Syria would have no choice but to question and arrest Mr Y if his answers were unsatisfactory. By not mentioning names, the report gives the Syrians very limited room to respond or be proactive.

This same witness says that he had visited several military bases in Lebanon and at one base he had seen "a Mitsubishi van" and not "the Mitsubishi van" that was used to carry the explosives to kill Hariri on February 14 (section 98).

He saw this van on February 11, 12 and 13. He adds that at one point he was at a Syrian camp in the resort of Zabadani, near Damascus, and saw the same van being loaded with explosives in the presence of Ahmad Abu Addas, the man who claimed responsibility for the Hariri murder, then disappeared on February 14 (section 110).

The Syrians claim that the camp was used for education purposes. The Mehlis report says that irregular activity was recorded there on September 5-9 this year, to change its features to make it seem educational, whereas in reality it was a military base when the explosives were planted in the Mitsubishi van nine months earlier.

And why was the van loaded with explosives so publicly? The least the Syrians would have done is load it in secrecy. And they would not have permitted an outsider, such as the Syrian witness, who is not a camp official, to view the act and run the risk of him remembering it.

Ahmad Abu Addas showed up in a taped broadcast on al-Jazeera TV hours after the assassination, claiming that he had killed Hariri because the Lebanese premier had been an infidel. Everybody speculated at the time that the video was rubbish, planted by the real murderers to conceal their identity, muddle investigations and link the murder to al-Qaeda-style terrorism.

The witness claims that Abu Addas had no role to play in the crime, but was just used as a decoy by the Syrians. Then he contradicts himself and says that Abu Addas was there when the explosives were planted in the Mitsubishi. The witness claims Abu Addas recorded the tape claiming responsibility for the assassination in Damascus, weeks before the assassination, while held at gunpoint by Assef Shawkat, then the deputy director of Syrian Intelligence, who was promoted to director on February 14, the day Hariri was killed (section 178).

Yet if he was a decoy only used for the video, how is it that he was around when the bombs were being planted? With regard to Abu Addas being threatened by Shawkat, the Syrians immediately remarked that there was no evidence that Shawkat threatened Abu Addas because Shawkat denied this and Abu Addas is reportedly dead.

The witness adds that 15 minutes before the murder he received a phone call from a Syrian official, telling him to flee the scene immediately. If the witness knew the location and timing of the crime, why was he in the vicinity of the St George Hotel on February 14? Why didn't he name the official who told him to flee the scene? Had he done that, the Mehlis report could have demanded that Syria bring him to a court of justice, and if Syria failed to comply, Mehlis could have unleashed hell on Damascus at the Security Council.

Two versions of the report
Another witness met with Mustapha Hamdan, the head of the Lebanese Republican Guard and close to Lahhoud and the Syrians. This witness claims that Hamdan said that they were fed up with Hariri and wanted "to send him on a trip. Bye-bye Hariri!" (section 103).

The witness continues, saying that the decision to kill Hariri was taken by the Lebanese generals, Jamil al-Sayyed, Mustapha Hamdan, Ali al-Hajj and Raymond Azar. They planned the move with Ahmad Jibril, the Palestinian renegade and veteran resistance leader based in Damascus, and top Syrian security officials, including Assad's brother Maher, his brother-in-law Assef, along with General Hasan Khalil, the director of Syrian intelligence, and Bahjat Sulayman, the director of internal security in Syria.

Khalil retired from office in February this year, while Sulayman was retired by Assad in June. These Syrian names were all included in the initial report handed to US Secretary General Kofi Annan on October 20, but deleted by Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor from whom the report takes it name, in the version given to the media.

Mehlis explained this by saying that he did not have any evidence incriminating any of these people and their names were just mentioned by the unidentified Syrian "witness". Another important part of the original report handed to Annan was a reference to how the investigation had been influenced and manipulated at times by politicians in Lebanon.

This statement, which has been ignored by the media, damages Mehlis's credibility and benefits the Syrians. To quote the actual text of the document that was omitted in the circulated copy: "Certain Lebanese media had the unfortunate and constant tendency to spread rumors, nurture speculation, offer information as facts without prior checking and at times use materials obtained under dubious circumstances, from sources that had been briefed by the commission, thereby creating distress and anxiety among the public at large and hindering the commission's work when the focus should have been mostly on security issues." The additional omitted phrase reads: "A number of Lebanese political figures added to the climate of insecurity and suspicion, by leaking info to the press or by revealing sensitive date without the prior consent of the commission."

Syria's response and world opinion
Syria has responded to the report through a news conference by Riyad al-Dawoudi, the legal advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They chose Dawoudi because he is calm, independent, a respected attorney and more credible than most officials in Syria.

He said that the Mehlis report had been "influenced by the political atmosphere that prevailed in Lebanon". He added that the report had relied on "pre-set ideas to reach conclusions that are of a political nature and that point to Syria as a suspect with no evidence". He expressed deep regret that Mehlis had relied on the witness of people who were known for their anti-Syrian stance and "ignores" the witness of Syrian officials.

From Washington, Syrian ambassador Imad Mustapha added, "The report is full of political rumors, gossip and hearsay, and it has not a single shred of evidence that will be accepted by any court of law. We are so disappointed with it." He, too, added that the report was political rather than professional, prompting Bolton to say that this remark was "ridiculous".

Bolton added that the report "speaks for itself" and is backed by "substantial evidence". Stronger words were used by US President George W Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Bush said that Mehlis's findings were "deeply disturbing" and added that "the report strongly suggests the politically motivated assassination could not have taken place without Syrian involvement". Rice demanded "accountability" for the Syrians and said, "We cannot have the specter of one state's apparatus having participated or having been involved in the assassination of the former prime minister ... of another state." British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw condemned Syrian "arrogance", and the EU added: "Syria will harm its own interests if it does not fully cooperate with the inquiry." For its part, France described the report as "professional". The Mehlis report makes a strong political message, although it sends contradictory signals to the Syrians. It does not say that they are 100% involved in the assassination, nor does it name the Syrian who "pulled the trigger". It creates a lot of theories about Syrian involvement, but does not confirm a single one.

The report reads, "There is probable cause to believe that the decision to assassinate former prime minister Rafik Hariri could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials and could not have been further organized without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services."

It does not say that the decision was taken with the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials. Legally there is a big difference.

The report referred to many "witnesses", but did not mention the names of any of them, with the apparent intention of frightening the Syrians with a message: We know a lot - if you don't cooperate further, we will become more aggressive. Had it been up to Mehlis, even the name of Saddik would not have been leaked to the press.

In essence, the report is the last US and international warning to the Syrians. Phase two is likely to be another report in mid-December saying that "Syrian Mr X killed Hariri".

That is, unless the Syrians respond to all US demands in the Middle East, prime among them becoming a US watchdog in Iraq, helping disarm Hezbollah, distancing itself from Lebanon, and generally cooperating in the "war on terror".

To give some reassurance to the Syrians that the decision to wage war against Damascus has not yet been reached, the report concludes, "The commission is of course of the view that all people, including those charged with serious crimes, should be considered innocent until proven guilty following a fair trail." It adds, "If the investigation is to be completed, it is essential that the government of Syria fully cooperate with the investigating authorities, including allowing for interviews to be held outside Syria and for interviewees not [to] be accompanied by Syrian officials."

If anything, the report confirms one fact: regardless of its professionalism and whether it has concrete evidence against Damascus, it is a hard blow against Syria. It is the strongest and most aggressive international document targeting Syria since the Sykes-Picot Agreement was drafted in 1916 [1] and the French Mandate was imposed on Syria in 1920.

The Syrians should stop directing their efforts at saying that the report is political. Everybody knows it is, and everybody knows that there is strong support in parts of the West for Syria to be targeted and weakened, regardless of guilt or innocence. Syria, by this rationale, is going to be punished for its excesses in Lebanon, its decision to oppose the war on Iraq, for its support the insurgency and the resistance in Palestine.

Syria fits perfectly into the culprit's cage because it is no longer an internationally strong country. Syrian commentators and officials have been shouting "foul play". But does anybody in Syria have the slightest clue on how to work through the problem?

One way is through maximum cooperation with the UN and the US. One idea would be to broadcast and publicize the interviews made by Mehlis in Damascus. Another would be to allow Mehlis to interview more Syrians in Europe. The Syrians must realize that they are at their weakest point in decades. It simply is not their day in history.

Syria will have to swim with the current, no matter where it takes it, until it reaches shore or a tree to cling to. Mehlis wants to interview certain officials outside of Syria. So be it. He wants Syria to offer maximum cooperation. Let it be. He wants Syria to hand over any Syrian officials involved in the murder.

The Syrians must also cooperate with Washington on Iraq. They must make new allies in the international community to lobby on their behalf at international forums such as the UN, and with the US.

They must digest the new reality, that they are now out of Lebanon and that times have changed. In 1920, the Syrians protested the imposition of a French Mandate on Syria. When their objections amounted to nothing and the mandate was approved by the League of Nations, the Syrians accepted their fate, knowing that a great injustice was being done to them but realizing that they were powerless to stop it.

They lay low for some time, then began working with the mandate, waiting until circumstances allowed them to rise and write the mandate into history.

The Syrians this time are not as weak as they were in 1920. They have the ability to change things and patch up with the international community. The keywords for Syria today are "cooperation" and "wisdom". If the Syrians achieve both, then they can write the Mehlis report into history as well.

But the thousands of protestors chanting anti-American slogans in the capital on Monday could make this course of action difficult: the authorities are believed to have encouraged the demonstrations, and schools allowed pupils to join in.

Note
[1] The Sykes-Picot agreement was a secret understanding concluded in May 1916, during World War I, between Great Britain and France, with the assent of Russia, for the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. The agreement led to the division of Turkish-held Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine into various French and British-administered areas. The agreement took its name from its negotiators, Sir Mark Sykes of Britain and Georges Picot of France. France gained control over modern Syria and Lebanon.

Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.

Trouble at the UN and Trouble in Washington

Here is an email I received from an Italian reporter friend yesterday. We had talked about how quickly the US could push for a resolution. It looks like it will only come on Friday or Monday. It will likely be very lowest common denominator because Europe is scared of getting trapped in an "America" war with Syria. America is also frightened of allowing this to appear as a US - Syria confrontation and not a "World" thing.

Because of that Washington will have to move slowly. It will want all members of the Security council to sign on to a resolution that assures Syria will cooperate with the Mehlis investigation and not just the 9 members that joined in on previous resolution 1559, which drove Syria out of Lebanon. Washington will want to get Russia, China and particularly Algeria on board to cover up any potential splits that could later become big chasms. Probably sanctions will not be able to be raised in the Security Council until December when the investigation is supposed to conclude. The timeline is being stretched out to buy unanimity, which everyone seems to want if they are to corner Syria.

The Arabs believe that Assad is not the worst leader they could have in Damascus and worry about instability and further chaos in their region. The French seem to agree with this as do Israelis - though they are probably divided (too many Israelis keep announcing that they are concerned about the fall of Asad not to believe that there must be a dispute going on.) The Americans seem to have given up on the House of Asad and would not be upset to see it replaced, despite the threat of chaos. All seem to believe that there is a need to corner Asad through the UN and make it very clear that he must leave Lebanon alone and cooperate with the West. The UN resolution will want to reassure the Lebanese that they have on-going support to get their house in order. Clearly, Saad Hariri's plea that the Mehlis investigation be tried in some "international" court and in some foreign land far from troubled Lebanese shores suggests he is worried about being left holding the bag of vipers. Should the international community get bored with the whole Hariri mess, the Lebanese could find themselves awkawrdly facing Syria alone once again.

The growing notion that Asef Shawkat is the dark power behind the throne, who really calls the regime shots, may serve to protect Bashar. Who would want to get rid of nice Bashar if they will be left facing nasty Asef? This also means that the Great Powers may ultimately try to get Bashar to nix Asef somehow. There must be a lot of head scratching going on?

Lurking in the background is what kind of court will be set up. US wants a "private international court." Europe will not like this because they support the Hague, which the US doesn't. (Private courts smack of American imperialism and would allow Washington to write international law unconstrained by UN or international institutions and power.) Here is the email from my Italian friend.

Regarding our conversation this afternoon, it turns out that we were not much off the mark!! Since we've talked, the international community has already started pushing the breaks on the Hariri report. The "urgent" meeting requested by Bush at the UN for tomorrow (it will be only ambassadors tomorrow) will have to wait at least one week (translation: Europeans, mainly France, probably also Russia and China not to mention the current president, Algiers, are telling Washington "take it easy". there is obviously no ready agreement on the report, nor on the measures Washington would like to impose).

France has finally spoken out after four days breaking its deafening silence, and what was the long-awaited announcement? That it will seek a UN resolution "requesting that Syria cooperate with the Mehlis investigation"... A clear no to sanctions, at least for the moment. A much lesser threat than what was expected.

Also the French FM went to all lengths to ensure everyone understood that the Elysee is only "after justice, with no other political aim". That is a rather square distancing from Washington.

Rice keeps talking about coordinating with other countries, but can only quote Britain's Straw 'till now. The Dutch after a meeting with Rice gleefully offered the Hague as the seat for an international Hariri trial (you might recall you and I mentioned that over the phone), which threw Sean McCormack, Foggy Bottom's spokesperson, into a whirl of panic. He started stuttering to the press "it's too early, we'll see..." and was all too quick to refuse the offer. The usual State Dept "anonymous" joined in the stammering with a : "... yeah, too early..." but then added: "definitely the mechanism will have to include an important Lebanese component....". So there you go, as expected, with the cold shoulder to the Hague, and the proposition of a "private international tribunal" that Washington has been circulating for about a month. Such a tribunal, however, will be unacceptable to Europeans, so there you have another rift in the making between the USA and Europe.
Voilà, we'll see...

Bush says military action against Syria "last resort"
Tuesday 25 October 2005, 5:22am EST

DUBAI, Oct 25 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said military action was a last resort in dealing with Syria and he hoped Damascus would cooperate with a probe into the killing of former Lebanese premier Rafik al-Hariri.

"A military (option) is always the last choice of a president," he told Al Arabiya television in an interview aired on Tuesday when asked about a U.N. investigation that implicated Syrian officials in the killing of Hariri.

"I am hoping that they will cooperate. It (military action) is the last -- very last option," he said. "But on the other hand, you know -- and I've worked hard for diplomacy and will continue to work the diplomatic angle on this issue."

Bush said Syria had to meet a set of demands from the international community, including expelling Palestinian militant groups, preventing insurgents from crossing its borders into Iraq to fight U.S. forces, and ending Syrian interference in Lebanon.

"Nobody wants there to be a confrontation. On the other hand, there must be serious pressure applied," he said.

"In other words, there are some clear demands by the world. And this (U.N.) report, as I say, had serious implications for Syria, and the Syrian government must take the demands of the free world very seriously."

Bush would not be pinned down on what action Washington would take if Syria does not comply.

Asked if the United States would support a call by Hariri's son Saad for an international court to try his father's killers, Bush said the decision lay with the United Nations.

"Well, we want people to be held to account. And I'd be glad to talk to other leaders to determine whether or not that's the best course of action. But certainly, people do need to be held to account. And the first course of action is to go the United Nations," he added.

A kind reader sent me this article by Aluf Benn in Haaretz from 2001. It reminds us of the importance of 9-11 in generating the combined effort of the US and Israel to corner Syria because of its opposition to US and Israeli. It is worth a full read.

Daily Press Briefing
Sean McCormack, Spokesman
Washington, DC
October 24, 2005

* * *QUESTION: France is saying that it wants to wait until the final Mehlis report before it will support sanctions, but the U.S. and France have both said that they're on the same page. So does that mean that also the U.S. wants to wait until the final report is out before you consider sanctions against Syria?

MR. MCCORMACK: I think where we are right now in terms of the Mehlis report, let me sort of walk you through how I see the next week unfolding. Tomorrow, Mr. Mehlis is going to be presenting his report to the Security Council. There will be a discussion at the level of permanent representative, at the level of ambassador, in the Security Council, at which they will start theformal multilateral discussion of Mr. Mehlis' report. There have already been a number of discussions on a bilateral basis amongmembers of the Security Council.

The Secretary, of course, had an opportunity to discuss this issue at length with Foreign Secretary Straw over the weekend during the visit to Alabama. After tomorrow, I expect those consultations both up in New York and between capitals to continue. Right now, what we are discussing and working towards, although a final date has not yet been set, is for a ministerial level meeting of the Security Council a week from today, on the 31st of October. And at that point, I think the ministers will have an opportunity to discuss what course of action to take.

I think that certainly given the gravity of what we have seen in the Mehlis report, which at the very least includes Syria's non-cooperation with the Mehlis investigation and also includes potential Syrian provision of false information to the Mehlis investigators as well as the report pointing to potential high-level Syrian implication in the assassination of a former prime minister of another state, this is a subject and a report worthy of discussion at the ministerial level. So that's at this point how we see the next week unfolding. There's going to be a lot of diplomacy, a lot of discussion about this topic.

QUESTION: You said a discussion -- Monday?
QUESTION: You didn't answer my question. Are France and the U.S. still on the same page or does the U.S. -- at this point, they're saying that they want to wait until the final report. Does the U.S. -- are you leaning towards waiting until the final report?

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, at this point, I think what everybody is discussing is a resolution. And I think that you have, certainly, you have seen Foreign Secretary Straw talk about a resolution. I think that that is the way the Security Council acts. And I think that that is, you know -- that is really the central focus of the discussions now. Now in terms of what might be included in a potential resolution, again, first we want to have the meeting tomorrow at which you have the ambassadors be able to receive the report in a formal discussion in the Security Council from Mr. Mehlis and then you want to have a discussion about what might be included in a potential resolution that would -- and that discussion would unfold, I would expect, over the coming days. Now, I'm not going to prejudge what may or may not be a potential resolution. I think, you know, those will be discussions to be had through diplomatic channels, as I think is appropriate.

Bolton in his press meeting said:

Bolton: Yes, I don't think that's accurate in terms of the meeting tomorrow, but we will certainly insist on Syrian cooperation. This is true confessions time now for the government of Syria. No more obstruction, no more half measures, we want substantive cooperation and we want it immediately. Thank you very much.

One kind reader sent me this old news article from 2001 in order to remind us how the US and Israel have been thinking how to knock off the house of Asad for some time.

Israel strives to import America's war on terror
By Aluf Benn
Dec. 15/16, 2001

The Israeli political-security establishment is coming to the conclusion that the terror attacks on September 11 granted Israel an advantage...

The American team, headed by Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, told the Israelis that Washington hasn't yet decided on its course of action for the next phase. The speedy victory in Afghanistan surprised the administration, which expected a much longer campaign.

But the first stage is not yet over. After Afghanistan, the Americans plan to hunt down Qaida cells worldwide (the network is estimated to be dispersed over 60 countries), and only then to start looking forward.

According to the Israelis who were in Washington, President Bush is daily more determined that the campaign against terror proceed to the next stages. The American officials explained that the administration is of two minds about which way to go. One direction is "dealing with the difficult cases, first," with the intention being Iraq. The other approach proposes going from the periphery to the center, eliminating terror cells in countries like Somalia and Sudan, before moving on to more difficult targets.

The Israelis spoke about the dangerous connection between terrorism and the development of unconventional weapons and missile systems. "Those who use terror, will also use weapons of mass destruction if they can. This is a matter of the means, not the will," said Dayan, in his Herzliya lecture yesterday.

Dayan identified what he called the appropriate targets for the next stage of the global campaign: "The Iran, Iraq and Syria triangle, all veteran supporters of terror which are developing weapons of mass destruction." He said that "they must be confronted as soon as possible, and that is also understood in the U.S. Hezbollah and Syria have good reason to worry about the developments in this campaign, and that's also true for the organizations and other states."

During the Washington discussions, one of the Israelis proposed a new direction for the Americans to consider: "Syria first." The intention is not for the U.S. to bomb President Bashar Assad's palace or the Syrian Scud missile bases, but rather for Washington to apply political pressure. The Syrians are sensitive to U.S. opinion much more than the Iranians or Iraqis, and they can be pressured to give up their relationship with the Hezbollah and the Palestinian terror organizations based in Damascus.

A very good description of the rent-a-rally demonstrations of Monday has been written up by fellow Fulbrighter Roland McKay who was there at the main square. I watched the demonstration from my balcony with a young Syrian friend. He remarked that it looked just like Iraq before Saddam went down. Many people mentioned the same thing to me. Of course the grand battle that is being waged between the old and tired brand of Arab Nationalism and its principles of opposing imperialism, Israel, the American occupation of Iraq, a pro-Western Lebanon, etc., is not quite so simple. Other friends who work at the UN told me that the demonstration in front of their building was more spontaneous and wasn't made up of the usual suspects who marched down town, collecting at Saba'a Bahrat square.

Meanwhile, Washington is going through its own storm. One wonders which investigation will blow up first, that in Dick Cheney's office, where most of the neo-cons are gathered, or the Mehlis investigation?

David Wurmser, one of the anti-Syria architects among the neo-cons and a Cheney and Lewis Libby right hand man seems to be caught in the middle of the Washington investigation. During the latter part of the 1990s, he wrote frequently to support a joint U.S.-Israeli effort to undermine then-President Hafez Assad in hopes of destroying Ba'athist rule and hastening the creation of a new order in the Levant to be dominated by "tribal, familial and clan unions under limited governments." You can read about his background and ideas on an earlier post.

Also see this from ThinkProgress.org. (Thanks to Steven Heydemann for sending this)
NATIONAL SECURITY
It Starts With Cheney

The New York Times reveals this morning that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, first learned "about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003." The assertion is backed by hard evidence. According to the Times, "Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation" are in the possession of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. While the revelation does not, on its face, suggest Cheney is in serious legal jeopardy, it could cause problems for the vice president if it conflicts with what he told the federal prosecutors, or if it can be shown that he participated in a larger conspiracy to knowingly reveal the identity of a covert CIA agent and/or subsequently cover it up. For Libby, the revelation that he learned of Plame from Cheney is particularly damaging because it is at odds with testimony he provided to the grand jury that he first learned of Plame's identity from journalists.

ZEROING IN ON CHENEY:

Libby's notes of his conversation with Cheney indicate that they spoke on June 12, 2003, about Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame. On that same morning, the Washington Post reported on its front page that a former ambassador (later learned to be Wilson) had passed on information prior to the war suggesting that the claim that Iraq was attempting to acquire uranium was false. That story directly implicated Cheney, saying the CIA's decision to send Wilson to Niger "was triggered by questions raised by an aide to Vice President Cheney." The Washington Post reported recently that Fitzgerald has "zeroed in on the role of Vice President Cheney's office." As early as February 2004, the Guardian reported, "informed sources said...that three of the five officials who are the real targets of the probe work or worked for Mr Cheney." The New York Daily News recently reported that Fitzgerald may be "edging closer to a blockbuster conspiracy charge - with help from a secret snitch." Already, a number of Cheney's current aides and former aides are known to have testified in the leak probe, including Libby, Mary Matalin, John Hannah, Catherine Martin, Jennifer Millerwise, and David Wurmser. (Click here to see our full list of Bush officials implicated in the probe.)WHAT DID CHENEY TELL PROSECUTORS? In June 2004, the New York Times reported that Cheney had been "recently interviewed" by federal prosecutors in the leak probe. Although that story said Cheney did not testify under oath, the Times reports today that "Cheney was interviewed under oath by Mr. Fitzgerald last year." Cheney was reportedly asked last year whether he knew of "any concerted effort by White House aides to name the officer. It was not clear how Mr. Cheney responded to the prosecutors' questions." There are a few indications as to what Cheney may have told prosecutors. When Joe Wilson alleged that it was Cheney's office that did a "work-up" on him in 2003 in order to smear him, a spokesman in Cheney's office responded, "That is false." When Cheney was asked about his involvement in smearing Wilson on Meet the Press, the vice president said, "I don't know Mr. Wilson." But Libby's notes reveal that Cheney knew about Wilson and his wife a month before Novak outed her.LIBBY'S INCONSISTENCY: A strategist "familiar with White House thinking" told the Los Angeles Times, "Nobody should fall out of their chair if they hear that the vice president discussed classified information trying to determine facts with his national security advisor and chief of staff." That spin overlooks Libby's inconsistent story to this point. Previously, it was reported that Rove was "shown testimony from Libby suggesting the two had discussed with each other information they had gotten about Wilson's wife from reporters in early July 2003. Rove responded that Libby's testimony was consistent with his general recollection that he had first learned Wilson's wife worked for the CIA from reporters or government officials who had talked with reporters." Last July, the Los Angeles Times reported, "Libby has indicated to investigators that he learned the identity of Plame from journalists."WHAT DID BUSH KNOW? In 2001, the New York Times reported Bush and Cheney had an extremely close relationship. "[F]riends and advisers say the relationship between the two men is as crucial as ever, and still refer to Mr. Cheney as the president's consigliere, or the coach to Mr. Bush's quarterback." Bush himself noted, "There is no finer member of my administration than our Vice President, Dick Cheney. He's a great friend, a great advisor, a steady hand. He is the finest Vice President our nation has ever had." Bush and Cheney's close relationship was evidence by their joint appearance before 9/11 Commission. The question that must now be answered is whether Vice President Cheney had any discussions about Valerie Plame with President Bush prior to her outing.


NATIONAL SECURITY
A Turning Point for Syria
For several years, and certainly since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Syria reform has been among the Bush administration's top foreign policy priorities. On Thursday, the United Nations released a preliminary report "pointing the finger directly at the highest levels of the Syrian government" for February's car-bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Most notably, the report fingered Asef Shawkat, Syria's military-intelligence chief and the brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The report has sent tremors through the Middle East, and represents an opening for reform. Yet, an important lesson must be noted: this unique opportunity has come about not from the brash rhetoric and inconsistent policies of the Bush administration, but from the careful, diligent, trusted work of the United Nations.

SYRIA CASE DEMONSTRATES IMPORTANCE OF U.N.:

The U.N. report is likely to be more effective at mobilizing international action on Syria than any U.S. diplomatic effort in the last year and a half. Indeed, it may not have been possible without the United Nations. As Suzanne Nossel of the Security and Peace Initiative argues: "Without a broadly mandated UN, how could the Hariri case have moved beyond finger pointing? The Lebanese government could never have been trusted to investigate. There's no way the US itself could have interfered. The Arab League could not have been objective. The EU would never have waded in. The International Criminal Court would not have had jurisdiction. Without the UN, it's hard to envision how the investigation, particularly given its depth and breadth, could have been carried out." Demonstrating the region's high regard for the United Nations, the entire Hariri report was actually read aloud on al Jazeera television. It is another example of why, "if we are ever shortsighted enough to abandon or significantly scale back the UN, we will find ourselves with the impossible task of having to recreate what we destroyed."

ADMINISTRATION HAMSTRUNG BY INCONSISTENT APPROACH TO SYRIA:

Syria would unquestionably benefit from reform. Its support for foreign terrorist groups, its lack of assistance on Iraq border security, and its deplorable human rights record must all be addressed. But the Bush administration's approach to these problems has been marked by its inconsistency and lack of clarity. On the one hand, the Bush administration has pushed for help on issues like terrorist financing. At the same time, it has strictly enforced sanctions that make it extremely difficult for Syria to modernize its financial industry, which would greatly improve its capacity to track terrorists' financial transactions. Also, the United States can hardly claim that its goal in Syria is improve human rights conditions, since the Bush administration has long relied on Syria in its practice of "extraordinary rendition," whereby detainees are transported to other countries for (typically brutal) "interrogation." Says former CIA agent Robert Baer, "If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria." In one prominent case, a Canadian citizen was transferred by U.S. officials to Syria for "interrogation sessions that lasted for up to 18 hours," during which "Syrian intelligence officers beat him with thick electrical cables and with their fists, threatened to break his spine, and forced him to listen to other prisoners' screams." The prisoner was eventually determined to be innocent and released. Two days after he made his story public, "President Bush gave a speech that announced America's 'forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East' and denounced Syria for a 'legacy of torture, oppression, misery, and ruin.'"

RIGHT THREATENS MORE DANGEROUS REGIME CHANGE: Iraq-style regime change for Syria has been on the conservative wish-list for some time, dating back at least as early as April 2003, when so-called "turn-left" strategists "openly advocated moving from Baghdad on to Damascus." For many, that strategy remains operative. Newsweek reported earlier this month that, "[d]eep in the Pentagon, admirals and generals are updating plans for possible U.S. military action in Syria," and that the Defense Department unit responsible for military planning in Syria is "busier than ever." According to the Financial Times, the administration "is actively seeking an alternative who would take over" for Syrian President al-Assad. Yet, it is far from certain that military action in Syria would enhance American security. Even the National Intelligence Council, led by Bush loyalist John Negroponte, has "been warning...that if Assad is toppled, the result isn't likely to be better in terms of regional stability, and it could well be worse." As Bradford Plumer writes, "The question here isn't whether the world would be better off without Assad's family in charge of Syria— -- of course it would— -- but whether getting rid of him would actually be a smart idea, and more importantly, how the Syria hawks actually plan on doing it."

Syria: The Next Iraq
Robert Dreyfuss
October 24, 2005

The news from Syria shows that the neoconservative plan for the Middle East is still in play.

Three years ago, the U.S. invasion of Iraq was widely viewed as the first chapter of a region-wide strategy to remake the entire map of the Middle East. Following Iraq, Syria and Iran would be the next targets, after which the oil-rich states of the Arabian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, would follow. It was a policy driven by neoconservatives in and outside of the Bush administration, and they didn’t exactly make an effort to keep it secret. In April, 2003, in an article in The American Prospect titled “Just the Beginning ,” I wrote: “Those who think that U.S. armed forces can complete a tidy war in Iraq, without the battle spreading beyond Iraq's borders, are likely to be mistaken.” And the article quoted various neocon strategists to that effect:

"I think we're going to be obliged to fight a regional war, whether we want to or not," says Michael Ledeen, a former U.S. national security official and a key strategist among the ascendant flock of neoconservative hawks, many of whom have taken up perches inside the U.S. government. Asserting that the war against Iraq can't be contained, Ledeen says that the very logic of the global war on terrorism will drive the United States to confront an expanding network of enemies in the region. "As soon as we land in Iraq, we're going to face the whole terrorist network," he says, including the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and a collection of militant splinter groups backed by nations—Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia—that he calls "the terror masters."

"It may turn out to be a war to remake the world," says Ledeen.

In the Middle East, impending "regime change" in Iraq is just the first step in a wholesale reordering of the entire region.

As the war in Iraq bogged down, and as a public outcry developed in the United States against the neoconservatives over the apparently bungled war, another sort of conventional wisdom began to take flight. According to this theory, the United States no longer had the stomach—or the capability—to spread the war beyond Iraq, as originally intended. Our troops are stretched too thin, our allies are reining us in and cooler heads are prevailing in Washington—or so the theory goes.

But the news from Syria shows that the conventional wisdom is wrong. The United States is indeed pursuing a hard-edged regime change strategy for Syria. It’s happening right before your eyes. With the ever-complacent U.S. media itself bogged down in Iraq, and with the supine U.S. Congress unwilling to challenge our foreign policy apparatus, Syria is under the gun. As in Iraq, the United States is aggressively pursuing a regime change there without the slightest notion of what might come next or who might replace President Bashar Assad. Might it be the fanatical Muslim Brotherhood, by far the most powerful single force in largely Sunni Syria? Might the country fragment into pieces, as Iraq is now doing? The Bush administration doesn’t know, just as they didn’t know what might happen to Iraq in 2003. But they are going ahead anyway.

It isn’t just the repercussions of the U.N.-led investigation into the assassination of former Lebanon Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, whose murder may or may not have been arranged by Syria’s intelligence service. Since 2003, the United States has sought political and economic sanctions against Syria (long before Hariri was killed); sought to isolate Syria diplomatically; singled out Syria for its support for Sunni insurgents inside Iraq; issued a series of ominous threats against the Syrian regime (“our patience is running out with Syria,” warned Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. proconsul in Iraq); and, according to an October 15 New York Times article, begun threatening “hot-pursuit” and other cross-border military action against Syria. That Times piece noted, in part:

A series of clashes in the last year between American and Syrian troops, including a prolonged firefight this summer that killed several Syrians, has raised the prospect that cross-border military operations may become a dangerous new front in the Iraq war, according to current and former military and government officials.

There is even a Syrian version of Iraq’s charlatan Ahmad Chalabi, and there are rumors that Kurdish rebels in Syria northeast, along the Iraqi border, are getting support from Iraqi Kurds who are part of the current interim government in Baghdad.

Various U.S. Syria analysts who have not swallowed the neoconservative Kool-Aid argue that the United States is pursuing Regime Change II in Syria. Among them is Flynt Leverett, a former CIA analyst now at the Brookings Institution, who suggests that Assad is moving slowly in the direction of political and economic reform—and might want our help. Others, including several former U.S. ambassadors, tell me that Syria can be a key partner in quieting down the crisis in Iraq, but U.S. belligerence is driving Syria in the other direction. And Scott Ritter and Sy Hersh, speaking in New York last week, noted that Syria (and its spy services) has been an important behind-the-scenes partner in attacking Al Qaeda since 2001. But "So what?" argue the neoconservatives. It’s regime-change time, and they won’t let rational arguments get in their way.

The brilliant Syria weblog Syria Comment, written by Joshua Landis, had this to say on Sunday:

Here is a most extraordinary letter from Syria's Ambassador in Washington Imad Mustapha to Congresswoman Sue Kelly, which has come into my possession. It explains how the American Administration has been stonewalling Syrian cooperation on a host of issues. It explains how Syria is being set up to fail so that the US can isolate it and carry out a process of regime-change at the expense of Iraqi stability and the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. It explains how the U.S. administration's policy of forcing regime change in Syria is trumping the need to save lives in Iraq. …

For over a year Syria has been trying to cooperate with the West on the Iraq border, on the issue of terrorism finance, on the issue of stopping Jihadists from getting into Syria, on intelligence sharing, and on stabilizing Iraq.

Washington has consistently refused to take "Yes" as an answer. Why? The only credible reason is because Washington wants regime change in Syria.

Read the rest of Landis here, including the astonishing full text of Ambassador Mustapha’s letter.

So I ask: Is it possible, after everything we’ve learned about the Bush administration’s lies and deception over Iraq, after the staggering cost of that misguided war to the United States, is it possible that the American body politic is going to let Bush, Cheney and Co. get away with shattering another Middle East state?

It’s possible. Because it’s happening.

If you want to know why, read

Robert Dreyfuss is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va., who specializes in politics and national security issues. He is a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and a frequent contributor to Rolling Stone. His book, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, will be published by Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books in the fall.

The White House cabal
By Lawrence B. Wilkerson who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell from 2002 to 2005.
October 25, 2005

Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld made the decisions. And our inexperienced president just went along for the ride.


My quote of the day comes from Nick Blanford's article in the CSM, "Pressure builds on Syrian regime." 10/24/2005

"They want this [Syrian] leopard to change so many of its spots that it
turns into a lap dog.... It's tantamount to regime change," says Joshua
Landis.

This from K.K. Atak, a writer from Turkey:
The letter of Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha to a an American Congresswoman pointed out in your SyriaComment today is a lucid illustration of the lack of understandig occured between the United States and Syria. Unfortunately this letter was and will not the only example this sort of misinterpretation. Almost three years ago, Seymour H. Hersh of The New Yorker Magazine put this argument in the article titled "Did the Bush Administration burn a useful source on Al Qaeda?" Let me quote a long passage from Hersh's article,

“Up through January of 2003, the coöperation was topnotch,” a former State Department official said. “Then we were going to do Iraq, and some people in the Administration got heavy- handed. They wanted Syria to get involved in operational stuff having nothing to do with Al Qaeda and everything to do with Iraq. It was something Washington wanted from the Syrians, and they didn’t want to do it.”Differences over Iraq “destroyed the Syrian bet,” said Ghassan Salamé, a professor of international relations at Paris University who served, until April, as Lebanon’s minister of culture. “They bet that they could somehow find the common ground with America. They bet all on coöperation with America.” A Defense Department official who has been involved in Iraq policy told me that the Syrians, despite their differences with Washington, had kept Hezbollah quiet during the war in Iraq. This was, he said, “a signal to us, and we’re throwing it away. The Syrians are trying to communicate, and we’re not listening.”

Since then it appears that nothing has changed so much about this chronic misunderstandings, on the contrary both sides seem to have hightened their idea fix performance. Once they were deaf, but now they are also blind. To avoid another turmoil the first priority of the statesmen is to solve these hearing-impaired and blindenss problem.

Foes help at sea

Syrian sailors rescued two Israelis whose boat sank off Cyprus.

An Israeli drowned early Sunday when the catamaran he was on went down during a storm 5 miles away from Limassol. The other two Israelis aboard were hauled onto a passing Syrian ship and taken to shore.

The survivors told reporters they were well-treated by the Syrians, but noted that their boat had flown a Canadian flag. [From Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Israel's side of the story is here:
As pressure mounts on Syria,
Israel weighs risks and benefits By Leslie Susser

Here is an article published on Radio France Internationale's website, which claims that the US Pentagon and State Departement are developing closer ties with with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. It also maintains that Saudi Arabia is buying into the notion of regime change in Damascus in order to see the creation of a Sunni regime. The journalist gives no source for this information, but points to Saad Hariri's presence in Jiddah. (Thanks to Yann for this article)

"The Jews of Syria," By Robert Tuttle

The Jews of Syria
By Robert Tuttle
Published by Syria Comment
October 24, 2005

Robert Tuttle is a freelance writer living in New York. He was a Fulbright student in Syria from 1994 to 1997 and speaks Arabic. The story on Syria's Jews was written as a master's project for Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Robert kindly agreed to let me publish his excellent article on Syria Comment. It deserves to find many other publishers. He can be reached at robert.tuttle@gmail.com

On a Sunday night in February 1975, the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes broadcast what would become one of the most controversial episodes ever aired. Titled “Israel’s Toughest Enemy,” Mike Wallace traveled to Syria just a year after the Yom Kippur War and was permitted to film interviews with members of Syria’s then roughly 4,500-strong Jewish community.

In the United States and internationally, pro-Israel groups had portrayed Syria’s Jews as persecuted minority, who lived in ghettos, whose movements were restricted and who faced constant risk of arrest. Their identity cards were stamped with the words Mossawi, a polite Arabic expression for Jew, in big red letters.

“I knew it was a deeply controversial subject,” said Wallace, “And the Israelis particularly were raising a lot of money on the plight of the Jews in Syria and I wanted to find out for myself, so we went there.”

What Wallace discovered in Syria surprised him. He found that Jews were indeed subject to special surveillance and restrictions not imposed on other Syrians. But “having said that all,” he noted in his broadcast, “It must be added that today life for Syria’s Jews is better than it was in years past.”

The broadcast included interviews with a Jewish pharmacist who claimed that assertions of mistreatment were mere “Zionist propaganda” and a Jewish school teacher who said she could never become true friends with an Israeli.

In the days and weeks following the broadcast, CBS received a barrage of letters from viewers and Jewish groups, complaining that Wallace presented an inaccurate picture of Syria and that the Jews featured could not have possibly expressed themselves freely. The American Jewish Congress called the program “inaccurate and distorted” and filed a complaint with the National News Council, a defunct organization that followed up complaints on the accuracy and fairness of news reporting.

The attention generated by the segment prompted 60 Minutes to re-air the broadcast the following June and return to Damascus to film a follow-up segment.

While filming the second segment, Wallace met Dr. Nassim Hasbani, a young, distinguished Jewish physician who ran a successful medical practice in the heart of Damascus. A member of a seven-man committee that governed Jewish affairs, Hasbani was one of just a handful of leaders who spoke publicly for the community.

Hasbani told Wallace that Jews were living well in Syria. He showed Wallace his new ID card, one without the word Mossawi stamped on it.

“The government said to us, they want to give us the card identity like all Syrian people,” he said, “Without religion. And this is for all the people.”

Then Wallace asked Hasbani a pointed and somewhat awkward question.

“Dr. Hasbani,” he said, “If all the Jews of Syria were told they could leave the country, go to the United States, or Mexico, or Israel, or wherever – how many of them would go?”

“I think,” Hasbani replied, “That not more than five percent to, to Israel. And perhaps if they want to leave to the United States, to Brazil, to other… other country, perhaps the number is 20 or 30 percent.”

A decade and a half later, Syria’s Jews were granted permission to freely emigrate abroad. Within a few short years, almost the entire community had left the country, a little less than half for Israel. Out of approximately 30,000 Jews who lived in Syria in 1947, less than 50 remain today, according to community leaders in the United States. All but a handful of those live in Damascus.

Today, most Syrian Jews live in the close-knit neighborhoods of south Brooklyn, in single-family homes located in a few-square mile area around where Ocean Parkway and the thriving market street of Kings Highway intersect. The area, in no way, resembles centuries old Jewish quarters of Damascus, Aleppo and Qamishli, but Syrian Jews have recreated bustling new neighborhoods. Walk down any street in South Brooklyn and one hears neighbors chatting with one another in Arabic. Shops sell items like rolled apricot paste, lentils and fava beans, all familiar ingredients in Syrian cuisine.

This is where Hasbani now lives in a modest home he rents with his wife. Now in his sixties, Hasbani is no longer an energetic doctor he was nearly 30 years ago. After moving to the United States in the early 1990s, he stopped practicing medicine and tried unsuccessfully to open a few businesses. He lives on meager savings and suffers a heart problem that limits his movement.

Hasbani prefers to speak in Arabic and smiles wryly when recounting his brief moment of fame on American television. In a community that generally shuns publicity, Hasbani is outspoken, passionate and animated.

In the highly emotive debate over the Arab-Israeli conflict, the true story of Syrian Jewry was more complicated than either Wallace or his critics fully appreciated, Hasbani said.

On the one hand, critics of 60 Minutes were correct to doubt Hasbani’s rosy portrayal of Jewish life in Syria. In a country considered Israel’s most formidable enemy, Syrian Jews had long been subject to special restrictions, mistrust and, at times, outright persecution. In the northern city of Aleppo, Synagogues were burned and vandalized shortly after the United Nations voted to partition Palestine in 1947. In 1949, a bomb was placed in a Damascus Synagogue killing 12 people. During the 1967 Arab-Israeli War - in which Syria lost control of the Golan Heights overlooking the Galilee – armed Palestinian fighters broke into the homes of Jews and pointed guns at family members. No one was shot but the incident was a reminder to the community of its vulnerability.

For most of Syrian history after 1947, Jews could not travel outside their country except on rare occasions and travel within Syria required permission. The Jews who did leave Syria escaped covertly through Turkey or Lebanon. Most continued onto the United States or Israel. Those who were caught were imprisoned.

Hasbani said that his glowing portrayal of Syria was intended to win favors from Syrian authorities. Yet, he added, the 60 Minutes broadcast was not totally false either. Conditions were beginning to improve for Syria’s Jews and would continue to improve in the months and years after Wallace’s visit.

For a man who says he spent most of his years at Damascus University’s Medical School lying about his religion, and whose own brother was stabbed to death by a person who bragged he killed a Jew, Hasbani is surprisingly nostalgic about the land of his birth.

“I live in the past,” he said, which is evident from the reams of newspaper clips, photos and other memorabilia he saves from his time in Syria.

He carefully unfolded a wrinkled old identity card with the word Mossawi written across it. He displayed a photo of himself posing with his family next to Edward Djerijian, American Ambassador to Syria from 1988 until 1992, at the ambassador’s opulent Damascus residence.

But among the assortment of memorabilia, the Syrian doctor is particularly fond of a small stack of folded newspaper clips that show him and other Jewish leaders shaking hands with the late Syrian President Hafez al-Asad.

Asad, who rose to power in a coup in 1970 and remained in authority until his death thirty years later, is regarded by much of the world as an oppressive dictator who permitted virtually no dissent and crushed it violently when it emerged. Along with the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, he launched a daring, if largely unsuccessful, surprise attack against Israel in 1973 in an effort to wrestle back control of the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and Syrian Golan Heights. Both territories were captured by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War. But unlike Sadat, who combined bold military action with bold peacemaking by traveling to Jerusalem four years later to address the Israeli Knesset, Asad remained wedded to the struggle against Zionism.

He opposed the 1978 Camp David Treaty between Egypt and Israel, and was cool toward the Oslo accord between Israel and the Palestinians signed 15 years later. He also criticized Jordan for signing peace treaty with Israel in 1994 and backed the Lebanese militia Hezbollah in its fight against Israeli forces in South Lebanon and a myriad of Palestinian groups opposed to the Oslo process. Although the Syrians did participate in on-and-off American-mediated negotiations with Israel, coming remarkably close to a final settlement toward the end of Asad’s life, publicly they remained decidedly stand-offish in their approach toward the negotiations. In 2000, when Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Sharaa met with then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak during negotiations in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, he refused to publicly shake hands with the Israeli leader.

Many of Syria’s Jews, however, remember Asad differently.

“For us, of course, he was like the Messiah,” Hasbani said. Before him “you could not walk for four kilometers [without permission]. You could not buy and sell [property]. Walking in the street, you were afraid to say I am a Jew. There were [Jewish] schools. But there was someone from the government sitting on your head, and capable of doing whatever he wanted.”

Asad, Hasbani said, was different from past Syrian leaders in that he was the first president to truly pay attention to the concerns of Syria’s Jews.

“When we met with him in 1976, people [the Jews] rose,” Hasbani said. “When you sit with the president, people outside would not dare to do anything to you. He who is against you can do nothing to you because he saw the president receiving you and taking pictures with you.”

Such sentiments about a man long regarded as Israel’s most formidable enemy might surprise some people who follow the pulse of the Middle East. But they are quite typical among the approximately 3,000 Syrian Jewish émigrés who left for Brooklyn and Israel more than a decade ago.

Many complain bitterly about the abuses and discrimination they suffered in Syria during the decades before they were permitted to leave. Like Jews everywhere, many also profess sympathy for the state Israel and its policies. But, in almost the same breath, many credit Asad, the man who built his public persona on upholding Arab honor in a gallant struggle against the Jewish state, as the man most responsible for granting them their freedom.

“Before Hafez al-Asad, the people were scared to say, I am Jewish,” said Jack al-Boucai, a Syrian Jewish businessman who owns a cell phone store on Kings Highway. “So when he helped in making the situation improve, I saw him as being good for us.” Boucai spoke in Arabic.

The 1976, Asad met with Jewish community leaders including Hasbani; Ibrahim Hamra, Chief Rabbi of Damascus; and the late Salim Totah, head of the Syrian Jewish community. Hasbani recalled telling Asad about the bomb that was placed in a Damascus Synagogue in 1947.

“President Asad didn’t know about it,” Hasbani said. “When I told him, he was astonished. ‘Who did it, the government?’ I told him not the government, some lowlife.”

The meeting turned was historic, Hasbani said. In the months and years that followed, most restrictions on Jews were lifted. The Mossawi stamp was eventually removed from all forms of identification, although not as quickly as Wallace may have been led to believe from his interview with Hasbani. Domestic travel restrictions on Jews were lifted. Businesses that had previously been closed to Jews, such as import-export, were opened. Jews could buy and sell property and the community began to prosper.

The only restriction that remained on Jews was a prohibition against free Jewish emigration abroad with family members, a rule that remained in effect until 1992. But there were exceptions. Following a meeting between Asad and American President Jimmy Carter in 1977, the Syrian president began to permit around two dozen Jewish women each year to join grooms-to-be in the United States to correct a gender imbalance in the community.

The Syrian president’s increasing leniency toward Jews probably stemmed, in part, from international pressure applied on his regime by the United States, other foreign governments and the international media. Indeed, Syria’s Jews became something of diplomatic bargaining chip that the Syrian government could play when it wanted better relations with the United States or an improved negotiating position with Israel.

What is more, after Asad lifted restrictions on the community, many hardships persisted. Jews caught trying to escape continued to be imprisoned. Many complain that they continued to face harassment from Syrian intelligence officers and other low-level officials.

One member of the community recalled visiting the Department of Motor Vehicles in Aleppo to renew his driver’s license, armed with a presidential order rescinding the requirement that Mossawi be stamped on all Jewish identity documents. The official behind the desk told him he could not renew the license at that moment because he did not have his Mossawi seal. When the man protested, brandishing the presidential order, he recalls the official telling him: “‘I’m not going to stamp it in red. I’m going to stamp it in purple.”

But whatever hurdles Jews continued to face, the late president’s image remains largely untarnished in the eyes of many in the Syrian Jewish community. Although Asad was known as a micromanager of his countries affairs, few Syrian Jews blame him, even indirectly, for difficulties suffered during his 30 years of power.

The story of Albert Fouerti is revealing. Fouerti came to the United States in the early 1990s, during the final wave of Syrian Jewish emigration to the United States. He is shy but becomes passionate and animated when speaking about his life. He spoke mostly in Arabic.

Fouerti once owned a factory that made children’s clothes but today manages a small thrift store along McDonald Avenue in Brooklyn. Coming to America was not joyous.

In 1949, two of his sisters were evacuated to Israel along with other Jewish children following the Damascus Synagogue bombing. Fouerti’s family planned to join the two girls, but shortly after the children were evacuated, Syria closed its doors on Jewish emigration. For the next twenty years, Fouerti’s family was unable to communicate with the girls.

In the early 1970s, Fouerti obtained permission to travel to Great Britain so that his son, who was ill, could receive medical treatment. During the visit, he secretly made arrangements, through the Israeli embassy, to fly one of his sisters to London so he could see her. The other sister was ill and could not travel.

The two siblings were reunited but the visit was fleeting.

“I must come back,” he remembers thinking. “I have no choice.”

Fouerti returned home and told his mother about the reunion. Nearly twenty years passed before the Syrian government finally allowed Jews to emigrate. As Syrian Jews began to sell their homes and businesses and leave for America, Fouerti applied for passports for his entire family so they could travel to the United States. His wish, he said, was to witness the reunion of his elderly mother with her two lost daughters.

Days later, the Syrian authorities granted the family passports. But one of Fouerti’s sons was denied for unknown reasons. Fouerti did not want to leave his son behind so, for two years, he returned to the office of the secrete police chief in charge of Jewish affairs.

“Every day, I visited him in the office,” he said. “I knew what he was doing. He was just giving me a hard time.”

Finally, in late 1994, after most Syrian Jews had already left, Fouerti’s son was finally granted a passport and the family began to make travel arrangements. Then, just days before their scheduled departure, as his sisters waited in Brooklyn, Fouerti’s mother died suddenly.

Later, on his way to the airport, Fouerti stopped at the Jewish cemetery and peered down at her grave. “I said mom, I’m sorry. I can’t help you to see your children,” he said. “The last picture I see in Syria is my mother.”

Fouerti was deeply bitter. “I feel no one can let me forget what happened to me,” he said. “Why did they do that to me? Why?”

But after an emotional recounting of his experience, he became calm.

“I miss Syria. I miss my friends. But I am scared,” he said. “Our only problem [in Syria] was with the Mukhaberat [secrete police]. We lived with Muslims, Christians. We were like one family. They loved us.”

President Asad, Fouerti said, could not possibly have known about the harassment he and some other Jews suffered. “He was good with Jewish people,” he said. “He gave us our freedom… He should put this person [head of Jewish affairs] in prison. He damaged the reputation of Syria. If he [Asad] knew, he would not have let them.”

Surprisingly, some Syrian Jews are almost apologetic about the restrictions placed upon them by the Syrian government.

“I lived with Syria,” said Hasbani. “I ate and drank, whatever they did not give me, it would be perfectly fine. In my view, I don’t ask for all my rights because [they] will not give me all my rights because I have feelings for Israel which is the enemy of Syria.”

In 1987, two Jewish brothers from the Swed family were arrested for secretly visiting family members in Israel, which was illegal for all Syrian citizens. The brothers spent the next five years in prison until they were pardoned by President Asad in 1992. The Sweds’ plight became a major focus of concern for Jewish groups around the world and a personal crusade for a Canadian activist named Judy Feld Carr.

Hasbani saw the situation of the Sweds differently. Traveling to Israel was a capital offence, he said, and had the Sweds not been Jewish, they would likely have been executed.

“What kind of heroism did the Sweds show?” he asked. “They were in Syria then went to Argentina and from there they went to Israel then went back to Syria. Israel is an enemy state. Why did they go there? Do they want Hafez al-Asad to say welcome back?” (The Sweds actually traveled to Italy, not Argentina).

Another member of the community added that the Sweds trip put the whole community in jeopardy. “If you are a lamb, you cannot play with lions,” he said.

When Asad died in 2000, three pro-Likud Jews of Syrian origin – a prominent Syrian-Jewish rabbi named Jack Kassin, Hassidic community leader Jack Avital, and another businessman named Sam Domb - placed an ad in the New York Times offering their condolences, although Domb later complained to The Jewish Week that Kassin had added his name without consent. Kassin was invited to attend the funeral but a Syrian official informed him that his security could not be guaranteed because of threats posed by Asad’s brother and rival Rifat, according to The Jewish Week.

Asad’s cult of personality did not end with his passing. His son and successor, Bashar, is not held in the quite the same esteem as his father. A British-trained optometrist, some Syrian Jews privately said they consider Bashar young and inexperienced, overly reliant on what are often unscrupulous advisors. But most also said they were confident that he would eventually be able to carry on his father’s legacy.

“It appears that he took his father’s track,” said Hamra, the former chief Rabbi of Damascus who now lives in Israel. “Thank God the stability in Syria remained. His existence in the government and the permanent stable situation in Syria are a proof of his success. It will take time to become as wise as his father.” Hamra spoke in Arabic.

Another Syrian Jew added: “Asad is the best bet for America and for everyone. If he was strong enough and could manage, he would do a lot of good things. He is the best thing for America and Israel, no matter what he talks.”

In contrast to the refined, diplomatic style of his father, Bashar has made a few remarks that have sparked sharp condemnation from world leaders. He was widely criticized for making what many perceived as an anti-Semitic comment to the Pope in 2001. “They tried to kill the principals of all religions with the same mentality in which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to betray and kill the Prophet Muhammad," Asad was quoted as saying.

While the remark sparked widespread outcry from Jewish groups in the United States and Israel, some Syrian Jews said they consider the whole controversy to be frivolous, the result of inexperience or poor advising.

“I don’t think he’s anti-Semitic,” said one member of the community. “He say something to please the people around him.”

Hasbani agreed. “Alak,” he said of Asad's remark, a colloquial Syrian expression meaning “nothing important.”

Such words would likely come as welcome news to Damascus’ embattled government. Not since America’s disastrous intervention in Lebanon in 1982 have relations between the United States and Syria been as strained as they are today. A member of the U.S. Department of State’s list of nations that support terrorism, Syria is currently under intense pressure to prevent insurgents from crossing its border into Iraq, stop interfering in the affairs of neighboring Lebanon, and cut all support for groups fighting Israel including Hezbollah and Hamas.

Just last year, President Bush signed into law the Syrian Accountability Act, which imposed a range of mostly symbolic sanctions on Syria. He threatened new sanctions if the Syrians did not change their behavior. In September, the United States and France won passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, demanding that Syrian troops leave Lebanon.

The recent assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a fiery explosion in downtown Beirut sent relations to yet a new low. Although Syria condemned the killing, many in Lebanon and abroad strongly suspect the involvement of Syrian intelligence agents.

His assassination prompted mass anti-Syrian protests – as well some pro-Syrian rallies – on the streets of Beirut. The United States and France, joined by Russia and a number of Arab states, renewed their calls for an immediate Syrian pullout from Lebanon in time for Lebanese Parliamentary elections in May. At the time of this writing, Syrian soldiers had begun to decamp and withdraw across the border.

In the midst of all this, Syria’s unusually outgoing Ambassador to the United States, Imad Mustapha, has been on a public relations campaign trying to smooth over some of the rougher edges of his country’s image. He has appeared on television regularly and, since assuming his post two years ago, has reached out to groups and legislators long at odds with Syria. Last January, he escorted former Democratic Presidential candidate and drafter of the Syrian Accountability Act, John Kerry, to Damascus for a meeting with Syrian President Asad.

Over the past year, Mustapha has been making rounds in South Brooklyn’s Syrian Jewish neighborhoods, introducing himself to members of the community, making friends, and encouraging Syrian Jews to visit their country of origin. Last year, he accompanied a delegation of prominent Jews of Syrian origin, some with close ties to members of Israel’s Likud government, on a visit to Syria. There, the group held a meeting with President Asad and toured prominent Jewish sites around the country.

Mustapha said he is aware of the links that some Syrian Jews have with Israel and he hopes that his recent outreach in the community might eventually help lead to the restarting of negotiations between his country and the Jewish state.

“We don’t expect [Syrian Jews] to do anything vis-à-vis the Syrian-Israeli conflict, but we are realistic,” Mustapha said, speaking under a large portrait of President Bashar al-Asad that hangs in the Syrian embassy. “We understand what’s happening. They have contacts with other Jews from Israel and at least, at least, they can tell them the true story about us. So yes, they can play a role, not a direct role, an indirect role.”

In the meantime, the ambassador has been trying to counter a rising chorus of so-called neoconservatives calling for the overthrow of regimes across the Middle East. Despite the continuing instability in Iraq, foreign policy pundits like Richard Perle, former chairman of the U.S. Defense Advisory Board and a confidant to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, have said openly that Syria is an appropriate second target for regime change: part of a grand strategy to democratize the Middle East.

Many Syrian Jews prefer not to delve into serious political matters, saying they would rather leave issues of war and peace to the wisdom of kings and presidents. But those who did speak made clear that regime change, in Syria’s case, would be unwise. Some said they hold little sympathy for Syria’s policies, particularly its support for groups like Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas. But they also argue that, while the United States may need to prod and push Syria to change some of its ways, attempting to undermine Asad’s secular government would be a mistake. Bashar al-Asad, they argued, is a source of stability in a turbulent region and a potential peacemaker.

“I think that his [Hafez al-Asad’s] son wants to make the country better,” Fouerti said. “I think he likes the Jews. If there is peace, it’s good for Israel and Syria.”

Hasbani, for his part, does not hide sympathies in the Arab-Israeli dispute.

“My heart is Jewish,” he said. “I cannot say that I am not Jewish and I love the Jews, regardless of Syria. And I love Israel much more than Syria, for sure, even though I lived, ate and drank in Syria.”

But Hasbani is also remarkably understanding of Syria’s predicament. He spoke about the country’s current difficulties with the United States with the cold eye of an independent observer giving an objective analysis. “I am speaking theory,” he said repeatedly, as though the opinions he expressed were not his own but rather were grounded in common sense.

The nationalist persona that Hafez al-Asad created for his country, Hasbani said, makes complying with the wishes of United States or engaging in the kind of dramatic peacemaking that characterized the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s efforts almost impossible for Bashar.

“They make themselves out as holding up the Arab Nation,” he said. “It supports them.”

But Syria’s government is also flexible and pragmatic, Hasbani said. When faced with stark choices of bending to the will of the United States or facing isolation or worse, the Syrian government will opt for safety over posturing. The United States, he said, cannot rule out the use of force against Syria but it must be careful.

“If America wants to pressure Syria,” he said, clinching his fist. “It must put pressure, tighter and tighter and tighter, economically and politically. If [Syria] continues to help Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others, and America sees that as against its interest, [the United States] needs to strike them, but without occupying Syria: essential centers for aircraft and so forth, just to show the Syrians that the temperature has risen. Then its possible Syria will back off.”

But there is a second option, Hasbani said, leaning back in his chair.

“They can create reconciliation between Israel and Syria,” he said. “If there were reconciliation between Syria and Israel, and there was a peace agreement, that was official and guaranteed by the United Nations, in that case, Syria will no longer be able to support Hamas and Hezbollah. They will come with Syrians to the dinner table.”

How to create such reconciliation is, of course, a question that has plagued successive U.S. administrations. During the 1990s, a settlement between Syria and Israel, two of the Middle East’s most intractable enemies, seemed at imminent. Then Secretary of State Warren Christopher was shuttling between Jerusalem and Damascus on an almost weekly basis, but the negotiations consistently stumbled on the question of the strategic Golan Heights. Syria demanded a full return of the territory in exchange for a peace treaty. Israel wanted to retain control of, at least, some of the Golan for security reasons.

A few months before Hafez al-Asad’s death, U.S. President Bill Clinton met with the Syrian leader in Geneva in a last ditch effort to broker a settlement. The talks failed and Asad died. Shortly thereafter, the Camp David talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians also broke down and the second Intifada erupted.

The deterioration of the peace process was something that Rabbi Hamra had not anticipated when he made a highly publicized but surprise aliyah from Brooklyn to Israel ten years ago.

“Everything indicated that the peace was on the door,” he said, sitting in the Brooklyn home of his daughter. “We imagined that we could work in Syria and spend the weekend in Israel or visa versa.”

A solid-looking man with a bushy black beard, Hamra resembles a lumberjack. He lives in Israel but travels to the United States regularly to visit some of his children.

Hamra became head of the Syrian Jewish community in the late 1980s, after the then leader Totah passed away. Hamra said he met with Asad four times during his life and once organized a march to the Presidential Palace in support of the president’s predictable reelection. He became an international figure during his time in Syria.

“I had interviews with many countries, I mean journalists from Spain, Argentina, Brazil, America and Europe,” he says. “I received many senators and congressmen.”

By the end of the 1980s, a movement to free Syrian Jewry was actively lobbying the American government to pressure Damascus to allow Jewish citizens to emigrate. In 1992, Syrian Jewish leaders, including Hamra and Hasbani, met with Asad and the Syrian president ordered restrictions lifted on Jewish emigration, although not directly to Israel. Hamra spent the next two years traveling between the United States and Syria until 1994 when he moved to Israel.

Sitting at his daughter’s home, Hamra glimpsed at the television. Al-Jazeera - a popular source of news in many Syrian Jewish households - was reporting that Palestinian Leader Yasser Arafat was dieing in a Paris hospital bed.

Hamra met Arafat once. Shortly after moving to Israel, he received a letter from then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had just been nominated to share the Nobel Prize with Arafat and Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Perez.

“He felt that many people in Israel deserve the Prize and [I was] one of them,” he recalled the letter saying. “I would be very happy if you could come with me. I chose you among 30 people… As I remember I met Arafat at that time.”

When Hamra first moved to Israel, he saw himself as an emissary of peace, expecting that a final settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute was imminent. That changed five years ago when the second Intifada erupted.

“Everything returned to the old situation, like in the beginning with more hostility,” he said. “Personally, I was not influenced by the failure of the peace process. But the whole region was influenced by it. I was influenced by the fact that I am a person who calls for the peace.”

The Syrian Jewish community in Israel, he said, was shaken by the deteriorating security situation, unaccustomed to the threat of suicide bombers and violence.

Hamra remains decidedly apolitical, saying he simply dreams of the peace he expected a decade ago. He still thinks of his home and friends in Syria and the vision he had of traveling between Syria and Israel on weekends.

He heard about Syrian Ambassador Mustapha’s outreach in the Brooklyn community. “I wish I could talk to him,” he said, and paused. “But I do not know how positive he will be. I do not know if the fact that I am from Israel will put him in an embarrassing situation. And I do not wish that… Perhaps if the Intifada never took place and things remained the same, it would be normal to contact him.”

Perhaps, Mustapha said, but in the meantime communicating with Hamra would be problematic.

“An Israeli citizen is a different case,” he said. “I’m not saying I don’t meet with him. I’m saying that Syria is publicly inviting Israel to rejoin the peace process. The minute that Israel says yes, we will. We will start meeting with them and engaging with them.”

Mustapha became acquainted with Brooklyn’s Syrian Jewish community through his wife. While a student at Damascus University, she was friends with a Syrian Jewish woman named Salim al-Boucai, the daughter of the Brooklyn businessman Jack al-Boucai.

Jack al-Boucai immigrated to the United States a decade ago but said he maintains strong connections with officials in the Syrian government. Until two years ago, he said he would travel regularly to Syria to import brass and copper decorations that now adorn his small store.

Mustapha, who sought to strengthen relations between the embassy and the Syrian expatriate community, telephoned Boucai and introduced himself.

“He asked me if I needed anything,” Mustapha said. “I said yes. I would like to meet with the Syrian Jewish community. And after a little while they came back to me and said, if I would be interested in visiting with them, they would like to meet with me at their community center in Brooklyn.”

Boucai, Rabbi Kassin, Hassidic community leader Avital and others, spent a day with the ambassador, taking him on a tour of the neighborhoods. Mustapha said he had never had contacts with Syrian Jews before, including in Syria.

“They are like us,” he said, “Their food, their habits, their social customs, they are like us. We, us and them, are different from the Americans… This taught me a lesson.”

The visit ended cordially.

“For the final time, they asked, can we do anything for you,” Mustapha said. “I said yes, actually you can. Whenever you have a wedding or a barmitsfa, invite me, I want to come.”

Shortly after that meeting, the ambassador was invited to a Syrian Jewish wedding held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan. There he was approached by an elderly man from a prominent Syrian Jewish family in Mexico called the Sabas.

“He says to me, ‘I’m 72 or 73 years old, I have a dream.’ I said to him, what’s your dream? He said, ‘I want to visit Aleppo. This is the birth city of my parents.’ I didn’t hesitate. I immediately said to him consider you dream come true.”

After the wedding Avital, a personal acquaintance of Israeli Prime Minister Arial Sharon, telephoned Mustapha and asked him about organizing a visit to Syria.

“He [Avital] had a curiosity about Syria,” Boucai said. “He would love to visit Syria so he requested permission to visit Syria and they welcomed him… nothing official just personal.”

A delegation of a dozen Jews of Syrian origin visited Syria in the spring of 2004, accompanied by Mustapha.

Some American Jewish leaders disapproved of the trip. "It is wrong for American Jews or any Americans to help sanitize the Syrian regime by visiting Syria," said Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America.

The group toured the country, visiting a Jewish cemetery near Damascus, the markets of Aleppo and meeting with members of the tiny Jewish community that still lives in the country. During the visit, the group met with President Asad and presented him with a gift: a traditional Jewish Shofar or rams horn. When the meeting was over, Hasbani said the group asked the president if he would invite them back to Syria.

“He said no,” Mustapha said. “They were surprised. He said to them, ‘I can’t invite you back. I can’t invite Syrians back to Syria. You are always welcome.’”

Mustapha recalled the men’s reaction.

“They were so amazed,” he said. “We were still inside the Presidential Palace, we had not left, and they came to me and said, ‘We are so amazed. Back in America they told us, this is an evil guy. Don’t go and meet with him. But look at the way he treated us. He was so sincere with us.”

Repeated calls to Avital for and interview went unreturned.

A few months after Avital returned home, Boucai invited the ambassador to his son’s wedding. Over 500 people attended the ceremony, the majority of them immigrants who had come to the United States a decade ago, Boucai said.

“When Dr. Mustapha came to the wedding, he said he was coming to congratulate [us],” Boucai said. “He made a small speech; he made a very beautiful speech. I sent a video of the wedding to Syria, to the people in Syria, so they could see it. And the people in the community were very happy about the reception.”

The Ambassador, Boucai said, offered his services to the community. If anyone wished to renew his or her passport or return to Syria for a visit, Mustapha was willing to help.

Few Syrian Jew have returned to Syria permanently, but many say that they would like to visit, if only to see the homes in which they once resided, the Synagogues in which they worshiped or the graves of their ancestors. A small, but growing minority are returning to do business and reestablish old ties. Boucai counts at least 10 individuals who are trading with Syria or own businesses there, up from five a few years ago.

Yousef Jajati is one such individual. Jajati replaced Hamra as head of the community in 1994 and was one of the few Jews to remain in Syria throughout the 1990s. He said he traveled frequently to Europe and the United States.

The small number of Jews who remained in Syria since all travel restrictions were lifted worship at a single Synagogue in Damascus and no longer have a full-time Rabbi. But, Jajati said, they enjoy freedoms that members of the community could not have imagined thirty years ago. In the mid-1990s, Jajati became the first Jew living in Syria to speak before the World Jewish Congress. During his trips abroad, he mingled with leading political figures in the United States and Europe including ardent critics of Syria like U.S. Representative Tom Lantos, who invited Jajati to his office.

The Jajatis owned what was widely considered the smartest clothing store in Damascus. The family sold the business but still owns a factory in the Jewish Quarter that is managed by one of Jajati’s sons: Khalil. The Jajatis transferred the retail end of the business to New York, where they sell their Syrian-made clothes wholesale to such high-end stores as Porta Bella.

Jajati met with Syrian President Bashar al-Asad shortly after he was sworn in as president in 2000.

“I hope and wait for the day that you go to Jerusalem and sign a peace treaty,” he recalled telling Asad. “Bashar said, ‘Speak with your friends in the Israeli government, with [then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Barak.’ I said you are my friend, not Barak.” Jajati spoke in Arabic.

Before the meeting was over, Jajati recalled Bashar telling him: “I really was sad that the Jewish community left and I would have preferred them to stay and I hope they return.”

One year later, Jajati moved to New York, where most of his children reside. But he says he remains proud of his Arab identity and loyal to his country of birth. If negotiations between Israel and Syria resume, he said that he is willing to play a role.

“I hope that Syria appoints me to carry out negotiations with Israel,” he said, “To represent my country.”

It is easy to dismiss Jajati’s glowing comments about Syria and its president. He, after all, continues to maintain strong business links to the country and would naturally want to remain on good terms with its government. It is much harder to explain why individuals who suffered during their time Syria and cut their ties with the country long ago, like Hasbani, Hamra, Fouerti, would continue to speak fondly about the country and its leader.

Some might argue that Asad’s cult of personality is the legacy of the regime. Syria is country where the president’s photo adorns every store front and is plastered on billboards, where deference to authority is the norm. But such a view overlooks two very real benefits Asad provided Syrian Jews: stability and relevance.

The years proceeding Hafez al-Asad's rise to power were time of immense chaos in Syria. A succession of coup d'états resulted one repressive regime after another. For Jews, instability brought some of the worst abuses and there was always the uncertainty about the future. Asad, by contrast, quickly consolidated his power, exiling or imprisoning rivals.

Ironically, the very power that made Asad feared was also the power that gave him the leverage to improve the status of those Syrians who had been most marginalized, including Jews.

Asad was himself a member of a minority group: the Alawis. Concentrated in the mountains near the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, the Alawis had been victims of a long history of persecution, said Patrick Seale, author of the leading biography of Hafez al-Asad and personal acquaintance of the late Syrian leader.

“They were very poor and downtrodden,” Seale said. “They were thought of as collaborationists with the French,” the former colonial rulers of Syria. Many Alawi men served as tenant farmers for Sunni landowners and Alawi women sometimes worked as domestic servants.

The Alawi faith is somewhat secretive but it is known to blend Shia’a Islam with aspects of Christianity. Many Muslim clergy initially questioned Asad’s own Islamic credentials.

Some Syrian Jews said they believe that Asad’s minority status may have inspired sympathy for their plight. “The Asads were a family oppressed like any Jews,” said one member of the community.

Seale is more circumspect. The late Syrian president’s policies toward Jews probably stemmed more from a general opening up that accompanied his rise to power. But, he added, “He [Asad] had a feeling for downtrodden peasantry particularly. His regime was made up of country boys, not just Alawis, but Sunnis, Druze and Ismailis.”

Asad made the struggle against Israel a central plank of his leadership, but Israel never posed a mortal threat to his regime and never were Syrian Jews ever implicated in spying for Israel. Asad’s only true threat, in fact, came from the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, who staged an insurrection in the city of Hama in 1982, which Asad violently suppressed.

“The Jews in Syria never had a spy,” said Hasbani. “They also never had a problem with Israel or another country. Their only problem was that some of them wanted to leave. The President understood that.”

In a hierarchical society like Syria, where a resident of Damascus could go an entire lifetime without catching a glimpse of the president except on television, a public meeting with Asad was the highest of honors. That is why Hasbani’s newspaper clips of Asad shaking hands with Syrian Jewish leaders are significant. Those photos made Jews relevant in Syrian society, he said, and gave the community a level of respect it had never enjoyed before. In effect, Asad brought Syrian Jews into the national tent.

But all this begs a question: if life was so good under Asad, why did nearly all of Syria’s Jews leave when given the opportunity?

Most left behind successful businesses and expensive homes in order to start over all again in Brooklyn or Tel Aviv. Most Syrian Jews received housing and financial assistance from local Jewish and civic organizations for one year after their arrival, but many continued to struggle. Hasbani, once a respected doctor, has watched his life sink into anonymity in a country that he himself characterized as being impersonal and lonely.

Some Syrian Jews like Hasbani said that fear of the future prompted the mass departure. Although Asad had treated the Jews of Syria well, there was no guarantee that his predecessor would do the same.

Jajati attributed the exodus to inertia. By the time the Syrian president lifted restrictions on emigration, most Syrian Jews had already escaped Syria for Brooklyn or Israel, where they had established thriving new communities. As life slowly drained out of the ancient Jewish neighborhoods of Damascus, Aleppo and Qamishli, the remaining families saw few reasons to remain.

Then there was the Syrian government’s own dithering that might have contributed to the mass flight of Syrian Jews. Asad opened the door for Syrian Jews to leave in 1992 and then, for reasons no one entirely understands, the door was shut a year later and then reopened shortly after that. Many of those who had not left, when first given the opportunity, felt that if they did not leave immediately, the door would close again, said Hasbani.

Fouerti explained his reason for leaving with a simple metaphor. “If you have a bird and locked it in a cage and later opened the door, it will fly away,” he said. “I had one choice: to go see the outside.”

Yet living on the outside, Syria’s Jews continue to look back in. Much like Palestinian-Israelis, they straddle the very dividing line of the Arab-Israeli dispute. Although this awkward position has caused many to suffer pain and torment, it has also provided them with unique insight into a conflict that has festered for far too many years. Syrian Jews will likely never play a role in resolving who gets what part of the Golan Heights. But they may someday be able foster a warm peace.

“If there is peace between Syria and Israel, and I am sure there will be peace, we will bring them together,” Fouerti said. “We must be a bridge between Israel and Syria.”

Syria is being Set Up to Fail: A Leaked Letter from Washington

Here is a most extraordinary letter from Syria's Ambassador in Washington Imad Mustapha to Congresswoman Sue Kelly, which has come into my possession. It explains how the American Administration has been stonewalling Syrian cooperation on a host of issues. It explains how Syria is being set up to fail so that the US can isolate it and carry out a process of regime-change at the expense of Iraqi stability and the lives of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. It explains how the US administration's policy of forcing regime change in Syria is trumping the need to save lives in Iraq.

I also have the letter written by Congresswoman Sue Kelly, and signed by 100 fellow congressmen, which was originally sent to Ambassador Mustapha on Sept. 30, 2005 and which elicited this reply. It is short and reiterates the usual administration complaints about the lack of Syrian cooperation with the war on terror and effort to stabilize Iraq. I have not had the time to type it in - but it is a demonstration of the US government's failure to appreciate how it is being railroaded by the administration into a confrontation with Syria. One must read Imad Mustapha's response, copied here, to appreciate just how the railroading is taking place.

For over a year Syria has been trying to cooperate with the West on the Iraq border, on the issue of terrorism finance, on the issue of stopping Jihadists from getting into Syria, on intelligence sharing, and on stabilizing Iraq.

Washington has consistently refused to take "Yes" as an answer. Why? The only credible reason is because Washington wants regime change in Syria. The US administration is sacrificing American soldiers in Iraq in order to carry out its program of "reforming the Greater Middle East." Two US policies are clashing head to head - the one is stabilizing Iraq and the other is the reform of the greater Middle East. President Bush is placing his democracy policy over his Iraq policy. This is costing American and Iraqi lives.

The world press has failed to get this story, although it has been staring them in the face for months. Human rights activists in Syria have documented for a long time how Syria is arresting Islamists, cracking down on Syrians who go to Iraq to fight by arresting their family members and jailing the fighters when they return from Iraq. Read Razan Zeitouneh's story about Syria's "Preemptive War" against Islamists here. The Syrian secret police have been terrorizing would be terrorists in Syria for many months now. The US has cut off all intelligence sharing with Syria despite repeated Syrian attempts to cooperate on this most important issue. Rumsfeld refused a Syria delegation of top border officials permission to meet with their Iraq and American counterparts just two months ago. Read the story here.

The Letter (I have highlighted several sentences in bold below.)

The Honorable Congresswoman Sue Kelly
2182 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

October 5, 2005
Dear Congresswoman Kelly:

Let me start by expressing my deep appreciation for your letter dated September 30, 2005, co-signed by your colleagues, which I received from your office.

Notwithstanding the disturbing and disappointing content of this letter, I feel grateful for it has given me and my country the chance to engage and respond to the grave issues raised. This is what I would expect from an honorable body of representatives who believe that there is still room for engagement and dialogue. This is something Syria has repeatedly called for and, unfortunately, was repeatedly denied.

Let me start by reiterating my country’s position: Syria has continually and repeatedly called for the Americans and Iraqis to engage with their Syrian counterparts. This is necessary in order to solve the problems in Iraq. And Syria has stated, in no uncertain terms, that our will to assist in this situation illustrates not only our hopes for a unified and free Iraq but also the dire consequences turmoil in Iraq will pose for Syrian interests.

Syria has the political will to engage with the US towards finding a solution to the on-going violence and bloodshed in Iraq. It is a detriment to out national security and interests to see Iraq being further destabilized, and our concern for Iraq’s territorial integrity is paramount. We have asked the US Administration time and again to stop this public media campaign against Syria, and told the Administration that it is both unfair and unsubstantiated. Furthermore, we have spared no means to communicate to this Administration our willingness to mutually address all matters of concern to the US. Needless to say, all our initiatives to engage with the US have failed, and the US Administration seems adamant on following a path of public accusations and no direct engagement.

Before providing you and your honorable colleagues with a detailed reply to all the points raised in your letter let me start by submitting to you the following tow suggestions:

1. The government of Syria is willing to invite a bi-partisan congressional delegation for a working visit to Syria in which the honorable members would explore in depth all matters related to the Iraqi issue. This will allow the members of the delegation to witness for themselves what Syria is and has been doing to address the issues discussed in your letter, as well as provide an opportunity to discuss all possible actions with leading Syrian governmental officials. Syria pledges full cooperation with this delegation. We are willing to hear from you, listen to your suggestions, and upon verifying our willingness to engage we expect your assistance in convincing the US Administration that its current policy towards Syria is neither useful nor constructive. We would like the message reiterated that it is in the best interest of both countries to work together and it is counterproductive to continue creating these conditions of hostility and animosity.

2. In recognition of the efforts you might undertake in visiting Syria and helping both countries move forward toward cooperation and joint action, Syria is willing to immediately resume its intelligence and security cooperation with the relevant US agencies. This cooperation was initiated in the aftermath of the tragic events of September 11, and was suspended early this year. Wee expect the US Administration to acknowledge Syria’s cooperation and halt its campaign of accusations and rhetoric in return for our security and intelligence cooperation.

As for the points mentioned in your letter, allow me to address each point in detail to clarify our position and provide the honorable members with a different perspective on these important issues.

1. On Syria’s role as a source of support for terrorism and other activities aimed at destabilizing efforts to build a peaceful and democratic Iraq

A peaceful and stable Iraq holds as much, if not more significance for Syria as any other nation in the region or across the Atlantic. The Syrian mosaic of citizens, in which a wide variety of ethnicities and religious groups live side by side, closely resembles Iraqi society and in fact, may be even more divers. Consequently, the sectarian strife arising in Iraq could spread across the border and result in fatality tearing at the fabric of Syrian society. This situation causes the Syrian government great concern ad compels us to work diligently to help bring peace and stability back to Iraq for the future of its citizens as well as our own.

Syria has always supported the e political process in Iraq. One example of this was during the Iraqi elections when we encouraged the large Iraqi expatriate community in Syria to vote, and proved them with all means necessary to enable them to successfully participate in the Iraqi political process. This is just one example among many others that went unnoticed here in the US, and wee completely ignored by US officials.

Syria does not support the terrorism in Iraq; we have very little influence on the political developments that are taking place there. However, if the US Administration has evidence to the contrary, Syria is willing to work with the Administration and investigate these allegations. This is the only way to put an end to the alleged Syrian support of the insurgency in Iraq.

2. On Border Control

The argument that the Syrian government allows infiltrators into Iraq holds no truth in any regard whatsoever. The facts on the ground along the Syrian-Iraqi border illustrate how diligently Syria has worked to control its side of the border with Iraq. We have increased our border troops from a few hundred to 10,000 in the past two years; built sand barriers, which Syria has recently raised to 12 feet along more than 210 kilometers of the border, installed barbed wires, some of which are double-layered: and erected many Syrian military outposts, numbering in total approximately 540, deployed approximately every 400 meters or 3 kilometers depending on the sensitivity of the area. As a result of these efforts, Syria has captured over 1,500 individuals trying to cross the border and handed them over to the authorities of their country of origin or placed them in prison.

If infiltration continues, it is done despite all our efforts to stop this illegal movement of people occurring without our consent. Moreover, Syria has continually and repeatedly called for the Americans and Iraqis to engage with their Syrian counterparts on this issue because Syria cannot seal this border alone and needs cooperation from the American and Iraqi side. False allegations against Syria will not solve this problem but rather only cooperation, from both sides, can achieve the important goal of sealing this border.

To illustrate my point with specifics, General Abizaid, on April 14, 2005, said, “We’ve got, oh, roughly 10,600 – give or take – prisoners. I think there are like 357, 358, something like that, third-country national, some of whom have been in Iraq for many, many years… I mean, it’s like – the last time I checked, 50 (from Saudi Arabia) and 52 (from Syria)… and 49 (from Iran).” Moreover, the Center for Strategic and International Studies has said that the insurgency numbers about 30,000 individuals with a foreign component of 4-10%. This means that the foreign element in the insurgency numbers from about 1,500-3,000 individuals. Putting these numbers together and after some simple mathematical calculations we find that the total number of individuals which have come from Syria amounts to about 144, equaling 0.5% of the insurgency. With these facts in mind, I would like to remind you that Syria has imprisoned about 1,500individuals trying to infiltrate the Syrian-Iraqi border, amounting to 10 times the number of those that reached Iraq, which illustrates how diligently we are working to seal this border.

In addition, thee US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies released a report about “Saudi Militants” in Iraq stating that the Syrians have “been too forceful in their crackdown on Saudis” entering Syria some of which are en route to Iraq, while others come as tourists. We argue that we have been forceful on all those using Syria as a transit to Iraq, including Saudis.

3. ON the Visa policy for Arab citizens

The allegations concerning the Visa policies in Syria are a classic example of how the US Administration merely looks for pretexts to criticize Syria with a lack of substantial evidence. The fact that Syria has arrested and handed over hundreds of suspects arriving at Syrian entry points is always ignored by the US officials. The Saudi and Jordanian press have been very critical of the Syrian authorities for their stern approach in dealing with their citizens arriving in Syria, being arrested and extradited for merely suspecting that these citizens might have extremist tendencies.

The question that should be addressed to the US Administration is the following: Did you once try to communicate any sort of intelligence about suspected Jihadists planning to arrive in Syria, which the Syrian authorities failed to act on? Did this happen at least once? Our records do not show that such communication has ever occurred.

Our embassies throughout the whole world offer Visas within an hour of the Visa application. We do not have the means of verifying the information submitted in the Visa application form, and our diplomatic missions are incapable of investigating all individuals who request an entry Visa to Syria. However, our intelligence agencies have a wealth of information about fundamentalist extremists. When such individuals arrive in Syria, they are immediately handled by the Syrian authorities. You can verify this with other Arab countries to whom we have extradited hundreds of their citizens upon arrest at Syrian border checkpoints.

Once again, this would not have been an issue had the US Administration been willing to cooperate and engage with Syria. Unfortunately, while the lack of engagement continues to be the norm, the US Administration uses such pretexts to criticize Syria, capitalizing on the fact that few individuals have any knowledge of Syrians policies and positions.

4. On the repatriation of Iraqi assets

Syria has transferred a sum of $262 million to the Iraqi Government, which is the total amount of the Iraqi frozen assets in the Commercial Bank of Syria. In regards to the $580 million mentioned in your letter, this amount was paid to the Syrian private businesses to honor contracts and deals between Iraqi and Syrian parties prior to the war. All these contracts are documented at the Syrian Ministry of Finance and the Federation of Syrian Iraqi officials to visit, investigate and check these documents with full transparency. If the Iraqi officials conclude with doubts about the authenticity of these contracts and financial obligations, Syria will take immediate action to the satisfaction of the Iraqi government.

5. On the claim that former Iraqi regime elements funds are in Syria

Syria received a team of US Treasury inspectors to visit the Commercial Bank of Syria for as long as they deemed fit, and had access to whatever information they required. We thought that this openness and transparency would put an end to these unsubstantiated accusations. On the one hand, thee team left Syria satisfied that our banks were fully cooperating with the US on this particular issue. ON the other hand, the US Treasury Department never acknowledged our cooperation, and continued to repeat the same allegations. Once more we invite the US treasury officials to talk to Syria, not talk past Syria about these accusations. If US officials have acquired new information regarding these funds, Syria welcomes the opportunity to re-examine the issue and fully investigate it in cooperation with the US officials.

6. On Financing Terrorism

Syria has repeatedly informed the US Treasury Department officials that wee are keen on closely cooperating with the US Treasury Department on issues of money laundering and terrorism financing. Syria, has modified all its by-laws and regulations in accordance with recommendations Syria has received fro the US Treasury Department officials. Syria not only did this, but also informed the US Treasury Department that we are willing to do whatever action may be required in the future, if the need arises. This was never publicly acknowledged by the US Treasury Department; on the contrary, we continue to hear the same accusations about cash flow through the borders.

Actually, based on the recommendations of the US Treasury Department, Syria has joined a number of groups including MENA-FATF (Middle East & North Africa Financial Action Task Force), as well as establishing special units of the Syrian Customs on all international borders to combat terrorism financing and money laundering.

It might surprise you to know that Syria’s efforts to curb cash flows into Iraq and elsewhere were faced by obstacles created by the US Administration. Our efforts to eliminate cash dealings and substitute the cas-based system with a credit card system where all financial transactions can be electronically monitored and traced were stalled by the US imposed sanctions on Syria that continue to prevent us from modernizing our banking infrastructure. I hope you will use your good office to convince the US Treasury Department that helping Syria modernize its banking system will actually help the US win its global war against terrorism.

7. Lebanon (Don’t want to copy it all out. It is outdated anyway.)

8. On Sanctions against Syria

When you contemplate imposing new sanctions against the Syrian banking system, I hope you will keep in mind that the suffocation and eventual crash of this system will only benefit illegal transactions, black marketers and money traffickers. Syria has diligently worked hard on bringing its banking systems to world class standards, and to ensure transparency and the security of all financial transactions. Threats of further sanctions will have a negative impact on Syria’s efforts to achieve what the US Administration has repeatedly asked Syria to do, and what we have been working hard on achieving.

In addition, I hope that the honorable members would recall that ten years of economic sanctions on Iraq only led to the impoverishment of the Iraqi people, and the destruction of Iraq’s national infrastructure. Syria invites you to use diplomacy and engagement, no threats and sanctions to try and find solutions for our already troubled region. Please do remember, that if you are being told by the US Administration that they have “credible evidence” that Syria is doing this or not doing that; the same sort of credible intelligence was used in thee past as a pretext to launch war on another Arab country. We hope that this kind of mistake will not be repeated for the same of Syria, the Middle East and the entire world.

We firmly believe that you can play a great role in helping bring the US and Syria to a better understanding and a higher level of cooperation. On our behalf, this is what we are looking for, and this is what we hope the future will hold for both our countries,

Yours Sincerely,

Imad Moustapha, PhD.
Ambassador of the Syria to the United States

NSC Chief Hadley asked Italy for a Bashar Replacement

I have it on good authority that Steven Hadley, the director of the US National Security Council, called the President of the Italian senate to asked if he had a candidate to replace Bashar al-Asad as President of Syria. The Italians were horrified. Italy is one of Syria’s biggest trading partners so it seemed a reasonable place to ask! This is what Washington has been up to.

Bashar cannot possibly do what Washington is demanding of it -- give family members to an international court. My guess is that the regime will stick together on this.

On 25 Oct, the UN will announce that Syria must cooperate or serious action will ensue. Syria will pretend to cooperate, but ultimately stonewall. Then the UN will have to place sanctions on Syria. If Europe balks at this, the US will threaten unilateral action as it did in Iraq. It will not invade, but will start small cross-border raids and perhaps strategic bombings in Syria. The threat of doing this will probably be enough to pressure Europe into going along with fairly tough sanctions. I do not think military action or the treat of military action will force Syria into regime change on its own. Syria will reach out to the West as it has been doing all along, but only too little too late.

Can the Syrian opposition exploit this situation? I doubt it, but we will have to see how resourceful it is and how determined the Syrian regime is at repressing it. It is trying to organize as quickly as it can. Tomorrow at 11:00am there is a call to meet at the Arab Cultural Center on Abu Roumani, where UN day ceremonies are to be being held.

The Syrian regime will no come apart as Washington is hoping. That is what I believe. The Mehlis situation is a big transformation of US-Syrian relations and puts the two in a whole different territory. A court of law is no where to carry out diplomacy. Deals cannot be made and compromises cannot be reached once the court is assembled. And for all intents and purposes the court has been assembled. The world has been promised that the perpetrators of the Hariri murder will be punished. President Asad has not been directly implicated, but the rest of his family has been. Trying to separate him from them will require fratricide. He won't do it. He cannot do it.

U.S. Sees Opening For Change in Syria
Eroding Assad's Power Is Short-Term Goal

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 23, 2005; A22

The Bush administration is brokering a series of steps designed to unravel the regime in Syria but not oust the government of President Bashar Assad -- at least not yet, U.S. policymakers say.

Washington is intent on squeezing its most consistent nemesis in the Arab world to cooperate -- not only on Lebanon -- through the kind of pressure that eventually turned Moammar Gaddafi after Libyan agents were linked to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, according to U.S. officials.

The new United Nations report linking top Syrian officials, including Assad family members, to the killing of Lebanon's leading reformer eight months ago has sparked a "transformation" in how the world is willing to deal with Damascus, which Washington wants to cultivate, said a senior U.S. policymaker who spoke on the condition of anonymity because diplomacy is ongoing.

"Out of tragedy comes an extraordinary strategic opportunity," the official said. "This murder changed everything." Former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri was killed Feb. 14.

The long-term U.S. goal is to break the 35-year hold of the Assad family and allow Syrians to freely pick a new government. But in the short term, the administration is somewhat reluctantly opting to let the U.N. investigation and the subsequent judicial process, combined with punitive U.N. sanctions, erode Assad's power -- and see if he then changes Syrian practices in the region, U.S. officials said.

Damascus must end attempts to destabilize neighbors and undercut their aspirations, "whether that be the Lebanese people for independent sovereignty, whether it be the Palestinian people for an independent state that lives in peace with Israel, whether it be for the Iraqis who are trying to develop a peaceful and stable democracy but are having to fight a determined but unprincipled insurgency, or whether it be for Turkey," said State Department spokesman J. Adam Ereli.

In specific terms, that means such moves as closing the Damascus airport and border routes to extremists bound for Iraq, terminating ties with Palestinian rejectionist groups and the flow of arms to Lebanese militants, and developing good relations with the new Baghdad government, State Department officials said.

Washington is also talking with European allies about how to help Lebanon pursue the prosecution of those charged in the slaying, including holding trials with international help or at a venue outside Lebanon, U.S. officials said. Saad Hariri, Rafiq Hariri's son and the leader of the largest bloc in Lebanon's parliament, said yesterday that he wants his father's killers to be tried in an international court.

Although Syria has never been more isolated, U.S. officials caution that their ambitions are curbed by realities on the ground. After an intense hunt for alternatives, the Bush administration has concluded that there is no political party strong enough and sufficiently friendly to endorse as a replacement for Assad, U.S. officials said.

Unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, Syria has few democratic exile groups. The Muslim Brotherhood, an underground Islamist group, is the strongest internal opposition.

A more aggressive policy of "regime change" could backfire, U.S. officials said. An abrupt upheaval could invite a return to the kind of rampant instability and coups that typified Syria until Hafez Assad came to power in 1971.

"It's very difficult to identify someone viable within the power structure that the U.S. could work with other than Bashar. And if you look beyond the regime, the most likely alternative to the present political order would be heavily Islamist and anti-American," said Flynt Leverett, a former National Security Council staffer in the Bush administration and author of "Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial by Fire."

"And if this regime implodes, you would probably get chaos and violence along ethnic and sectarian lines . . . with spillover into Iraq and other parts of the region."

Yet Washington also believes that Assad -- an ophthalmologist who inherited power from his father in 2000 because his older brother, the designated heir, was killed in a car crash -- probably will not fully comply with the new terms laid out by the Security Council this week.

The Syrian leader vowed to punish anyone tied to the Hariri case. But he is unlikely to sacrifice his own brother, Maher Assad, or Gen. Asef Shawkat, his brother-in-law and the head of Syrian military intelligence, U.S. officials said.

Both were cited in the U.N. report by investigator Detlev Mehlis for allegedly planning the Hariri bombing. For his political salvation, Gaddafi turned over two agents tried for the Pan Am bombing. But the younger Assad has yet to demonstrate the confident pragmatism of his father, who sent troops to join the U.S.-led coalition to liberate Kuwait in 1991 and participated in the U.S.-orchestrated 1993 Madrid peace talks.

"For the past few years, there's been a deliberate effort to change Syria's behavior" -- with limited results, said Edward P. Djerejian, former U.S. ambassador to Syria. Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was among several officials during the first Bush term who went to Damascus to seek common ground on terrorism, Lebanon, Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Djerejian told Assad in January that Washington believed the time had arrived for Syria to finally act against Iraqis tied to Saddam Hussein in Syria. Assad took "half-measures" -- after the election -- reflecting his failure to understand how "to engage constructively and actively," Djerejian said.

And that may force the Bush administration to make a tougher decision, U.S. officials acknowledged. "The big question is: Is there anything to indicate that Assad would show any deviation from past behavior," said the senior U.S. official. "We're certainly not trying to save the regime."

And, unlike in Libya, Washington is unwilling to let the process of change take a decade, U.S. officials said. "Syria's situation is much more urgent," the senior official said.

There is also this story about Roed-Larsen's report in Haaretz which suggests his report will also damn the Syrians for not fulfilling 1559. it will be a double whammy at the UN on Tuesday.
New UN report brings Syria closer to sanctionsBy Ze'ev Schiff and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents

The aim of the report by UN special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, which is to be submitted this week to the UN Secretariat and the Security Council, is to determine whether Syria complied with UN Resolution 1559, calling for its withdrawal from Lebanon.

The findings of the Roed-Larsen report, together with the Mehlis Commission interim report on the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, increase the chances that the Security Council will impose sanctions on Syria.

The Mehlis report points an accusing finger at Syria. Without making a direct accusation of murder, it emphasizes Syria's responsibility and attempts by Syrian figures to lie and squirm their way out of the investigation into the murder.

Roed-Larsen's report will place much more pressure on Syria than the Mehlis report because it states that Damascus did not genuinely implement Resolution 1559, preferring instead to maintain its indirect military control of Lebanon through its agents in the Lebanese presidential palace, the army and intelligence organizations.

Official sources say Syrian intelligence was involved in 14 assassinations and assassination attempts in Lebanon in the past year, including that of Hariri.

Part of Syria's indirect control in Lebanon is achieved through arms shipments to Hezbollah and armed Palestinian militias, most of which end up in the refugee camps. In addition, Lebanon is home to a few dozen members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards who have trained Hezbollah members in launching drones. On two occasions, the drones made short flights into the Galilee.

It appears unlikely that the Security Council will consider the two reports sufficiently damning to impose sanctions on Syria. Both reports prepare the ground for future sanctions, however, and contain an indirect recommendation to Syrian President Bashar Assad that he cooperate with the United Nations.

Syria May Let Officials Be Questioned Abroad
Government Bristles at 'Pure Allegations' in Hariri's Killing but Considers Cooperating

By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, October 23, 2005; Page A22

DAMASCUS, Syria, Oct. 22 -- Facing the prospect of international sanctions, the Syrian government said Saturday that it might allow senior intelligence officials suspected in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri to be questioned abroad, and it promised to cooperate, within limits, with the investigation.

But the government mixed conciliation with hesitation and a litany of reservations, condemning the report as a political ploy and contending officials had already fully cooperated with the U.N. inquiry. Analysts in Damascus said Saturday's moves signaled what may emerge as the shape of Syrian policy in the decisive weeks ahead: offering enough gestures to fend off international pressure but making no concessions that might imperil a government that already feels besieged.

At a news conference, Riyad Dawudi, a Foreign Ministry adviser, gave the first public response by the government, which was said to be caught off guard by the breadth of the U.N. inquiry. It came amid grumblings in the Syrian capital over the lack of forceful leadership during a crisis that has become the biggest test of Bashar Assad's five-year reign as president.

"We'll cooperate, but we'll wait to see the limits and elements of this cooperation," Dawudi said.

He signaled that the government might be willing to send senior officials abroad for questioning in the investigation.

"If there's a necessity, we will see according to the circumstances that are going to be put before us," he said. "If there is any demand coming from the commission, we will study, we will discuss with the commission and we might agree."

The report by the probe's German prosecutor, Detlev Mehlis, stopped short of directly blaming Assad for the assassination, but it contended that the Feb. 14 killing of Hariri and 22 others could not have happened without the approval of top Syrian security officials and their Lebanese intelligence counterparts.

The report names individuals from a cross section of the Syrian government -- civilian and military officials, politicians and intelligence figures, and officials from the Sunni Muslim majority and Assad's own minority Alawite community. The report said Syria's foreign minister lied in a letter to investigators -- a charge Dawudi denied -- and cited one witness as implicating Assad's powerful brother-in-law, Asef Shawkat, a member of the government's inner circle.

Dawudi questioned the credibility of one of the report's named witnesses and said other testimony amounted to hearsay. He said the investigation relied on the accounts of Lebanese witnesses who were anti-Syrian, giving the report a political cast that will allow it to be manipulated by Syria's foes, namely the United States and France.

"What is in the report are pure allegations," Dawudi said. "Everything is based on a presumption that the very presence of the Syrian security apparatus and military forces in Lebanon and the impact Syria had in Lebanon at that time implies -- and this is an induction done in the report -- implies that this assassination plot could not have been carried out without the knowledge of the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services. And this is just an allegation."

The Syrian government had reportedly expected a more favorable portrayal in Mehlis's inquiry because it allowed its officials to be interviewed. "They were shocked, they were totally shocked by the content of the report," said Ibrahim Hamidi, a well-connected journalist in Damascus for the leading pan-Arab newspaper Al Hayat. "They expected Mehlis to at least mention they were cooperating. Of course, they did not expect him to go this high, to leak all these names."

Analysts in Damascus said the leadership appears divided between two factions -- one urging more cooperation, sensing the depth of the crisis, and the other believing that the government can weather the turmoil and that any degree of cooperation will likely only bring more demands. Some in the Syrian capital have been struck by the government's response. Assad has yet to comment publicly on the report, perhaps out of fear of creating an atmosphere of crisis.

"There was no new information, no opinion, nothing about what will happen in the future, no real opinion of what the government of Syria has decided or thinks about this report," said Ayman Abdel Nour, a Baath Party reformer and editor of a popular Web site that tracks Syrian politics. "What is this? This is no longer a technical issue."

"We need politicians to address the people of Syria -- this is what happened, this is the pressure we are under, this is what might happen in the future, this is what we have in mind," Abdel Nour added. "We want to know who's leading us."

The United States and France are expected to put resolutions critical of Syria before the U.N. Security Council, which will meet Tuesday to discuss the report. In a statement broadcast Saturday, Hariri's son, Saad, who heads the largest anti-Syrian bloc in Lebanon's parliament, repeated his faction's call for an international tribunal to try suspects in his father's killing.

"Reaching justice presents the Arab and international community with additional responsibilities that prompt us to urge them to continue all aspects of the investigation in the crime and refer it to an international court," he said from his home in Saudi Arabia in his first public reaction to the Mehlis's report. "We do not seek revenge. We seek justice."

The Syrian response is a matter of much debate in Damascus. Abdel Nour predicted that the government would stick to a style of foreign policy engineered by Assad's father, Hafez, who ruled Syria from 1970 to his death in 2000.

Others suspect the Syrian government is inclined to strike a deal, meeting U.S. demands to cut support to militant Palestinian factions and to the Lebanese Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah. Syria could also answer calls to take more steps to close the border with Iraq to foreign fighters. Whether the United States would accept a deal remains in question, increasing the speculation here that more upheaval is ahead.

"The entire regime is in the neck of the bottle. They cannot do anything," said Haitham Maleh, a human rights lawyer and opposition activist. "Somebody has to take a step."

Bolton on Syria: We need to obtain Syrian cooperation

The UN Security Council meeting will be about steps to force Syria to cooperate with an international court.

MEDIA STAKEOUT WITH AMBASSADOR JOHN BOLTON
10/21/2005 3:21:41
MEDIA STAKEOUT WITH AMBASSADOR JOHN BOLTON, U.S. PERMANENT REP. TO THE UNITED NATIONS, ON THE MEHLIS REPORT (AS RELEASED BY THE STATE DEPARTMENT)OUTSIDE THE SECURITY COUNCIL, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21,2005

AMB. BOLTON: I just want to bring up to date on where the United Statesstands with respect to the Mehlis report, which was issued last night by theSecretariat. I met with Mr. Mehlis this morning at 7:30; we had a discussionfor over an hour about his report and what the next steps might be. He willbe meeting with the other permanent members of the Security Council and the President of the Security Council during the course of the day. Since theissuance of the report, I have already been in touch with the ambassadors of all the other permanent members to discuss what next steps might be.

This report is obviously very significant; it finds probable cause to believe that the assassination could not have been undertaken without the knowledge of senior figures in Syrian intelligence. It refers to lack of cooperation by Syria with the investigation, which is diplo-speak for obstruction of justice. It's a very hard-hitting report. Now, we are still studying it and I would expect there would be other announcements and statements from U.S. during the course of the day, especially as we go through our consultations with other Security Council members and other affected parties. Why don't I just take a couple of questions.

Q Did Mr. Mehlis tell you why he took names out of the report in the last 24hours? Are you satisfied that was the right thing to do?

AMB. BOLTON: Well, I'd rather not get into the specifics of the writing ofthe report. We had a very good discussion about his feelings about theevidence, and the strength of the evidence that supports the conclusions inthe report; we talked about the work that remains to be done that he was notable to complete because of Syrian obstruction. I'm very confident based onthe very quick review of the report we've been able to do and myconversation with Mr. Mehlis that it's supported by substantial evidence andthat more work remains to be done.

Q (Inaudible) - suggests that the edits were made in the presence of the Secretary General during his meeting with Mr. Mehlis or shortly after themeeting? The Secretary General had promised he would not interfere with thecontents of the report, do you feel he may have interfered with the contentsof the report by editing - (inaudible)?

AMB. BOLTON: I'm not going to get into a discussion as to what the Secretariat may or may not have done. I've seen several versions of thereport, I must say at the moment I don't understand why there are severalversions of the report because it was after all Mr. Mehlis the Council asked to report to it. But I want to withhold comment about the editing processuntil I can find out more about it. I think what is important to focus on isthe substance of the report, which is very dramatic news about the extent ofSyrian involvement and involvement by top officials in the Lebanese government in this assassination.

Q The report names Maher Assad, the brother of Bashar Assad, do you believe this information is substantial and implicates Bashar Assad in the murder of Rafik Hariri?

AMB. BOLTON: Well, I'm not going to comment on the specifics in the report,I think it's still something we're going to consider. But I don't thinkthere's any doubt that this is going to require a strong follow-up from the Security Council. And I think, as I said, there may be other comments we're making today. I'm going to take just one more question.

Q Would that strong response possibly include some sort of sanctions against Syria? nd is that something the United States is considering?

AMB. BOLTON: We're considering still a range of options. We're want to be infurther consultations with the other permanent members and other members ofthe Security Council. But I want to leave no doubt we consider this Mehlis report a historic document. Thank you very much.

Mr. Ambassador, because the report does mention such high-ranking Syrian government officials, does it imply that President Assad is involved?

AMB. BOLTON: Well, I don't think you need to get into the specifics, to show that the extent of the convergence of Syrian and Lebanese security agency involvement here shows a pattern that requires further investigation. That's why we believe the mandate should be extended and why we need to look at other steps to obtain Syrian cooperation. That's one of the things that we've been in consultation about and we'll continue to consult over the weekend.

Q How should the international community respond to this report?

AMB. BOLTON: I think that we should demand cooperation from Syria and we need to get to the bottom of the investigation. The Mehlis Commission has taken us a long way, but there's obviously still facts that need to be uncovered. I'll just take one more question here.

Q The Syrian ambassador just announced to us that Syria gave full cooperation that the report is not credible, and it is a political report. What is your answer?

AMB. BOLTON: I think that's ridiculous. Frankly, the report speaks for itself. It's backed by substantial evidence, lots of witnesses, thousands of pages of documentation, and the clear fact that numerous Syrian officials declined to be interviewed in circumstances where trustworthy testimony can be given. So, okay that's it. Thank you very much.

Riad al-Turk Interviewed by Joe Pace on Mehlis, the Opposition, Ghadry

Riad al-Turk
Interview and translation by Joe Pace
8 September 2005

Riad al-Turk has often been called Syria’s Mandela because he is the grandfather of the Syrian left. For many years al-Turk was the Amin al-`Amm (Secretary General) of the Syrian Communist Party - Political Office. He has been a fixture in the enlightened opposition for 55 years and is respected for his fearlessness and humanity. Although he has spent over 20 years in prison, Riad is still hail and sharp at 75. His first stint in jail was under Adib Shishakli in 1954. He spent another 15 months in jail under Nasser in 1960, then under Assad from 1980 to 1998, and finally under Bashar for another year and three months. He has recently undergone heart surgery, but he still smokes on occasion and is surrounded by a loving wife, beautiful daughters and grandchildren. Also see my 11 March 2005 interview with Riad al-Turk here.

Joe Pace: Could you give us information about yourself; how did you become opposition?

Riad al-Turk: You haven’t heard the saying that when anyone discusses himself, he is a liar? I’m from Homs, born in 1930. I went to law school and joined the lawyers union. I am now a member of the lawyers union in Homs. I joined the Communist party early in my life—I cannot remember when exactly because at that time the party life consisted more of a social movement than organized party life like there exists in the US or Europe. In the student movement, there were four tiers: a conservative trend dominated by the bourgeoisie, a religious movement dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, a nationalist trend even though Nasser had not yet come into power led by the Ba’thists, and a Marxist trend led by the Communist party. I was part of the Communist party.

I, like the rest of the members, was a member of all the relevant forums. In 1969, the party split into two: the traditionalists and the one’s who wanted to re-evaluate their stance towards the Soviets. I was from the later and after the party conference, I was elected first secretary, a position that I held until April of last year when Abdullah Hoshi took over.

At that time, we changed the name of our party from the Communist Party to the People’s Democratic Party.

What motivated you to change the name of the party?

There are lots of reasons. First, we had been criticizing the Soviet Union for a long time and the relationship between the Soviet Communist party and our communist party had been one of subordination. They would demand information or order us to take a certain stance or undertake a certain task. Our opinion was that the Soviet Union should be seeking advice and council from us since we are from this country and understand it better than the Soviets. There are non-Arab elements in this country, like the Kurds, the occupants of southern Sudan, and the Berbers. There are a multitude of sects and religions, which resemble a mosaic. It is only logical that only the principle of citizenship would unite them. How else are you supposed to unite the Arab world democratically without employing power politics as Egypt did when it used to force its will on Syria or as Syria did to Lebanon? It was typical of the Communist parties that were nurtured by the Soviet outlook to make light of the objective conditions in the Arab world and in Syria especially.

From another perspective, we thought that the Soviet Union was responsible for the stagnation of Marxist thought. It was not subject to renewal, by which I mean a re-interpretation in light of the newest scientific developments. The Soviets froze Marxist ideas to serve their interests. Perhaps Marxism was implemented to serve revolutionary aims in the context of the World Wars, but Marxism has to be open to renewal and rendered compatible with democracy. The Soviet Union did not understand this and they tried to implement their version of Marxism and wield the communist parties in the rest of the world, which produced a widespread backlash wherein people disassociated from the Soviet Union. We were latecomers in this phenomenon because we didn’t listen to the civilized world.

The third reason is that this period in Syrian history must be one in which we combat despotism. This struggle should not be undertaken with the revolutionary slogans of the leftists and communists, but rather through an assembly of all elements of this society that have been hurt by despotism and putting them in a single melting pot for the sake of democratic change. Only a democratic state suits us.

Finally, when our party was established in 1924, its name was the People’s Party of Syria. We have returned to the parties founding name, but we have added the word “democratic.”

Democracy is a vague concept. Do you have a specific program for democratizing the state? [Riad presents me with a large book on the party’s positions and tells me to read it.]

We tried to do two things. At a minimum, we will continue fighting this regime until it democratizes. We also published a program for Syria in accordance with how we envision it: a democratic state. We believe that Syria is passing through a transitional state from despotism to a greater freedoms and a democratic, watani regime. This is the slogan that we are proposing for people. This regime, by virtue of its basic structure, rules by dictatorial decree. It used to be Hafiz al-Assad, but now he has bequeathed the inheritance to his son. Hafiz was psychologically ill: he thought he was the king of the country and so just as one would bequeath a house, he bequeathed the country to his sons. During Hafez’s reign, this country’s institutional spinal cord was established: the most basic element was military power consisting of the army and the secret police. After that is the Ba’th party which has an ideological function; its political function rests on utopian notions and it has no role in governing other than marketing and justifying the decisions and statements made by the presidency and the Republican Palace.

Beside the Ba’th party—or more appropriately put, under it—you have a collection of parties under the heading of the National Progressive Front. Around those two groupings, you have formal popular organizations and associations like workers unions, peasant associations, student alliances, etc.

With regard to the structure of the state, it’s completely presidential in the sense that there is a referendum for the presidency, not an election. The national leadership in the legislative assembly nominates the candidate, and Hafez al-Assad from 1970 until his death was the only candidate. The politicians from the various parties who cooperate with the regime were manufactured by the secret police. The job of the secret police is to surveil society—they don’t even trust their own party.

This is the structure of authoritarianism, and the average citizen has two choices if he wants to participate in politics. Either he does so in the security regime’s camp, or he becomes opposition. If he chooses the opposition, the only thing he can expect is prison, or murder, or exile—or in the recent period he can keep his mouth shut and continue to live, but like an animal. Hafiz al-Assad through the 70s was able to secure Soviet support and even managed to win over the Americans. So through most of his reign, he ruled with the public aware of the fact that America and the Soviet Union and even the Arab states were behind him. He served their interests on the condition that they refrained from interfering in internal Syrian affairs.

Hariri was assassinated, but he was a mere individual. In 1982, the Syrian regime killed some 30,000 people and the Americans barely registered a protest. Now one man gets killed and the world is up in arms. Of course, I understand that this regime has become weak and incapable of serving the US, and also that the US is looking to renovate its policy; Condoleezza Rice said very clearly that the US made mistakes, that it supported despots for the sake of stability, and that it neglected democracy and human rights. The result of that support for despotism is that it has spread throughout society and produced these expiatory (tikfiri) terrorist groups.

All of the regimes in the Middle East, with the exception of Lebanon, are dictatorial. The details might differ—power might be centralized in a king, the president, a certain tribe—but they follow the same basic template: the head of state is the uncontested ruler and his followers must execute his will. There is thus a real need for our society to change, for the state of the Arabs to change, and a need for the Americans to alter their policy in the aftermath of 9-11.

We are cognizant of these factors as we search for a solution. On this one point alone, we agree with the Americans: we are against this regime. But is our program for change the same as that of the US? I don’t think so. The regime accuses the opposition of being American agents, even though for the longest time, America wasn’t even inquiring about the state of the opposition. I remember that while I was imprisoned, Cyrus Vance came after the protests and demonstrations for me. He met with Hafez al-Assad and demanded my release. Hafez said that “this man is your biggest enemy. Do you want me to open his file for you?” Cyrus Vance and the US administration didn’t say a word.

Syrian society is ironed by this regime. The totalitarian mindset does not let you create your own opinion. These authorities for the most part were farmers who escaped poverty. They were persecuted by the Ottomans and Sunnis who hated the Alawites. When they came to power, it was presumed that they would eliminate their poverty and the poverty of the people. But all they did was eliminate their own poverty. So the governing mindset is one that concerns itself with theft and accumulating money through any means regardless of their legitimacy. So our economy has crumbled and people are impoverished and the family requires two or three people working just to provide the most basic amenities.

Therefore, economically and socially our society is deeply troubled. This economic languishing has produced many terrible social phenomena: thievery, gangs, prostitution. Politically, there is no way for anyone expept the most intrepid to challenge the regime, which has profoundly weakened the opposition. The only people who participate are those who are willing to take on any challenge irrespective of the price, but you don’t get the masses like you once could. There is no popular mass; they are fearful of the security branches, fearful of terrorists, fearful, fearful, fearful.

Do you think that the regime is preparing the political landscape for a new party law by creating or permitting the creation of groups who claim to be oppositional but are actually taking their cues from the secret police? Rihab al-Bitar’s party comes to mind since it has been tolerated in the midst of this crackdown.

This is evidence of the regime’s weakness, this game they are playing with the party law. But it’s a game that has been played for the past five years. They’re not going to promulgate a real election law; in the tenth B’ath conference, they issued recommendations for a party law that excluded parties based on religion or nationalisms, but it’s a bunch of lies. These promises from the regime are evidence that it is in a state of decline and weakness. When these sorts of regimes weaken but don’t want to reform, they multiply their promises and slacken in the execution thereof, or if they can, they erase them all together.

As for Rihab, I don’t have an opinion. But I can say that the names that are emerging—this one establishes a party, that one an organization, this one an association, that one a research center—are a result of the political chaos that reigns in the this country. And this chaos most especially afflicts the opposition because the remaining parties that survived the terror of the 1970s—and even the present day—emerged weak and their platforms do not resonate with the younger generations.

The National Democratic Assembly (At-tajama’ al-watani ad-democrati) especially has been debilitated. In the late 1970s, it was working peacefully for democratic change while the Muslim Brotherhood waged its violent campaign against the regime. But now, it is weak and incapable of attracting the youth. This is why the opposition is in such a weak state.

But I think that after the problems in Lebanon, the regime will purge its ranks and rid itself of the old and hesitant and so the authorities now are totally exposed to the Assad family.

Why has the National Democratic Assembly in particular seen its influence wane?
The primary reason is that the nationalist and leftists parties have been unwilling to reexamine their political stances. We split with the communists because they are working with the regime. We were the ones who organized a conference and offered solutions to a wide range of problems facing Syria. We call for reconciliation between the political trends, but not reconciliation with the regime—we are calling for change. As for any reformists inside the regime or Ba’thists who agree with the opposition’s aims of a national democracy, we aren’t against them.

What’s the basis for your claim that the Assembly is weak? One can easily criticize intellectual stagnancy, but on a practical, organizational level, what does that entail: decreased membership, less organized activities, etc?

Certainly, its support base has contracted. We don’t have a platform suitable to the present conditions this society is facing. It is estranged from this society’s politics. University students, the youth, those from the country side—none of them are finding anything within this assembly that suits them. Even its position towards America is problematic; they dogmatically cling to idea that America is our enemy, period. All of these factors are impeding the Assembly’s ability to attract new members.

The opposition today is intellectually backwards and incapable of communicating with the populace. If you examined the membership of the opposition parties you’d discover that the younger members are in their mid-40s—they are not attracting the youth. What is the new generation? What are its concerns? If I can’t speak to their concerns, how am I supposed to bring them into my party? These parties are totally detached from the younger generations. The age group between 10 and 25 represents more than 60% of society, so if you want to address the needs of society, you have to address the needs of the youth—political, social, and economic.

The average citizen is unable to live a life of dignity. It’s truly a tragedy—a tragedy because the authority imposes itself, and a tragedy because the opposition is incapable of doing anything about it. Anyone who tells you that the opposition is effective or doing a good job is lying to you.

A conflict has ensued between the Americans and the French on one hand and the Syrian regime on the other, and Syrian society and the democratic opposition are conspicuously absent. We want a third option: we reject the despotic authorities, nor do we expect that the Americans come and govern us. But objectively speaking, when the internal situation weakens, the foreign powers intervene, which is why I always say that the Americans are coming. Let them topple this regime!

An American once asked me whether or not I was happy with the collapse of Saddam’s regime. Of course, we were against the occupation and understand that America had ulterior motives for the occupation. Anyways, I told him I was very pleased. He asked, “then why can’t you admit that we are doing something good in Iraq?” I replied, “if you chart Iraqi society on a graph, Saddam Hussein dragged his society below zero. You have raised it to zero, but its still zero. What’s needed is progress, the establishment of a functioning state on the ruins of that brutal regime. This can only be realized if the Americans pull out.” American policy was always against us and this was the case in Africa and South America as well. It was America that brought the militias and the despots.

Do you want to see more American or foreign pressure on the regime to reform and respect human rights, and if so, what sort of pressure?

I am not asking America to intervene in any of those issues. I want this regime to be weakened by the UN Security Council, which should admonish the regime: if you don’t change, there are a hundred means at our disposal—political, diplomatic, economic boycotts, to name a few. The second means would be to push American civil society groups to form relationships with the Syrian opposition. It is incumbent on the US to support and encourage the opposition, not enter Syria with its troops.

We want to see a variety of assistance: political supports, cultural support, shelter, etc. For example, I am not able to travel to Lebanon; the Lebanese government wouldn’t dare let me in. If the Syrian opposition began using Lebanon as a base, wouldn’t it be better than letting the secret police spy on us and pick us off one by one? We need to diversify and expand our base. We communists have been working like that all our lives: Lebanon was our base because the Syrian communists and the Lebanese communists were one party. They could do anything to us—we were like sly devils. My point is that we need a space in which society can mobilize. We want moral support but it has to be through legitimate means like the UN.

What do you think of Farid al-Ghadry?

Who is this Farid al-Ghadry?! There is a difference between someone seeking to better his society and ensure that it respects human rights, and one who wants to bring in his agents. This type of strategy doesn’t work. The Americans are not incapable of finding a way to forge a principled relationship with the opposition and its not too late.

Farid al-Ghadry is like something that descended from the sky; we don’t know anything about his roots, about his history, about his background. So he founds a party and he wants to enter the country—this is a guy who wants to enter Syria on an American tank, just like Chalabi and Allawi did in Iraq. Look, those people are still Syrian citizens even if they live in America. They have the right to criticize and mobilize. But suddenly, out of nowhere, they want change?

Farid wrote recently that the opposition would be powerful enough to replace the Syrian regime in six months. Do you share his optimism?

That is nonsense. We have been working for more than 30 years and we are still being harassed and imprisoned. Work in Syria is still extremely complicated and there is no mobilized, politicized street. But we must work to become a third force; this is the difficult task ahead of us. There is a conflict being waged between the Americans and Syria, which is why I say that the Americans are coming regardless of whether or not we welcome them.

This regime is done for. This regime is in its last throes and you should not waste your time feeling sorry for it.

Does Farid have any supporters inside Syria?

It’s something if someone’s even heard of him; you’re average citizen has no clue who he is. He doesn’t have anyone and if he wants to acquire supporters, he should enter Syria secretly and work with us. I’m speaking with total honesty as someone opposed to this regime: we would welcome any Syrian who does that. But look at the family history: the father was a Saudi agent, then he went to America and became an American agent, now he has returned as a Syrian agent. He is probably working with the CIA and he’s definitely working with the state department.

Farid al-Ghadry contacted me, and I refused to work with him. He’s not someone who can be relied upon…We reject military intervention because the Iraq model is not something that can cultivate a democratic environment. The international community needs to support and encourage the opposition that has a real sense of what democracy requires, that understands the concerns of the people, not the old and tired Nassirists or Marxists.

Everyone talks about democracy, the repeal of the emergency law, the release of political prisoners, etc—but none of these issues are moving people to the streets. I brought a friend of mine to the protest in front of the High Security Court in June, and she asked me “what exactly is the emergency law?” Then she asked me “how do I know that the people you’re protesting for aren’t agents of America or Israel?”—unfortunately this is not an uncommon sentiment among the people. So what are the issues that concern people? What are the issues that will mobilize them?

The issues that concern people are the issues that affect their daily lives. The average salary, for example, is less than 6,000 lire (about $115) per month. It’s not enough; they need to pay rent and put food on the table and most families have at least five people. At best, it can cover only the most modest expenses like food. With that salary, at least three people in the family have to work, but how often do you find a family with three people who can work? As a result, the structure of the family is coming apart at the seams. The father used to be the bread-winner. Now he’s pushing his wife and daughters to work, he’s not letting his sons go to school because they have to take wages with their father. This is a tragedy for the children.

The average citizen may work two or three jobs and there is no time for anything else. How is he supposed to get involved in politics? It’s not possible because the mafia-like rulers have continuously impoverished the people of this country. Syria used to be marked by its middle class, bourgeoisie, and its productive capacity. This regime has ruined everything; the rate of poverty is more than 60%. Some 66% are at the poverty line.

I’ll give you the example of education. People are failing in primary schools. Under this regime, illiteracy has increased despite the proliferation of schools. People graduate from college and don’t find any work. If I am a young man and I graduate, what am I supposed to do? I can’t work, I have to live with my family, which means I can’t marry. The only option is to emigrate. No less than 50% of Syrians are living off of the remittances of emigrants. The youth is facing a crisis.

There is an educational crisis. You could find upwards of 350 people in a medical school classroom. If they want to attend an anatomy course, how can they possibly learn anything? They would be lucky to lay their eyes on a piece of bone or muscle and catch part of an explanation. It’s the same thing in geology and physics. They leave school with useless information. I spoke to someone who graduated with a degree in geology with high honors—if you gave him a rock, he wouldn’t be able to identify it. But if you gave him the name of a rock, he could list you off its characteristics, its composition, etc. Its no wonder that not a single dam built during Hafez’s time period is still working. You might have heard of the Zedzun damn which broke with catastrophic consequences.

You asked about the protest in front of the High National Security Court. If we expressed our interest in the state of the people and explained to them that people are being arrested because of their opposition to the regime, the level of thought and political awareness will rise and people will realize the value of these protests.

Is the current opposition capable of—

It’s not capable of anything! I’m against it! It has no future! It is unwilling to reexamine its platform. Its mind is sick just like the regime! Their Nasserist ideology is backwards and dangerous. Their end will come as they align themselves with the regime under the banner of opposing the US. I think a division and eventually a decisive battle is going to erupt within the opposition on this point.

It’s not just the nationalists that are weak and sick. It’s the leftists: the communists, the Marxists, the Ba’thists.

What do you think of the liberals?

I think the liberals are more mature, but they aren’t really present. They don’t have a real party. If you studied the history of Syria, you know that it was best when ruled by liberals. But there is a certain environment in which liberal parties will come into being.

I’m not talking about the liberal parties that you might be reading about on the internet and elsewhere. Those are being formed by agents of the regime. If I wanted to bring you the model liberal, I would talk about Raid Seif. But the rest are agents of the regime.

The most appropriate adjective for the state of the opposition, society, and the regime is chaos—intellectual chaos. Indecisiveness, impotence, hopelessness—these are the most prominent adjectives of the opposition. The bulk of the blame lies with the National Democratic Assembly which was supposed to be opposition and did its job in the end of the 1970s, but now is totally incapable. Where did all of this energy go? Now a band of three people get together and throw together a party. The formation of parties is no small issue: it requires though, organization, an articulation of the social state of things. These people aren’t articulating anything and that is why this impotency has overtaken them.

Do you intend on splitting off from the National Democratic Assembly?

No. I personally do not cooperate with them, though my party does. We will continue working with them until we find a better alternative. We will continue to pressure them, though, and check the weakness of their stance in front of the regime. We will expose the formation of secret ties between them and the regime.

Which party is larger, yours or the Communist Union Party?

The latter, if you measure size by the number of members. If you measure it in terms of intellectual development, diversity, willingness to struggle, then we are the largest. The rest of them are collecting garbage.

I’ll give you an example to demonstrate just how ridiculous they are. We expelled someone because we discovered he was an agent of the security apparatus. He spied on us, we reported it to the leadership of the Communist Party, so he was expelled. Just recently, we heard from the Communist Union Party that the same man was offered membership in the Tartus branch. He’s an agent! How can you accept him without even asking any questions? I have to avoid the regime’s agents because infiltration into the party poses a huge danger. It would reveal all of our organizational activities. We are fighting a battle with this regime. We are not living in a democratic environment where we can open the door to anyone who wants to be a member.

Could you give me a sense of how many members each of your parties has?

We don’t announce how many members we have. That’s kept secret. Even in the last conference, the releases we issued wouldn’t name more than one person who participated on a committee and that’s usually because he’s known anyways. We have plenty of experience with secret work. But as soon as a democratic atmosphere develops, we won’t have to do anything secretly; we will be able to welcome anyone.

I get the sense that secret activities, at least within the secular opposition, is decreasing. Would you say that’s correct? One of the reasons I ask is because Farid al-Ghadry said recently on his website that secret organizations were proliferating.

No. The parties that are forming are doing so publicly. Secret activities have to decline. We are in a period of organization which is half secret, half open.

You announced on al-Mustaqila that you want to form an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood in exile. Have you been harassed or summoned to the security branches on account of this announcement?

No. I think they haven’t done anything because they think that the alliance between us and the Muslim Brotherhood won’t result in anything tangible any time soon because the parties in the Democratic National Assembly are afraid.

Do you have a sense as to how strong the Muslim Brotherhood’s following is inside Syria?

The Muslim Brotherhood has a weak following here. There is a difference between religious people who happen to oppose the regime and those who sympathize with the political organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood.

There are religious people who support our party. When I spoke to Sheikh Bayanuni, I told him “you don’t represent the Sunnis. The Sunnis are diverse; they are not a single body.” That’s something that the West still doesn’t understand. And not everyone who is devout, who prayers and fasts, is automatically an enemy of the West. That type of thinking is a huge mistake.

Why did you choose to align yourself with the Muslim Brotherhood? What is the long-term strategy here?

They have been harmed by despotism and so have we. Why shouldn’t we meet to bring an end to despotism? That’s our right. Second, I recognize that a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer is a Syrian citizen who has the right to participate in politics and belong to the party of his choice. The Muslim Brotherhood has the right to exist: this is the basis of democracy.

We cannot topple this regime as a people without American intervention unless we form a broad coalition. This coalition must include religious movements that are willing to embrace democracy.

So do you believe that the Muslim Brotherhood is committed to democracy?

They announce that they are. Look, someone could say that I am a former communist and the Soviet Union is undemocratic and so I shouldn’t be trusted. If we all thought like that, we would scatter to the winds. Therefore we have to converge on the lowest common denominator, which consists of two things: overthrowing this despotic regime and accepting one another in the sense that we are political parties who derive our legitimacy from the people. If the people choose one of us in the context of fair elections, that party will rule. But there has to be a rotation of power, say, every four years as happens in America.

We are supposed to make specific promises to the people. The despotic mindset doesn’t make promises. It aims to exclude and eliminate; it says it wants to change society. I don’t want to change society—that’s a mistaken way to look at it. Society will change for the better or the worse based on a multitude of factors. This is the basis for forming our alliance: we have spent too much time negating one another because we want to change all of society to fit our ideal image. We have to be citizens before we are partisans.

You expressed a willingness to ally with them, but are they willing to cooperate and coordinate with your party?

I think so. We have our differences, but they regard the future. We both agree what needs to happen now. They want an Islamic government in the future and I don’t. We live in a country of Muslims and Christians and so on and so forth and the Muslim Brotherhood only represents one segment of the Sunnis who are themselves only one sect. The Sunnis also consist of Communists and secularists and liberals, etc.

Do you think that the Muslim Brotherhood still regards non-Muslims as second-class citizens?

No, the idea of ahal ath-thimma is old and outdated. I heard Sheikh Bayanuni say that he would accept even a woman or Christian as the president of Syria.

The relationship between the opposition’s parties has a bad history. We were at one point battling the Muslim Brotherhood because ideology triumphed over politics. I am an atheist, so if I want to relate to the Muslim Brotherhood on the level of ideology, I must reject them. And if the Muslim Brotherhood wants to relate to me on the level of ideology, they must consider me an apostate. But the times have changed, and we must reprioritize politics over ideology.

We have had a painful history, but now we have to rebuild the parties on the basis of citizenship. We must recognize that the other is a citizen deserving of equal rights and political participation.

The Muslim Brotherhood enjoyed power within the government in the 1950s and there wasn’t any violence. Certainly, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood spawned parties for generations that committed acts of terrorism, but the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria is not like that.

Why do the Syrian parties split with such frequency? There are 13 Kurdish parties, almost a dozen communist parties, and in the period of five weeks, three new liberal parties were formed!

I already addressed this question. We are in a transitional state that is marked by intellectual chaos, an inability to exact change, hopelessness from the regime. There is no one who is able to unite people and lead the struggle. Sure, there are a lot of parties, but do any of these parties have a presence among the people? These are parties in name only.

You have to ask, why are these parties that exist in name only proliferating? It’s opportunism. In the context of this chaos, there will be a decisive battle fought between the regime and its supporters and an opposition that is capable of producing a platform for change. If the rest of the parties are incapable of producing such a platform, the outside powers will play a role. Many of these people will offer themselves up as agents of the West. Someone feels the regime is going to collapse and he wants a post in the new regime—how is he going to win that post? By ensuring good relations with the EU! The EU is buying agents, France is buying agents, the US is buying agents. These people in those parties are for sale.

The point is this regime is heading toward collapse. If you had asked ten years ago, “where are those dogs [party members “for sale”]?” you would have found them working with the regime.

You’ve said repeatedly that the regime is going to collapse, but how exactly do you expect this to happen? What pressures are going to induce collapse?

That doesn’t concern me. The justifications for its existence have expired. This regime was supported by the United States and by the Soviet Union. It ruled by means of terrorism: murder, torture, terror. Now it is incapable because society has rejected it. It has rejected the regime because the regime has oppressed the people, denied them their freedoms. The international arena plays a role. Hafez al-Assad was a prop of US policy in the region; he killed 30,000 people and the US didn’t say a thing. Now they kill one and look at the US response! It is because the US has realized that Syria can no longer serve American interests, so the US wants to change the regime. This is the biggest crisis that the regime is facing.

The opposition hasn’t accomplished anything in the last five years, but the situation has improved with regard to the number of political prisoners, the behavior of the secret police, and freedom of opinion. This is not the result of Bashar’s newfound rationality or the deliberate policy of the regime—it’s the result of the weakening of the regime.

The regime is facing unprecedented pressures from the US and France on account of the Iraqi issue and the assassination of Hariri. It could easily fall like Milosevic’s regime, especially since it does not have a popular base to protect it. This regime is in its death throes.

But presumably the Syrian regime, were it to come under enough pressure, would submit to American demands if only for the sake of survival. Do you think it can offer up the necessary concessions and still remain in power?

No. If it were to abandon its claim to the whole of Golan and make peace with Israel, if it were to declare an end to its enmity toward America, what is it supposed to say to the people?

What do you expect from the Mehlis report?

I am convinced that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the assassination. The loss of Lebanon was a tremendous blow politically. Lebanon was the cash cow for the Syrian regime; Rami Makhlouf alone profited billions from his electricity projects. They robbed the country and turned it into a province of Syria.

There are crimes that were committed whose sole aim was to terrify. The killing of Hariri was nothing in comparison to the murder of thousands of Lebanese. This file will be opened. Thus Syria is facing a huge crisis. If Syria looses Syria, looses its influence in Palestine, and is no longer able to play a role in Iraq, it will have failed as a regional power.

Do you hope that the Mehlis report will point the finger at the Syrian regime? Do you think that the opposition would benefit?

All I want is the truth. Of course, the mere fact that Syria has been accused of the assassination has benefited the opposition. This crime has only further demonstrated the true nature of this regime, that it only acts through murder and brute force.

You don’t fear that were the Mehlis report to blame Syria, the UN or at least the US would impose debilitating economic sanctions on Syria?

The Syrians are besieged by Muhammad Makhlouf and Rami Makhlouf more than they could possibly be besieged by the United Nations. Even the newsstands: they barely make anything, but the profits go to those cronies. They own all the restaurants. All of the oil is theirs. How could we possibly be more besieged?

What's Next? Regime Change or Not

It looks like the next step is to get the Security Council to condemn Syria on Tuesday, October 25 for not cooperating with, and lying to, the Mehlis investigation. This will be Bolton's strategy. Most probably Washington will try to copy the basic outline of Security Resolution 1559, which worked so well in compelling Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon. Resolution 1559 insisted that Syria withdraw its troops from Lebanon by a certain date or serious action would be taken by the UN. Roed Larsen, a UN official was sent to Lebanon on periodic investigative trips to determine whether Syria was complying in a timely fashion.

I suspect that the UN will not name specific sanctions to be placed on Syria at this time, but will use the threat of them in order to demand that Syria cooperate with the criminal investigation, which should now be established as the logical continuation of the Mehlis report. If Syria stonewalls the investigation, the UN will impose sanctions. In the interim, sanctions will remain undefined. If the bar for the investigation is raised too high, by demanding that top Syrian officials leave Syria to be interrogated, Syria will have to stonewall. Then the UN will have little choice but to impose sanctions.

Where this leaves Syria and the West is uncertain. On the one hand, the US says it only wants Syria to change regime behavior and that it doesn't want to change the Syrian regime. On the other hand, it looks like Washington wants the Syrian leopard to change so many of its spots that it will become a border collie. Washington's demands for behavior-change could be so radical that they become tantamount to regime change. Syria will balk. It will have sanctions imposed on it, and there will be a race to the bottom.

There is no immediate threat to the Syrian regime from inside the country. The opposition is weak and disorganized. There is also no external threat, because the US army is bogged down in Iraq. The result will be that sanctions will wear down the country over the course of several years, but only if Europe agrees to impose real, and not just symbolic sanctions.

A number of European ambassadors in Damascus have told me that Europe will resist placing economic sanctions on Syria. Why? Because they fear that if Syria collapses, the outflow of refugees will end up at Europe's doorstep. Already Kurds, Africans, and Eastern Europeans are flooding into West Europe. They cannot take in Syrians.

Israel's stand is ambiguous. Intelligence figures have warned against Syrian regime change, but Shimon Peres came out yesterday in support of regime change. Everyone seems to be of two minds about what the end game should be and what they really want.

Syria's Stand on Mehlis - The report is a Lie, but we will cooperate." This seems to be Syria's present stand toward the Mehlis report, based on the news conference at the UN yesterday with Syria’s Ambassador to the UN, Faisal Mekdad
October 21, 2005

Here are the notes I took on the radio report of the news conference with Mekdad. My notes are not a full transcript but give the main points of his argument. Here is a short news story on it.

Mekdad
We did not hinder the investigation. We gave Mehlis full access to the people he wanted. We did not interfere and gave him full cooperation.

The investigation has been conducted during an escalating media atmosphere. Leaks have been unprofessional. A great deal of the investigation deals with political analysis and not facts on the ground. We have warned of the politicization of the report.

My first reading was the fact that much of the report repeats the talk which took place right after the heinous assassination. In four months they have added very little to the first allegations.

My country is studying the report, and we will have an official announcement. It is clear the report is based on the allegations of a few witnesses. But these allegations have not been thoroughly investigated. I would like to assure you that at no point did we mislead Mehlis. We helped him, rather than impeded him.

Of course the report gives the possibility to many countries to undermine Syria and allows them to increase their pressure on us.

We shall cooperate with the ongoing investigation. We hope that in the future all these allegations concerning Syria that these matters will be investigated and everyone will be brought to justice.

We do not believe any Syrian official has been seriously implicated.

Question: What do you say to the fact that Asef Shawkat is implicated?

Answer: “I think this is a big lie. We have proof that such people were never involved in such a case.”

My view of the report is that it is not a creditable report. It has been built on a very strange synthesis based on the meeting of President Asad and Hariri. This was not the beginning of events. This investigation must go deeper into the realities.

It is all politics. There is no real background. It is political because this is the only way they could establish what they wanted. Look at the way things have been leaked. Certain foreign ministers have been working for the last weeks as if they have read everything in the report.

Lets hope that members of the Security Council will help us to get to the truth.

Question: What do you think of Zuhir Saddik’s testimony in the report?

Answer: Saddik is a liar. He is not a reliable witness. He fled from military service and took refuge in Lebanon.

Question: Economic sanctions: “What are you going to do to avoid sanctions.”

Answer: We do not believe in these sanctions. They will hurt the people. The members of the council do not want them. We are going to cooperate in bringing peace to the region and to help bring quite to the Middle East.

Question: What is necessary for you to do now?

Answer: Rafiq al-Hariri was a good friend of Syria. We want to find the people who killed him. His killing was meant to hurt us.

Question: How do you explain the fact that no one believes your story?

Answer: We believe that the true story will come out. We must see the draft resolution and then decide how to move forward.
[End]

Here is the Washington Post report. The Post and Robin Wright have been far superior to the NY Times on Syria. Anthony Shadid has just come to Damascus and to get a few stories. Bravo Washington Post.

Bush Seeks Urgent U.N. Meeting on Syria Sanctions

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 22, 2005; Page A18

President Bush called on the United Nations yesterday to meet urgently to consider taking action against Syria after a U.N. investigation implicated top officials in the regime of President Bashar Assad in the assassination of Lebanon's leading reformer.

In a sign of the sudden escalation in tension between Syria and the international community, Britain yesterday called on the world body to consider punitive sanctions on Damascus. The Security Council is expected to meet Tuesday to consider possible actions for two new resolutions, according to U.S. and U.N. officials.

Bush called the detailed U.N. investigative report into the Feb. 14 killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri "very disturbing" and asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to immediately convene the foreign ministers of the 15 Security Council members to "respond accordingly" to its allegations.

"The report suggests, strongly suggests, the politically motivated assassination of Prime Minister Hariri could not have taken place without Syrian involvement," Bush said, speaking in front of a piece of the Berlin Wall at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, Calif.

En route to Alabama with British Foreign Minister Jack Straw, Rice told reporters that the international community must "demand accountability" from Damascus. Intense diplomatic discussions are expected to continue through the weekend among U.S., British, French and Russian officials to broker a consensus behind potential punitive action, according to U.S. and U.N. officials.

Ideas under discussion range from a ban on Syrian international flights and trade limitations to an embargo on goods that can be used for military purposes, according to Western officials familiar with the diplomacy who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Envoys are also considering demanding that Assad, who inherited power from his father in 2000, require those named in the report to help in the investigation -- or take action himself against them.

At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton said pursuing the investigation is the first priority for the Security Council. "In the absence of serious Syrian cooperation on substantive matters, the mission can't get to the ultimate truth," Bolton said. "That is what it seems to me the focus [of] the U.N. Security Council should be. . . . We need to look at other steps to obtain Syrian cooperation."

The United Nations may lay out a series of steps Syria must take over a limited time, giving it an opportunity to more fully cooperate with investigators, Western envoys said. Secretary General Kofi Annan has extended the investigation, conducted by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, through Dec. 15. But a senior U.S. official involved in the diplomacy said discussions are still "in their infancy."

The Bush administration has already heavily sanctioned Syria under the provisions of anti-terrorism laws, the Patriot Act and the Syria Accountability Act. Although no options have been taken off the table, the State Department emphasized yesterday that Washington is looking for a united international response. "We seek peaceful, negotiated diplomatic solutions," said spokesman Adam Ereli.

The report stirred drama yesterday as it became clear that a key passage had been edited at the last minute and that the names of Assad family members and Syrian officials had been deleted from the version released publicly.

The original report, which became public yesterday, included allegations that two family members and three top intelligence and security officials plotted the bombing of Hariri's entourage as it drove through Beirut, killing him and 22 others.

The document, compiled after a four-month probe by Mehlis, named Gen. Assef Shawkat, Assad's brother-in-law and the head of Syrian military intelligence, and Maher Assad, the president's younger brother. A witness told Mehlis's commission that the two men and the three others decided to kill Hariri two weeks after the passage of U.N. Resolution 1559 in Sept. 2004. The resolution, co-sponsored by the United States and France, called for an end to Syria's nearly three-decade-long occupation of Lebanon.

The original version of the report cited a witness who claimed that the five officials -- including Hassan Khalil, Bahjat Suleiman and Jamil Sayyed -- met several times in Damascus, including at Shawkat's office, over the next several months to complete the planning. The final meeting was in Shawkat's home less than two weeks before the attack, it said.

The version of the report distributed at the Security Council Thursday night excluded the names, referring only to senior Lebanese and Syrian officials.

Mehlis told reporters yesterday that the names were deleted after he learned his work was going to be made public. "No one outside of the report team influenced these changes, and no changes whatsoever were suggested by the secretary general or anyone at the U.N.," Mehlis said.

Syria's ambassador to Washington, Imad Moustapha, charged yesterday that the probe was based on "tales, innuendos" and did not contain a single substantiated piece of evidence that could be used in a court of law. "It is based on political attitudes, not fact," he said in an interview. "We ended up with a political report" laden with loopholes, contradictions and "shady testimonials" from witnesses who were not credible, he added.

Bolton dismissed the denial from Syria as "ridiculous."

Syria and the Mehlis Report

From Beirut to the Beltway has a good short summary of the Mehlis report. Read the report in full here. Conclusions here.

These are the main conclusion implicating Syria

- "Building on the findings of the Commission and Lebanese investigations to date and on the basis of the material and documentary evidence collected, and the leads pursued until now, there is converging evidence pointing at both Lebanese and Syrian involvement in this terrorist act. It is a well known fact that Syrian Military Intelligence had a pervasive presence in Lebanon at the least until the withdrawal of the Syrian forces pursuant to resolution 1559. The former senior security officials of Lebanon were their appointees. Given the infiltration of Lebanese institutions and society by the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services working in tandem, it would be difficult to envisage a scenario whereby such a complex assassination plot could have been carried out without their knowledge."

- "The likely motive was political. However, since the crime was not the work of individuals but rather of a sophisticated group, it very much seems that fraud, corruption, and money-laundering could also have been motives for individuals to participate in the operation. "

- "It is the Commission’s conclusion that, after having interviewed witnesses and suspects in the Syrian Arab Republic and establishing that many leads point directly towards Syrian security officials as being involved with the assassination, it is incumbent upon Syria to clarify a considerable part of the unresolved questions. While the Syrian authorities, after initial hesitation, have cooperated to a limitedcertain degree with the Commission, several interviewees tried to mislead the investigation by giving false or inaccurate statements. The letter addressed to the Commission by the Foreign Minister of the Syrian Arab Republic proved to contain false information. The full picture of the assassination can only be reached through an extensive and credible investigation that would be conducted in an open and transparent manner to the full satisfaction of international scrutiny. "

The worst parts of the report for Syria are:

A meeting in Damascus between Mr. Hariri and President Assad on 26 August 2004
appeared to bring the conflict to a head...

Bashar to Hariri (Saad testifying): President Lahoud is me. Whatever I tell him, he follows suit.

In the meeting with Mr. Al-Moallem, Mr. Hariri complained that he believed that President Assad was being deliberately misinformed about the actions of Mr. Hariri by the Syrian security services and Mr. Sharaa about the actions of Mr. Hariri.

Hariri: “But Lebanon will never be ruled from Syria. This will no longer happen.”

During this discussion, Mr. Al-Moallem told Mr. Hariri that “we and the [security] services here have put you into a corner.” He continued, “Please do not take things lightly.”

One witness of Syrian origin but resident in Lebanon, who claims to have worked for the Syrian intelligence services in Lebanon, has stated that approximately two weeks after the adoption of Security Council resolution 1559, Maher Assad, Assef Shawkat, Hassan Khalil, Bahjat Suleyman and Jamil Al-Sayyedsenior Lebanese and Syrian officials decided to assassinate Rafik Hariri. (from a draft copy.. the final version does not name them)

Indeed, all of the source information pointed to the likelihood of Mr. Abu Adass being used by the Syrian and Lebanese authorities as a scapegoat for the crime, rather than being the instigator of crime himself. For example, one witness claimed to have seen Mr. Abu Adass in the hallway outside of General Ghazali’s office in December 2004 in Anjar. Another witness claimed that Mr. Abu Adass was currently held in prison in Syria and will be killed once this investigation is over. According to him, Mr. Abu Adass had no role in the assassination except as a decoy, and the videotape was recorded at gunpoint approximately 45 days before the assassination. He later stated that General Assef Shawkat forced Mr. Abu Adass to record the tape approximately 15 days before the assassination in Damascus.

Mr. Saddik stated that the decision to assassinate Mr. Hariri had been taken in Syria, followed by clandestine meetings in Lebanon between senior Lebanese and Syrian officers, who had been designated to plan and pave the way for the execution of the assault. These meetings started in July 2004 and lasted until December 2004. The seven senior Syrian officials and four senior Lebanese officials were alleged to have been involved in the plot.

It was indicated that President Assad would not be available for any interview.

The Commission has concluded that the Government of Syria’s lack of substantive cooperation with the Commission has impeded the investigation and made it difficult to follow leads established by the evidence collected from a variety of sources.

Mehlis Report: Shades of Grey

Top Syrian Seen as Prime Suspect in Assassination
By JOHN KIFNER and WARREN HOGE
October 21, 2005, NY Times

UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 20 - The United Nations investigation into the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri of Lebanon is focusing on the powerful brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria as the main suspect, a diplomat with intimate knowledge of the inquiry said Thursday.

The diplomat spoke as a long-awaited United Nations report on the killing made public on Thursday said it was a carefully planned terrorist act organized by high-ranking Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officers.

Though the report did not include names, the diplomat said the investigators were focusing on Syria's military intelligence chief, Asef Shawkat, the president's brother-in-law.

"Their main lead is that he is the ringleader," the diplomat said. "This is where it is heading."

Detlev Mehlis, the United Nations investigator, has been given an extension until December to continue his inquiry. He said his commission had in four months interviewed more than 400 people, reviewed 60,000 documents and arrested four high-level officials of the Lebanese "security and intelligence apparatus."

"There is evidence in abundance," the diplomat said. "But to get every piece of the puzzle they need more time." He spoke on condition of anonymity because of what he described as the extreme sensitivity of the matter.

Mr. Shawkat is considered the second most powerful man in Syria and has been seen as a likely candidate to take over the country if the embattled Mr. Assad were removed from office.

The diplomat, describing Syria as a "country run by a little family clique," said the involvement of any one in Mr. Assad's inner circle would be a severe blow to the government.

"There is absolutely no doubt, it goes right to the top," he said. "This is Murder Inc."

In his report, Mr. Mehlis said the killing last February was carried out by "a group with an extensive organization and considerable resources and capabilities."

The report said, "There is converging evidence pointing at both Lebanese and Syrian involvement in this terrorist act."

The 54-page report said the crime had been planned "over many months" and that the movements of Mr. Hariri and the convoy he traveled in had been closely monitored with his "itineraries recorded in detail."

As evidence of the coordination, the report listed cellphone records that showed close street-by-street observation of his convoy by people planning the killing. It also said the telecommunications antenna near the crime scene had been tampered with.

Mr. Hariri and 15 others died when a bomb blew up his six-car convoy on a downtown Beirut street.

It said the van containing the bomb had earlier been seen in a Syrian military base in Lebanon.

Mr. Mehlis and his investigators spent several days in September interrogating Syrian security officials in a resort near the Syria-Lebanon border, and his report said that leads developed there "point directly towards Syrian security officials as being involved with the assassination."

Indications that the Mehlis report would reveal a Syrian role in the Hariri killing have focused pressure on Mr. Assad and caused intense anxiety in political circles in Damascus and Beirut.

As the investigation tightened this month, the Syrian interior minister, Ghazi Kanaan, who for two decades had called the shots in Lebanon as Syria's virtual proconsul, was found dead in his Damascus office, shot in the mouth with his own pistol.

Syria's official news agency announced that the death had been a suicide.

The United Nations investigators - as well as many Lebanese and Syrians - cast doubt on that account, suspecting instead that he was either killed by government agents or forced to kill himself under some threat.

Investigators had two theories, the diplomat said: "One was that he had either given information to Mr. Mehlis or was about to. The other was that he was involved in plotting a coup."

Reuters is reporting:
Lebanon and Syria both distanced themselves from the contents of the 53-page report by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis and his 30 investigators.

Hariri and 20 others were killed last February 14 by a bomb blast in Beirut that Mehlis said ``could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials and could not have been further organized without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security forces.''

Lebanese President Emile Lahoud's office said some information in the report was part of a campaign against him, while Syria said the report was politically motivated and untrue.

``The report is far from the truth. It was not professional and will not arrive at the truth but will be part of a deception and a great tension in this region,'' Syria's information minister, Mahdi Dakhl-Allah told Al Jazeera television.

The report said the probe was still incomplete and in an accompanying letter, released late on Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan extended the team's work until December 15.

One witness quoted in the report said Gen. Assef Shawkat, the brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, set up an Islamic militant, Ahmed Abu Adass, as a decoy to claim responsibility for the plot.

Shawkat, Syria's military intelligence chief, allegedly forced Adass to confess on a videotape two weeks before the assassination. But the suicide bomber was probably an Iraqi who thought he was killing Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a visitor in Beirut shortly before the bombing, the report said.

LEBANESE PRESIDENT GOT A CALL

Mehlis' report was the first official document to link Syria to the killing and was bound to heighten tensions in the region. Two anti-Syrian members of the Lebanese parliament immediately called for Lahoud to resign.

Lahoud, an ally of Syria, received a phone call minutes before the blast from the brother of a key figure in the plot, Ahmad Abdel-Al, who had phoned ``all the important figures in this investigation.'' Abdel-Al is a leader of a pro-Syrian Lebanese charity group.

The United States has been talking to France and Britain on possible U.N. Security Council resolutions critical of Syria over its alleged involvement in the killing and other meddling in Lebanon, despite the withdrawal of its troops last April.

After the report's release, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said Washington would decide what to do in a few days but ''obviously'' had ``considered various contingencies.''

But Syria's Assad insisted last week that his country was ''100 percent innocent'' in the assassination.

However, Mehlis concluded the sophisticated plot took months of preparation and the motive was primarily political because of Hariri's opposition to Syrian domination of Lebanon. But it said some of the participants may have been motivated by ''fraud, corruption, and money-laundering.''

``Given the infiltration of Lebanese institutions and society by the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence working in tandem, it would be difficult to envisage a scenario whereby such a complex assassination plot could have been carried out without their knowledge,'' Mehlis wrote.

He said several Syrians interviewed had given false or inaccurate statements, including Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara and his deputy, Walid al-Mualem.

According to one witness, a senior Lebanese security official went several times to Syria to plan the crime, meeting once at the Meridian Hotel in Damascus and several times at the Presidential Palace and the office of a senior Syrian security official. The last meeting was held 7-10 days before the assassination, the report said.

The report presented damning evidence on the four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals arrested and charged earlier in connection with Hariri's killing, on Mehlis' recommendation.

One witness approached investigators to say he had met one of the four, Gen. Mustapha Hamdan, commander of the Republican Guard Brigade, in October 2004.

'BYE, BYE HARIRI'

Hamdan talked very negatively about Hariri, accusing him of being pro-Israeli, the witness said. The general then ended the conversation by stating, ``We are going to send him on a trip -- bye, bye Hariri,'' the report said.

The Mehlis commission interviewed more than 400 people, reviewed 60,000 documents, identified several suspects and established numerous important leads in its first four months.

Other figures that unidentified witnesses linked to the assassination plot included Gen. Rustom Ghazali, head of the Syrian military intelligence service in Lebanon and Brig. Gen. Jamil al-Sayyed, head of a Lebanese security force.

The report did not, however, mention Gen, Ghazi Kanaan, the former head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, who Syrian officials said committed suicide on October 12.

"Washington and Damascus Between Confrontation and Cooperation," By Moshe Ma'oz

Moshe Ma'oz is Israel's foremost Syria scholar. He wrote the following report for the US Institute of Peace in August. It is the best overview of how and why Syria-US relations have arrived at their present state of confrontation. His proposal for how both sides can climb down from this confrontation is reasonable. It probably makes too much sense to be followed by either side. In my view, he correctly emphasizes the extent to which ideology has determined the stance of both sides. He believes that ideology has gotten in the way of responsible politics.

It is hard to see how a climb down can be managed now that the Mehlis Report has been published. It is grey, but Syria is clearly being implicated. No indictments have yet been made. Until indictments are made both sides will engage in a war of words to try to sway public opinion to their side. The hawks in the West and Lebanon will insist it makes a clear link to the highest levels of Syria's leadership. Syria will insist that it is murky and highly politicized, that there is no smoking gun, and that Syria is being implicated without proof.

Washington and Damascus Between Confrontation and Cooperation
By Moshe Ma'oz
AUGUST 2005
United States Institute of Peace

Introduction
Washington and Damascus are on a collision course. President George Bush apparently harbors deep antagonism toward President Bashar Asad. The U.S. government is applying economic and diplomatic sanctions against Syria and may be considering military measures. There are many bones of contention between the two countries:

• Bashar vehemently opposed the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, claiming that U.S. actions have served Israeli strategic interests while posing a serious potential threat to Syria and other Arab countries. • Bashar has continued to provide logistical help to Saddam’s loyalists and allowed Arab combatants to cross from Syrian territory into Iraq to join anti-U.S. insurgents/
terrorists there.

• Damascus has continued to sponsor other U.S.-designated terrorist groups, including the anti-Israeli Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad, hailing them as “national liberation movements.”

• Syria has continued to maintain its alliance with Iran and its military ties with North Korea, both members of Bush’s “Axis of Evil.” According to the Congressional Research Service, aid from Iran, China, and North Korea is essential to the further development, production, and stockpiling of Syria’s WMD, notably chemical warheads, apparently to counterbalance Israel’s nuclear capability. (Alfred B. Prados, Syria: U.S. Relations and Bilateral Issues [Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, March 25, 2005]; and Central Intelligence Agency, Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, 1 January through 30 June 2002).

• Syria continued to control Lebanon until April 2005, despite U.S. demands from 2003 onward that Damascus pull out its military forces and secret agents from that country. After the assassination on February 14, 2005, of Rafiq Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, the Bush administration increased pressure on Syria to withdraw. Two months later, on April 26, 2005, Syria completed its withdrawal.

• The Bush administration has underscored the need for greater freedom and democracy in Syria (and in all Arab countries). Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has labeled Bashar’s regime “tyrannical.”

U.S.-Syrian antagonism has accelerated steadily since the ascendancy of Bashar to the Syrian presidency in July 2000 and the election of Bush as U.S. president in November 2000, suggesting that the antagonism is not only based on strategic and political interests but also motivated by ideology and perhaps by personal animosity. Each leader views the other as holding a belief system antithetical to his own. Bashar considers Bush to be anti-Arab and pro-Israel while Bush regards Bashar as anti-American and a terror sponsoring tyrant. The crucial question is, Where is this confrontation leading and what options does each of the leaders have? Will current tensions escalate and lead to further U.S. sanctions, to the application of military pressures, and, in the worst-case scenario, to the U.S. occupation of Syria? What are Bashar’s options? He can choose to fully or partly accept U.S. dictates—as he has in the case of the recent Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon—or he can try to resist U.S. demands in the name of Arabism (and perhaps also Islam), as well as to help create an anti-American Shi’i axis with Iran and Hezbollah. (The Alawite religious minority, to which Bashar belongs, considers itself a part of the Shi’i religion).

What are the chances for a more peaceful outcome? Under what conditions and circumstances can Washington and Damascus cooperate to advance their vital strategic interests? There is a recent history of cooperation. President George Bush Sr., and President Bill Clinton cooperated with Bashar’s father, President Hafiz al-Asad, in fighting the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in 1990–91 and in advancing the Syrian-Israeli peace process from 1991 to 2000. To be sure, that U.S.-Syrian collaboration occurred even though Asad was a more brutal tyrant than his son has proved to be and was guilty of many of the same “transgressions” of which Bashar is currently being accused: Asad sponsored terrorism, occupied Lebanon, cultivated Hezbollah, formed an alliance with Iran, and developed WMD with Russian, Chinese, and North Korean help. Why, then, does it seem so difficult for Bush and Bashar to cooperate as their fathers did? Is it because they are heavily influenced by their conservative circles and their respective ideologies—Bashar by pan-Arabism and his desire to enhance his legitimacy in the Arab world, and Bush by his religious beliefs and by the more conservative members of his party, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and Israel?

What role does the current Iraqi situation— so different from the situation in 1990 when U.S. and Syrian interests coincided—play in contributing to the clash between Syria and the United States? Does Bush’s tough position on Syria derive also from his zero tolerance toward terrorism after 9/11? The chief aims of this report are to examine the causes of the current U.S.-Syrian confrontation, to compare it with U.S.-Syrian cooperation under the leadership of Bush Sr., Clinton, and Asad Sr.—and to outline options and scenarios for the future of relations between Washington and Damascus. Two scenarios are examined. The first, which mirrors what seems to be a strong tendency of the Bush administration, is that Washington punishes Damascus in an effort to force a change in Syrian policies or perhaps even a change in regime. The second scenario envisages Washington negotiating with Damascus a framework for bilateral cooperation based on mutual interests and understandings. This report presents a third option, one that seems more constructive and nuanced than the first scenario and more realistic than the second: namely, that the Bush administration use a mixture of sticks and carrots to induce Syria to change its behavior and to reward it for doing so.

Bush and Bashar : Deteriorating Relations
“The U.S. has a growing list of differences with Damascus . . . relations . . .
are worsening.”
—SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE (WASHINGTON POST, FEBRUARY 16, 2005)

When George W. Bush won the U.S. presidential election in 2000, Bashar expected that the new president would continue Bush Sr.’s legacy of an evenhanded approach to settling the Arab-Israeli conflict. According to the Syrian Ba’ath newspapers, Bush Jr. would not let the “Jews who comprise only one percent of the U.S. population continue to be the political decision makers in the superpower that controls the world today” (al-Ba’ath, November 4, 2000). But within a short period, Bashar encountered a new U.S. administration that became more anti-Syrian and more pro-Israeli than the previous administrations of Bill Clinton and George Bush Sr. These new attitudes were most manifest in the Defense Department, as well as in Congress. Initially, while Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to counterbalance these anti-Syrian tendencies and court Damascus, President Bush held pragmatic diplomatic positions toward Damascus. He distanced himself from the

Congress-sponsored Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Act (SALSA) of September 2002, which sought to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions against Syria. He asked the House International Relations Committee to delay the proceedings regarding this bill lest it narrow U.S. options and affect interests concerning Syria. But in October 2003, with the U.S. military heavily engaged in Iraq, Bush dropped his opposition to the SALSA, which was then approved by almost all members of the Congress and subsequently signed by the president. Around the same time, Bush approved post facto an Israeli air strike on an alleged Palestinian terrorist base near Damascus, the first such strike since the 1970s. This action was in retaliation for a suicide bombing by Islamic Jihad at an Israeli restaurant in Haifa. Bush stated after the Israeli raid in Syria, “Israel’s got the right to defend itself. Israel must not feel constrained in defending its homeland” (New York Times, October 7, 2003).

By that time, Bush also seems to have developed toward Bashar a personal and an ideological antipathy, which some observers contend has since shaped Washington policy toward Damascus (see, for example, David Brooks’s remarks at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, February 24, 2005). Bashar had certainly contributed to Bush’s hostile attitude, not least by his vehement opposition to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Probably influenced by his conservative old guard, Bashar responded by and large in a defiant manner to Bush’s requests to change his behavior and policies, presenting himself as the defender of Iraq and Arabism. But in mid-2003, when he realized that U.S. forces deployed in neighboring Iraq were potentially endangering his rule, Bashar began making halfhearted attempts to mend fences with Washington. He has partly cooperated with the United States in preventing human and material assistance from reaching Iraqi insurgents and in detecting al Qaeda terrorists. Syria, which was not involved in the attacks of 9/11, has also partly cooperated with the CIA in hunting down al Qaeda activists. In addition, immediately after the 9/11 attacks, Asad sent a cable to President Bush expressing his condolences (Colin L. Powell, on-the-record press briefing, Washington, D.C., September 14, 2001). Most recently, Bashar withdrew troops from Lebanon, suggested renewing the peace process with Israel, promised to close the offices of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Damascus, and has periodically restrained Hezbollah. But, as is now apparent, Bush has not been impressed with what Washington regards as Bashar’s “hollow measures,” holding against Bashar grievances related to Syria’s positions on terrorism, Iraq, WMD, Israel, Lebanon, and internal democracy. Let us examine each of these issues in turn.

Terrorism
“Syria must choose the right side in the war on terror by closing terrorist camps and expelling terrorist organizations.”
—PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH (SPEECH GIVEN ON JUNE 24, 2002)

Systematic combat against terrorism has been at the top of President Bush’s agenda, particularly since 9/11. Dividing the world into those who support terrorism and those who oppose it, Bush makes no distinction between international anti-American terror, al Qaeda style, and the nationalist anti-Israeli terrorism of Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. Bashar, in contrast, maintains that these organizations “are not terrorist movements, but national liberation movements” (al-Majd, Jordan, October 8, 2001). Unlike his father, Bashar openly backed these organizations and was particularly impressed with Hasan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader. By siding with Hezbollah as well as with Hamas and Islamic Jihad during the Palestinian al-Aqsa intifada, Bashar aimed to demonstrate his pan-Arab, anti-Israeli ideology and policy. Such a position served to build his legitimacy in Syria and among other Arab nations. Bush, however, unlike his predecessors, has consistently denounced Syria (and Iran) for their support of terrorism, both before and after the U.S. conquest of Iraq.

Iraq“[The] American attack against Iraq is aimed at dividing this country, which is Israel’s strategic goal.”
—SYRIAN VICE PRESIDENT ABD AL-HALIM KHADDAM (SYRIAN NEWS AGENCY, SEPTEMBER 6,
2002)

From the time he first assumed power, Bashar carried on his father’s efforts to improve Syria’s relations with Iraq. Violating U.S.-backed UN sanctions against Iraq, Damascus allowed Iraqi oil to flow into Syria and Syrian goods into Iraq, for the benefit of both economies. With the U.S. occupation of Iraq, Iraqi oil ceased flowing to Syria. A nonpermanent member of the UN Security Council from 2001 to 2003, Syria supported Resolution 1441 of November 2002, demanding that Iraq permit the renewal of UN supervisors’ work; but, according to Damascus, the support was offered with the intention of preventing a U.S. offensive against Iraq. Indeed, unlike other Arab capitals, from the start of the diplomatic prelude to the war, Damascus vehemently opposed the U.S. “barbaric” attack, alleging that it was launched because the Americans “wanted oil and . . . to redraw the map of the region in accordance with Israeli interests” (al-Safir, Beirut, March 27, 2003). Bashar and other senior Syrian leaders sharply denounced the U.S. conduct, and Faruq al-Shara, the foreign minister, equated it to “Nazi-German behavior” (quoted by Eyal Zisser, In the Name of the Father [Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2003], p. 191). Damascus also tacitly encouraged public demonstrations against and harassment of U.S. institutions and diplomats in Syrian cities.

Furiously reacting, Washington accused Damascus of harboring the Saddam regime’s fugitives, weapons, and monies, as well as of helping armed Arab volunteers to cross into Iraq and join the anti-American insurgency. On June 18, 2003, U.S. troops attacked a convoy—allegedly containing Iraqi fugitives—inside Syrian territory, killing many Syrian soldiers. This might have been a signal to Bashar that he would face further U.S. military measures if he did not change his behavior. In much the same vein, a U.S. official labeled Syria a “rogue nation” and accused it of “behaving badly,” phrases suggesting that Syria could become the next target of U.S. military assault and occupation (al-Hayat, July 28, 2003; New York Times, October 12, 2003).

Although President Bush signed the SALSA in 2003, he waited—perhaps to give Bashar time to improve his behavior—until May 2004 to order the implementation of economic sanctions against Syria for failing to cease completely support for the anti-American insurgency in Iraq and for anti-Israeli terrorism by Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. Bashar became deeply concerned, not about the U.S. sanctions, which have in fact been rather mild, but about the deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq, his next-door neighbor. He obviously has hoped for the failure of the U.S. occupation of Iraq and has been encouraged by the continued anti-American insurgency. But Bashar has also realized that the United States has been persistent in implementing its goals in Iraq and has refused to withdraw its troops under the pressure of the insurgency. Thus he is still worried that Syria might indeed become the next target of an American military attack or that Syria could be isolated in the region and pressured to democratize. In either case, this could mean the demise of Bashar’s rule in Damascus. Given these concerns, Bashar has endeavored since mid-2003 to improve relations with Bush by increasing his cooperation with the United States on closing the Syrian-Iraqi border to the continued flow of anti-American guerrillas and on investigating the money Saddam Hussein had deposited in Syrian banks. Damascus also supported the U.S.-sponsored resolution at the UN Security Council authorizing UN cooperation with the U.S.-led multinational force in the reconstruction of Iraq; backed the Iraqi national election in January 2005; and made several conciliatory statements toward the United States, including at the Ba’ath Party Congress in early June 2005 (Washington Post, June 10, 2005). But Bush and his administration have not been impressed and have continued to denounce Bashar sharply for his misdeeds in Iraq, sponsoring terror, associating with the “Axis of Evil,” and developing WMD.

The Axis of Evil and Weapons of Mass Destruction
For years Syria was considered by Washington to belong, together with Libya and Cuba, to a “junior varsity Axis of Evil,” mainly because it has developed WMD. In the wake of its vociferous opposition to the U.S. war against Iraq, and its initial assistance to Saddam’s war efforts, Syria has been de facto “upgraded” and has replaced Iraq as a full-fledged member of Bush’s “Axis of Evil,” alongside Iran and North Korea. The United States and Israel may also consider Syria an important member in a regional alliance with Iran and Hezbollah. This alliance has cooperated mainly in carrying out anti-Israeli and, during the 1980s, anti-American terrorist and guerrilla actions. Damascus has also obtained Iranian help in providing weapons, training, and intelligence to Hezbollah, as well as in developing Syria’s long-range missile system. Following the assassination of Rafiq Hariri in Beirut on February 14, 2005, Damascus and Teheran declared a common front vis-à-vis the U.S. threat to dislodge Syrian control of Lebanon (Financial Times, February 17, 2005). Syria has been assisted not only by Iran but also by North Korea in building its longrange ballistic missiles. A December 2001 report by the CIA claims that “Damascus also continued its efforts to assemble—probably with considerable North Korean assistance — liquid fueled Scud C missiles,” which can reach Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, and most of Israel. Syria has also developed chemical and possibly biological weapons and allegedly started a civic nuclear power program with Moscow’s help (Prados, Syria: U.S. Relations and Bilateral Issues). Significantly, previous U.S. administrations had overlooked Syrian missiles and chemical programs, possibly regarding them as part of a justified deterrence strategy visà- vis Israel’s nuclear capability. These administrations considered President Hafiz al-Asad as a potential regional partner who could help contain Iran and Iraq, stabilize Lebanon, and make peace with Israel. But as we know, this U.S. grand design was not implemented, in part because Syria and Israel could not reach a peace settlement.

Israel“The Golan has a place in the people’s heart more than Judea and Samaria.”
—ARIEL SHARON (HA’ARETZ, DECEMBER 28, 2003)

The collapse in March 2000 of the Syrian-Israeli peace talks taking place under U.S. auspices paved the way for the renewal of the long and bitter conflict between Damascus and Jerusalem. And when the Palestinian intifada erupted later that year, Bashar hailed it and subsequently permitted Hamas and Islamic Jihad to use Damascus as a base from which to launch terrorist attacks against Israel (including a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on February 25, 2005). To foster his legitimacy as a pan-Arab leader, Bashar complemented his logistical support for the Palestinian cause with crude anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish rhetoric. Bashar said that Israel was an “illegitimate state” and “a racist society, even more racist than the Nazis.” In May 2001, in the presence of Pope John Paul II near the Syrian-Israeli cease-fire line, Bashar urged that “Christians and Muslims should join in confronting Israel” and denounced “Jews who try to kill the principles of all religions with the same mentality with which they betrayed Jesus Christ and the same way they tried to kill the Prophet Muhammed” (New York Times, May 11, 2001).

Washington strongly protested these unprecedented slurs, while anti-Syrian feelings deepened among Israeli Jews and American Jews. And when, in December 2003, eight months after the beginning of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, Bashar suggested renewing peace negotiations with Israel, most Israeli Jews doubted Bashar’s sincerity. His enhanced alliances with Hezbollah and with Iran—archenemies of Israel and America—have increased mistrust of Bashar in both of those countries. Sharon and Bush rejected Bashar’s proposal to renew peace talks with Israel, asserting that Damascus must first stop sponsoring Palestinian and Lebanese terrorist organizations and withdraw from Lebanon. But Bashar would not comply until April 2005 (see below), even though he had already lost his justification for supporting the Hezbollah cause, given that Israel withdrew its troops from southern Lebanon in May 2000.

Lebanon
“Syria must also end its occupation of Lebanon.”
—PRESIDENT GEORGE BUSH (SPEAKING IN BRUSSELS, REPORTED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES,

Historically and ideologically, Damascus has thought of Lebanon as “Western” Syria, part of “Greater Syria,” and has never had formal diplomatic relations with Beirut. Damascus has also regarded Lebanon, particularly the Biqa valley, as a vital strategic asset in case of a war with Israel, as well as highly valuable to the Syrian economy. After the eruption of Lebanon’s civil war in 1975, the Lebanese Maronite-led government asked Damascus to intervene militarily to defeat the Muslim-Palestinian insurgency. Syria responded by dispatching its troops to Lebanon in 1976, and in a series of bloody battles Syria defeated the insurgents and assumed control of the country. The Ta’if Agreement, reached in 1989 under the auspices of the Arab League, and the Syrian-Lebanese Brotherhood and Friendship Pact of 1991 in many respects prolonged Syrian control over Lebanon. (Syria agreed in the Ta’if Agreement to relocate its troops to the Lebanese Biqa valley by 1992, but it did not implement the plan fully, withdrawing less than half of its troops from Lebanon). Although the Ta’if Agreement gave the Lebanese government the option to request Syrian military withdrawal, successive Lebanese governments—each of them practically formed by Damascus—did not invoke that option. Meanwhile, Syria continued strengthening its indirect domination.

The Lebanese people have been divided between those (mostly Maronites, Druze, and Sunnis) who want full independence from Damascus and those (mostly Shiites and especially Hezbollah) who support a continued Syrian presence. Until recently, the international community—including Arab states, the United States, and France (the oldest friend of Lebanon)—preferred to maintain the status quo. Only since the accession of Bashar and Bush have matters gradually changed. Domestic Lebanese opposition to Syrian domination has increased noticeably, owing in part to Bashar’s weakness and his growing sympathy for Hezbollah, while the 9/11 megaterror provoked Bush’s intense antagonism to any kind of terrorism and his antipathy to Bashar’s conduct.

The U.S. Congress initially took the lead in an attempt to dislodge Syria from Lebanon, launching, with American Jewish and American Lebanese backing, the legislative process that led eventually to Bush signing the SALSA in December 2003. Earlier in 2003, senior U.S. officials called upon Syria to withdraw its “occupation army” from Lebanon. In July 2003, Damascus redeployed its troops in Lebanon and withdrew several thousand soldiers, but some fourteen thousand troops remained, in addition to many hundreds of Syrian intelligence agents. Subsequently, more pressure was exerted on Syria by the United States, the United Nations, Arab states, and, for the first time, France. In September 2004, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1559, jointly sponsored by the United States and France, calling for “all remaining foreign forces [i.e., Syrian and Iranian] to withdraw from Lebanon” and for Hezbollah’s armed faction to be dismantled.

Damascus, however, would not comply, claiming that its troops in Lebanon were not foreign and that Hezbollah was a “liberation movement.” Lebanon’s prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, resigned several weeks later on October 20, 2004, ostensibly in protest of the Syrian- imposed three-year extension of Lebanese president Emile Lahoud’s term in office—an extension, in effect, of Syrian indirect control. Less than four months later, Hariri was assassinated in Beirut by an unknown organization. Many Lebanese believe that Damascus, seeking to eliminate a serious opponent to its continued domination of Lebanon, was involved in the assassination. Washington reacted by promptly recalling its ambassador from Damascus, linking Syria’s occupation of Lebanon to Hariri’s assassination. The United

States led, with Arab and European support, an intense diplomatic campaign against Syria’s continued occupation of Lebanon, threatening to accelerate its economic and diplomatic sanctions against Damascus, and requested a fresh UN resolution against Syria. Bashar reacted by “redeploying” several thousand of his troops in Lebanon, but until April 2005 continued to evade Bush’s demand to withdraw also Syrian secret service agents and to end the occupation of Lebanon. Many Lebanese from different religious communities staged several peaceful demonstrations in Beirut, demanding that Syria leave and that the pro-Syrian government resign. On March 1, 2005, the Lebanese government of Umar Karami did so, further weakening Bashar’s position. On March 5, 2005, Bashar announced the phased withdrawal of his army, first to Lebanon’s Biqa valley, and eventually, on April 26, 2005, across the Lebanese-Syrian border. But he stated that “Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon does not mean the absence of Syria’s role. Syria’s strength and its role in Lebanon is not dependent on the presence of its forces in Lebanon” (Washington Post, March 6, 2005).

Indeed, Bashar can ill afford to give up all his influence in Lebanon—Syria’s strategic asset—lest this also damage Syria’s economy and particularly Bashar’s own prestige at home. He is deeply concerned about Bush’s attempt to use the Lebanese crisis to isolate him—and, perhaps, to eliminate him. Bashar appears to have authorized some indirect but crude demonstrations of Syria’s important role in maintaining Lebanon’s political security. On March 8, 2005, Damascus’s close Lebanese ally Hezbollah staged a huge pro- Syrian demonstration in Beirut. During that same month, a series of deadly explosions occurred in Christian neighborhoods of Beirut, perhaps intended to signal the security hazards attendant upon Syria’s departure. And on June 5, 2005, an anti-Syrian journalist, Samir Kassir, was assassinated in Beirut.

Beyond Lebanon, Bashar faces another crucial challenge, or demand, posed by Bush: namely, introducing freedom and democracy in Syria. Pressure on Bashar to move in this direction has been intensified by the democratic elections that were conducted in January 2005 in both Iraq and Palestine, by the four-stage elections held in Lebanon in May and June 2005, as well as by President Hosni Mubarak’s decision to change the constitution of Egypt to allow more than one candidate to run in the presidential election scheduled to take place in Egypt in September 2005.

Tyranny vs. Democracy
“Syria [is] one of several ‘outposts of tyranny’ in the world.”
—SECRETARY OF STATE CONDOLEEZZA RICE (NEW YORK TIMES, FEBRUARY 15, 2005)

But this so-called Damascus Spring did not last long. While the new measures did not produce a significant improvement in the Syrian economy, Bashar, influenced by the conservative old guard, became concerned lest the political opening undermine his regime. In 2001, he ordered an end to political forums and the dismissal or arrest of intellectual activists, whom he labeled as “opportunists,” “Zionist spies,” and “U.S. agents.” As it happened, the U.S. administration became increasingly interested in issues of democracy and reform in Syria only after the Iraq war, partly as a justification for eliminating Saddam’s regime. And since his reelection as president in 2004, Bush, as a would-be world reformer, has stressed the notions of liberty and freedom from tyranny and has added to his previous list of demands from Syria by calling for Bashar to respect these ideals.

If Bush during his current term of office continues to give priority to democratization and freedom from tyranny in Syria (and in the broader Middle East), the confrontation between Washington and Damascus is likely to become more intense. Bush may be morally and ethically right in his approach to these issues, but such an approach could be problematic. Even U.S. allies in the region—including the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia—are reluctant to fully embrace such notions, lest their personal autocratic regimes collapse and be replaced by militant Islamic, anti-American systems. Furthermore, unless forced by U.S. military power, Bashar is not likely to relinquish his rule, his ballistic missiles (which he sees as his vital deterrent force), or his alliance with Iran.

Prospects, Options, and Scenarios
Yet it would appear that President Bashar prefers to negotiate a deal with the United States than to further antagonize it. Such a deal would allow Bashar to stay in power, advance domestic reform with U.S. assistance, retrieve the Golan Heights from Israel, and establish constructive relations with the new Iraqi regime. In return, Bashar would make peace with Israel, give up his WMD—provided Israel reciprocates in kind—and disengage from Iran, as well as stop supporting the militants within Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.

However, Bush has so far dismissed Bashar’s overtures and insists that the Syrian
president must first accede to U.S. demands—which, of course, would mean that Bashar
would have to give up his major assets and bargaining chips. It would appear that Bush, partly because of Bashar’s initially defiant and evasive conduct, does not want to deal with Bashar, and instead seeks to subjugate him—perhaps even to eliminate him. Backed by his new secretary of state, Congress, most of the media, and some think tanks, Bush seems to be determined to intensify his confrontation with Damascus. How practicable, though, is such a policy, and what dangers might it bring? And what are Syria’s options in this confrontation scenario?

Scenario I: Confrontation and Punishment
“For three transgressions of Damascus and for four, I will not revoke its punishment.” —AMOS 1:3

The United States has at least three options in pursuing an aggressive policy toward Syria: sanctions, military pressure, and occupation. Option A: Sanctions. The United States can work to isolate Syria regionally and internationally, stepping up economic and diplomatic sanctions while endeavoring to promote domestic democratic opposition to Bashar’s regime. The aims of such a U.S. policy would be to bring about the collapse of Bashar’s regime, his capitulation and cooperation (along similar lines to the case of Libyan leader Mu’ammar Qaddafi), or a regime change in Damascus. Yet, economic sanctions, although painful, would not be very effective, since

The volume of Syrian-U.S. trade is small—about $214 million in exports and $259 million in imports annually (Alfred B. Prados and Jeremy M. Sharp, Syria: Political Conditions and Relations with the United States after the Iraq War [Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, January 10, 2005], p. 23). Syria’s major trading partners are in Europe, and they are unlikely to impose either economic or diplomatic sanctions on Damascus. Indeed, despite U.S. requests to impose such sanctions, European countries, Russia, China, and several Arab states continue to maintain diplomatic relations with Syria. In sum, U.S. sanctions, although damaging to the Syrian economy and Bashar’s prestige, are unlikely to bring about Bashar’s replacement, especially not by a democratic regime.

Option B: Military Pressure. The United States can exercise military pressures on Syria—by selective bombings or aggressive military incursions into Syria. Such measures may induce Damascus to change its policies on Iraq, Iran, WMD, and terrorism, as well as cause a regime change. Bashar might respond by adopting more effective measures to prevent Arab combatants crossing from Syria to Iraq; by further restraining Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah; and by announcing and partly introducing more reforms in Syria’s economic and political systems. He would be unlikely, however, to relinquish his indirect influence in Lebanon, his WMD, his alliance with Iran, or his own rule by conducting fully free and democratic elections. He would be more likely to fall from power if the Alawi military elite were to see the introduction of such measures and reforms as a sign of Bashar’s weakness and replace him with an uncompromising Alawi officer.

Another possible repercussion of U.S. military pressure on Syria is that it could consolidate Bashar’s domestic backing and the support of Iran and Hezbollah for Bashar’s regime. Such a U.S. policy might also unleash anti-American terror and worsen the United States’ already unflattering image as a brutal power in the Arab and Muslim world and beyond. And if Washington chose secretly to encourage Israel to punish Syria for backing terrorist attacks by Hamas and Islamic Jihad by, for example, selectively bombing Syrian military positions, such action might damage further the American (and Israeli) position in the region and could undermine the U.S.-sponsored Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Option C: Occupation. A third option is the U.S. occupation of Syria. This option has been periodically advocated by the more extremist factions in the current U.S. administration, by Congress, and by think tanks such as the Hudson Institute. If the United States were able to reallocate sufficient forces from Iraq and elsewhere, it could fairly easily occupy Syria, but it would be unable to control its population of eighteen million. The U.S. Army would be likely to encounter fierce insurgency in Syria as well as anti-American terrorist actions (by Hezbollah and, indirectly, by Iran) outside the country. The United States’ image would be devastated in the Arab and Muslim world; it would be seen as a neo-“crusader” power occupying the “beating heart” of Arab nationalism and an important Islamic center.

As the preceding discussion of these three options has indicated, a policy of confronting Syria is unlikely to serve U.S. interests. It is certainly not in U.S. interests to push Bashar into cementing a militant axis with Iran and Hezbollah, thus promoting anti- American and anti-Israeli terrorism. Furthermore, the chances of pro-American democratic Syrian forces toppling Bashar’s regime are very slim. The U.S.-sponsored Syrian Reform Party does not have much credibility among Syrians, and democratic elements in Syria are far too weak to cause a regime change. The strongest popular movements in Syria are Muslim militants and conservatives, and they are certainly not pro-American or pro-Israeli. The only group that can depose Bashar is the Syrian old guard, notably, senior Alawi officers such as Bashar’s brother-in-law, General Asif Shawkat—but there is no guarantee that they would be more inclined than Bashar to accept Bush’s terms.

Scenario II: Engagement and Cooperation
If, then, a confrontational policy poses significant problems for the United States, what about a policy of rapprochement?

U.S.-Syrian rapprochement, based on mutual understanding and cooperation between leaders of the two countries, would likely become a win-win situation and serve the interests of Washington and Damascus, as well as of Jerusalem and other Middle Eastern centers. Such an outcome could only come about, however, under the following conditions.

• Bush does not insist on a regime change in Damascus, or on fully democratizing the Syrian political system, but is content with gradual reforms, such as those already partly instituted by Bashar, as well as with Syrian steps to safeguard human and civil rights, give greater freedom to the press, and create better representation of the Syrian people in state institutions. • Bashar, as a confidence-building measure, initially commits himself to stopping his support for Iraqi insurgents, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad and to preparing his people for peace with Israel (other differences could be settled during subsequent U.S.-Syrian negotiations).

• Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon drops his refusal to renew the peace process with Syria and is prepared in principle to return the Golan Heights to Syria within the context of a full peace agreement with Damascus. Peace with Syria would serve major interests for Israel: neutralizing Hezbollah as a military threat, limiting the activities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad (whose headquarters are in Damascus), helping to solve the Palestinian issue (for example, by settling in Syria the Palestinian refugees residing in Syria and Lebanon), and facilitating Israel’s acceptance in the region.

For Syria, peace with Israel and cooperation with the United States would remove a dual strategic threat—from the south (Israel) and the east (Iraq). It would also expand Syrian trade with Iraq and, if U.S. financial help were forthcoming, significantly improve the Syrian economy. With a successful peace agreement, Damascus would no longer need Iran’s support, would lose its rationale for developing WMD, and would have no reason to sponsor anti-Israeli terrorist groups.

For Washington, rapprochement with Damascus would include, in due course, erasing Syria from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, and committing itself to helping Syria develop its economy. In return, Syria would contribute to the stabilization of Iraq—through political and economic cooperation between Baghdad and Damascus, by combating regional and international terrorism, and by weakening Iranian influence in the region. Syria thus could gradually become integrated into a U.S.-led regional strategic network contributing to peace, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East. It must be noted, however, that a stable and comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with U.S. mediation is also an essential component of this new configuration— and could be advanced by a Syrian-Israeli peace settlement. Yet there appear to be formidable obstacles on all sides to reaching such a mutually beneficial regional configuration. For example, is Bashar willing and capable of taking the bold steps required to disengage Syria fully from its relationships with Iran and Hezbollah—thus abandoning ideological tenets and tactical positions? Can Bashar “sell” peace with Israel and cooperation with the United States to his public and his conservative old guard, as his father did? Can Ariel Sharon convince a largely skeptical Israeli public to give up the Golan for peace with Syria, especially at a time when the major thrust of his policy is withdrawing from Gaza and part of the West Bank? The answers to these open questions are largely in the hands of President Bush, who holds important cards as the leader of the superpower with significant political influence, vast economic resources, and the strongest military force in the region. Bush can, for instance, build upon the legacy of his predecessors, particularly that of Clinton, and persuade Israel to give up the Golan in return for full peace with Syria. He can offer to negotiate with Bashar a “framework for action and cooperation,” an offer Bush Sr. made to Asad Sr. in 1989. Bashar would probably accept, but Bush is not likely to take such a step.

Conclusion: An Alternative, Incremental Approach
Given, on the one hand, Bush’s reluctance to engage Bashar openly in dialogue, and, on the other hand, the potential high risks of a confrontation with Syria, U.S. policymakers should consider adopting a third approach to Bashar—one that is pragmatic and incremental, and that not only wields a big stick but also proffers carrots. The aims of this policy would be to encourage Bashar’s tendencies to carry out domestic reforms; to induce Bashar to stop backing anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli militant elements in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian territories; and to signal to Bashar that such constructive Syrian measures will be rewarded in due course by the lifting of U.S. diplomatic pressures and sanctions, as well as by the provision of U.S. financial support and U.S. involvement in negotiating the return of the Golan in exchange for peace with Israel. This incremental policy should be conducted mainly through back channels while employing also the influence and good offices of countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and France. Such an approach may well prove to be the most realistic and workable way to avoid a U.S.-Syrian collision, which would be likely to destabilize the region and prejudice U.S., Israeli, and Syrian interests.

This gradual, pragmatic approach can also bring about in the longer run a more productive relationship between Washington and Damascus, as will a peace agreement between Syria and Israel. Differences have been overcome in the past. Under Asad Sr., Bush Sr., and Clinton, such cooperation occurred and a Syrian-Israeli peace was almost reached. True, during that period the Iraqi issue played a different and more positive role in the U.S.-Syrian relationship, and the United States had not experienced a megaterror attack. But the United States had suffered a major terror attack in Lebanon in 1983, when the Syrian-sponsored Hezbollah bombed the U.S. Marine barracks in reaction to U.S. support for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Despite that attack, Washington and Damascus managed to cooperate regarding the pacification of Lebanon. Similarly, Israel and Syria fought each other in 1948, 1967, 1973, and 1982, but in the 1990s they seriously negotiated a peace agreement with active U.S. mediation.

Obviously, the current U.S. and Syrian leaders differ from their fathers in certain respects. Both are more ideologically motivated and influenced by conservative circles in their respective capitals. Bashar is a young and fairly immature leader who dared in 2003 to defy Bush, the leader of the world’s only superpower, over the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Since then a psychological barrier has been erected between these two leaders. Still, Bashar has attempted to improve relations with Washington, helping the CIA in arresting al Qaeda terrorists and intermittently preventing Arab guerrillas from crossing from Syria to Iraq. Bashar has also shown his desire to introduce economic and political reforms in Syria, although he has not been inclined to democratize his regime fully, despite a request from Bush that he do so. Such a request is politically unacceptable as far as Syria and other Arab countries are concerned. Bush Sr. and Clinton demanded much less from Asad Sr., even though Asad Sr. was a far more brutal dictator than his son has proved to be. Bashar is more open-minded than his father and can be encouraged over time to further liberalize his rule and modernize his society. The alternatives to his rule may be worse as far as Washington is concerned. In sum, a pragmatic incremental approach may give Bashar and Bush ample opportunity to change their initial attitudes and to better understand each other’s concerns and may pave the way for significant bilateral cooperation based on common U.S. and Syrian interests.

Moshe Ma’oz is a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. A professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Ma’oz has published many works on Syria and has advised Israeli governments on Middle Eastern affairs.

Waiting for Mehlis

The media Tsunami has hit. Journalists of every color have been flooding into Damascus these last few days to study the grimaces of the regime as it must submit to the delicate tortures of the Mehlis report, international condemnation, and very likely, UN resolutions.

A journalist just called to ask me if I could be standing by at 12:00 midnight when the first inklings of the Mehlis report begin to filter out. The main office suggests it will be bad for Syria and it wants immediate reactions. The political class has been bracing itself in Damascus and trying to manage the reporters as best they can, but everything is done in a ham fisted way here. At such times of crisis, one realizes just how much of a third world country Syria is. Like a dear in the headlights, it has little clue what sort of terrifying machine is bearing down on it.

Ironically, the ordinary people are largely oblivious that their fate is being decided in the halls of distant capitals. Many don’t even know that a major clash is brewing between the US and Damascus. One taxi driver I spoke to yesterday had never heard of the Mehlis report and seemed surprised to be told that America and Syria were at loggerheads. He asked, “Is America going to invade?” When I reassured him that was not in the cards, he waved his hand in relief and said, “Oh, well, then it isn’t important.”

But even those who have some idea of what is transpiring believe it is a tempest in a tea pot. They have no influence over events anyway and seem oddly detached from “high politics,” as they call it. The streets are packed with Ramadan revelers looking for amusement and walking off their iftar.

We heard today that a nephew of Saddam’s had been captured in Iraq. Some are rumoring that the Syrian government had scooped him off the streets of Damascus and deposited him in Iraq, where local security was alerted they could find him. If this is true, which it very possibly may not be, it is part of the media war. Syria is desperately trying to signal to the world that they are happy to oblige the West and can deliver or make a deal if the West is willing to cooperate with Damascus. It is a bit like John Bolton’s leak last week that “a deal” was being offered Syria. It turned out not to be a deal, but an ultimatum. Quite possibly, Washington was making a last effort to show the world that it is not opposed to cooperation and has tried to reason with Syria, but gotten no positive answer. A last gesture of mercy before the guillotine drops. But these gestures by both sides are a bit like sign language between the blind. It is meant to ompress everyone else but the main interlocutors.

America does not want the deal Syria is willing to offer. Syria says it wants “dialog.” What this means is that Syria is willing to work with Washington on its four main demands: the Mehlis report, Hizbullah, Palestinian groups, and the Iraq border. But it wants to do it discretely and through diplomatic and security channels. This is what Syria used to do under Hafiz al-Asad. Washington wants a public and total Syrian climb down. In essence, it wants Syria to renounce its core ideology of Arabism. It wants Syria to concede that its regional policies and anti-American stand are wrong. In a sense it wants a public apology and mea culpa from Bashar. It wants him to take Syria on a 180 degree about-face, ideologically and strategically.

The Syrian government will probably refuse to do this. The Syrian opposition says the government will refuse because the government is too weak. Others claim the government is strong enough to weather sanctions. Still others suggest it is because the President’s and regime’s legitimacy is founded on Arab nationalist principles, thus it cannot abandon them without facing internal collapse. And there are other explanations. Perhaps the Syrian leaders really believe in their principles? Perhaps it is the Arab desire not to lose face and be publicly humiliated? Everyone has their pet theory, but most agree that it comes down to a clash of ideologies. Most insist things will have to get worse before they get better.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Waleed al-Mualem said France and the United States would use the report to implement a phased plan to isolate Syria and impose economic sanctions against it.

``The first stage consists in influencing Arab countries so that we cut our relations with Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. We are now at the second stage, which aims to isolate us,'' Mualem told France's Le Figaro in an interview published on Thursday.

``The next one will be to impose economic sanctions via a U.N. resolution. But we think that the Russians and the Chinese will oppose these sanctions.''

The United States and France have led a diplomatic campaign that helped force Syria to end its 29-year troop presence in Lebanon in April. They were also instrumental in setting up the U.N. inquiry into Hariri's death.

Annan is expected to circulate the report on Friday to the 15-member Security Council, Lebanon and possibly, if Syrian officials are named, Syria, Lebanese political sources said.

The Security Council will discuss the report next week and consider its response, which could include sanctions if Syria fails to cooperate, the sources said.

"An Agenda for Peaceful Change in Syria" by Hind Kabawat

Hind Kabawat, a lawyer, political activist, and influential member of Damascus' enlightened elite has written "AN AGENDA FOR PEACEFUL CHANGE IN SYRIA." Ms Kabawat has good relations with both the President and members of Syria's civil society. During the last year she organized the visit of an American rabbi and academic to Syria. She arranged for him to travel from Israel to Damascus where he addressed leading members of Syria's religious and political elite at the Asad library. It was a break through of sorts. She followed up with similar gatherings and hopes to continue her work for inter-religious dialog this coming year by organizing similar forums at the University of Damascus.

Hind has turned her elegant Ottoman house in the heart of Damascus' old city into one of the country's leading political salons. She frequently gathers activists and intellectuals in the courtyard to dine and discuss politics. The fragrant orange trees and soothing murmur of the central fountain inspire hope, much as they take edge off of disappointments.

AN AGENDA FOR PEACEFUL CHANGE IN SYRIA
Presentation by Hind Aboud Kabawat
Reunion: Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
Place: Institute of International Finance, Inc.
Washington D.C
October 14, 2006

Section One: The Syrian Problem

When Bashar al-Asad succeeded his father as President of Syria in 2000, there was a great deal of hope among much of the population that dramatic and systemic change might now, finally, transform the Syrian political system.

Bashar was viewed in many quarters as The Great White Hope. Why? Because to many Syrians, the only non-violent way to change Syria’s political culture and political infrastructure was from the top down. Almost by presidential fiat.

The reasoning went something like this: the country was too immature a political society to peacefully and democratically transform itself. And this argument is not without merit. The country has very little experience with representative democracy, or a multi-party system, where political power shifts from one organized group to another, after free open elections. Nor does Syrian society have much, if any, experience with a free press, an independent judiciary, or even a framework of institutions that make a civil society viable.

To compound the predicament of democratic political change in Syria is what might be termed, The Great Paradox. The potential that democratic change—i.e., free and open elections—might, ironically, backfire, resulting in the election of a fundamentalist Muslim theocracy that would systematically dismantle the one constructive legacy of the Baathist regime: a secular society where all the country’s diverse religions co-exist peacefully.

To see what happens when a secular Muslim society unravels, look no further that the sectarian political nightmare that is present-day Iraq. Undermining, or destabilizing, entrenched authoritarian societies in the Middle East can be a potential minefield. Any mis-step could result in serious political collateral damage. Among them, the dissolution of hard-won religious freedoms. The oppression of women. (As a Christian Syrian woman, I am particularly concerned about this last issue. No woman of my acquaintance in the region wants to endure the fate of most of my gender in places like Saudi or Iran.)

So you can see why some worry about the consequences of misguided political and social change in the region. It could too easily result in a worse political environment than the even the present unsatisfactory status quo. That is likely why Bashar’s coming to power ignited much optimism.

Here was a westernized, sophisticated, well-educated personality could possibly reform the system, peacefully, from within. Open the system politically and economically. Transform the country’s relationship with the US and the West. And initially, at least, much was accomplished. Many political prisoners were released. More open political debate was tolerated. The media was able to criticize the regime—somewhat.

But in the last year or so, it has become apparent that the al-Assad government does not have any real instinct for rapid and profound democratic reform. Corruption is still rampant in the Syrian economy. Who you know, or whose cousin you are, rather than the market, determines, too often, how the economy operates, and how contracts are awarded. And then there has been a very troubling reversion to political business, as usual, like the “old days” under Hafez al-Assad.

Let me give you some examples. Recently, a Member of Parliament, Riad Seif, was imprisoned for too aggressively criticizing the government, much as Aref Dalilah was imprissoned. A political debating club, the Attassi Forum, which could have been the basis, or the template, for new political organizations, was shut down after it allowed someone to read a statement from the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. So much for freedom of speech in Bashar’s Syria. Most importantly, however, no agenda has been established for the creation of a truly free press, an independent judiciary, or free elections contested by different political groups.

Add to this, the Syrian government’s numerous blunders in foreign affairs, notably its ill-advised intervention in Lebanese politics, and the result has been increasing political pressure from the international community on Syria. And let’s face it; the Syrian government is feeling the heat. Witness the “so-called” suicide, a few days ago, of the Interior Minister, the man most responsible for Syria’s failed Lebanon policy. Only the politically naïve, or stupid, can ignore the increasingly vocal calls in many Western capitals (Washington, D.C, in particular) for regime change in Syria.

This presents all Syrians, whether they support or oppose the Baathist regime, with a real challenge. How can we prevent interference in our internal affairs? Even those Syrians with a profound contempt for the al-Assad regime will not tolerate political change imposed from outside. (Better the devil we know than the devil we don’t.) Again, look no further than Baghdad to see the consequences of ill-conceived and ham-fisted interference in the delicate balance that is contemporary Arab/Muslim political culture.

In the best of all worlds, the Arab Middle East would be the mirror image of a functioning liberal democracy in the West, but we are not. And wishing it were so, or destroying our countries through counter-productive and savagely destructive wars will not make it so. Our societies are the result of a different historical and political evolution than Western societies. A more open and democratic society is clearly the goal of all thoughtful political actors in the region, but the question remains, how do we get there?

Part Two:
THE SYRIAN SOLUTION

Let me now talk about some potential solutions to the Syrian Problem.

In the US government’s eagerness to impose democracy in the Middle East, it forgets that it tolerated a one-party authoritarian regime, right next door, for over nine decades. Only in its last presidential election, just a few short years ago, did Mexico witness the peaceful transfer of power from the bizarrely named Party of Permanent Revolution to the new political force headed by Vincente Fox.

Mexico evolved over a long period of time into a functioning democracy. Its early dictators make Hafez al-Assad look progressive. Over the years, Mexico did evolve into a sort of “pseudo-democracy,” where the president could only be in power for one term, but the president, no matter who he was, was always from the same party, the PRI. Only now, ninety years or so, after the Mexican Revolution have you witnessed a peaceful transition of power from one political organization to another.

Why do I raise the Mexican issue? Because it demonstrates that some societies, without a history of democratic political culture, may need to take a different road to reach the goal of profound democratic reform. Look what is happening in Egypt, with Hosni Mubarak allowing contested elections for the first time. So what can be done in Syria short of a coup d’etat, or interference from outside?

Well, for starters, Syrians, themselves, must continue to pressure the regime for real change. There are risks clearly. But I truly believe the time when the Baathist government would use an Iron Fist to suppress dissent is past. What I believe the government should do is this. Borrow the one constructive result of the Iraq Fiasco and create a Constitutional Assembly.

Under the auspices of Bashar al-Assad, Syrians should write a new constitution that codifies a Basic Law—one that satisfies all Syria’s diverse communities. If there is a constitution, which has been freely created by all Syrians, not just the Baath party, and guarantees religious freedom, and the separation of Church and State (or Mosque and State, in the Syrian context), then there would likely be less fear that a post-Baath Syria would result in a fundamentalist Muslim theocracy.

Such a constitutional-building process would also help incubate the creation of any number of political groups and associations, which are desperately needed if Syria is to emerge as a truly democratic political society. What Syria desperately needs is more open political discussion about its future—and its fundamental values.

Can the government of Bashar al-Assad be encouraged to open such a debate? I think so. Just last year, the president hosted a conference in Damascus of ex-patriate Syrians from around the world. The tenor of that conference: vocal calls to open up Syrian society to real change. The next step: a similar conference for Syrians who live in Damascus, Allepo, Homs, or Latakia, not London, Toronto, Sydney, or Los Angeles.

Despite his missteps, I believe that Bashar al-Assad can still redeem the promise of his first days in office. Someone must convince him that he should become Syria’s first “Mexican President.” And someone should convince him it is time to invest in his own people, the poor, the hard working, the low and middle class, give them hope, freedom, social justice, more education and open the country for an Economic reform. Hold office for one six-year term. Effect real reform and think of the future of the Syrian People, while he is in power. And leave office knowing that his country will be profoundly transformed by his willingness to exit politics voluntarily and transfer authority to someone who has the freely—won support of the whole society.

News Round Up: Oct 20, 2005

Katherine Zoepf of the NY Times, who has been living in and reporting from Damascus for over a year, helps us put the "Damascus Declaration" made by the Syrian opposition this week into perspective.

Syria's Opposition Unites Behind a Call for Democratic Changes
By KATHERINE ZOEPF
October 20, 2005

DAMASCUS, Syria, Oct. 19 - As international pressure on Syria rises, the country's historically quarrelsome and divided opposition groups have issued a broad call for democratic change in the form of a statement that is being called the "Damascus declaration."

The Damascus declaration, which was issued on Oct. 16, calls for an end to Syria's emergency laws and other forms of political repression, and for a national conference on democratic change.

The statement comes at a particularly tense time for Syria, which is being pressed by the United States and other Western nations to stop foreign fighters from crossing its eastern border into Iraq and to end its suspected interference in Lebanese and Palestinian affairs.

The statement was published just days before the anticipated release this week of a report by Detlev Mehlis, a United Nations investigator, on the Feb. 14 assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri.

Syrian officials have been interviewed recently by United Nations investigators, and the possibility that the report may reveal a Syrian role in the Hariri killing has been causing intense anxiety in political circles here.

President Bashar Assad of Syria is also perceived to be strengthening his hold on power in a series of crackdowns, further adding to the sense of gloom that has gripped Damascus.

Marwan Kabalan, a Damascus University political scientist, said the declaration was a response to these pressures, an effort on the part of Syrian opposition groups to put aside their differences and to demonstrate to the world that a coherent alternative to the Assad regime is emerging inside Syria.

"This is a huge development for the opposition within Syria," Dr. Kabalan said. "For the first time we're seeing a blueprint for reconstituting Syria's political process."

The announcement was backed by an unusually diverse collection of politicians and activists, including human rights campaigners, Communists, Kurdish nationalists, overseas Syrian exiles, the imprisoned Parliament member Riad Seif and the London-based Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which has been banned in Syria for more than two decades but is believed to enjoy continuing popular support.

Anwar al-Bunni, a prominent Syrian rights lawyer, said the declaration demonstrated that there was a democratic alternative to the Baathists, the nationalist and nominally socialist party that has ruled Syria for more than 40 years.

"The regime wants the world to believe that if they go, it is only Islamists and radicals who will come to replace them," Mr. Bunni said. "It is high time to publish this statement. Syria really needs all the world to know that there is a replacement for Assad that is democratic and liberal."

Joshua Landis, an expert in Syrian history at the University of Oklahoma who has been spending the year in Syria on a Fulbright research fellowship, said the declaration was an indication that Syria's internal opposition is maturing.

"Everyone has discounted the Syrian opposition and written them off as a joke," Dr. Landis said. "The Mehlis report is coming out, and it's crunch time in Syria.

"The West has been waking up to the fact that there is no alternative to Bashar Assad, and the opposition has to move quickly. They need to show the world that they are capable of real organization, and to show Syrians that there is a third way and that they don't have to choose between Bush and chaos."

Rice Says Bush is not Taking Military Option Against Syria Off the Table
The United States, France and Britain are lobbying for two new Security Council resolutions next week, squarely condemning the Assad regime of still meddling in Lebanon's domestic affairs and clamping stricter international sanctions against Syria, ...more

Saad Hariri Expects International Trial of His Father's Assassins

"We could not carry out the investigation and requested the help of the U.N. Of course we will demand an international trial," the MP told reporters in Cairo after a meeting with Arab League chief Amr Mussa.

"Mehlis' report will be clear and we will find out who committed the crime," Hariri said.

Lebanon's parliamentary majority leader also held a two-hour meeting with Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak that focused on the much-awaited report and developments in Lebanon and Lebanese-Syrian relations since the assassination.

"Lebanon's stability is important to Egypt," said Hariri, whose aides said he was due to travel on to Saudi Arabia.(AFP)

Assad Washes Hands from Hariri's Blood Anew

"We are 100 percent innocent," Assad was quoted as telling the German weekly Die Zeit. "We have absolutely no understanding for such crimes."

France arrests Syrian witness in UN probe of Hariri killing
By The Associated Press
Last Update: 17/10/2005 13:41

PARIS - French police arrested a former Syrian intelligence officer who is considered an important witness in a UN probe of the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, police and judicial officials said Monday.

Mohammed Zuhair Al-Siddiq was taken into custody on Sunday in the Paris area by France's DST counterintelligence service, police officials in France said. He was the subject of an international arrest warrant and is expected to be extradited, the officials said.

The arrest warrant, issued by Lebanese Magistrate Elias Eid, accused Al-Siddiq of giving false testimony and misleading the U.N. investigation, judicial officials in Lebanon said.

Asef Shawkat Fingered According to German Magazine

Stern Magazine says Shawkat will be named as a suspect by Mehlis. There have been a number of leaks during the investigation, but it is hard to know what to make of this one. There has also been much wild speculation. We will have to wait for the report.

Head of Syrian military intelligence suspect in Hariri killing, says Stern
Mehlis mission extension to December depends on 'whether there are technical questions that need answers'

By Leila Hatoum and Majdoline Hatoum
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, October 19, 2005

BEIRUT/NEW YORK: Assef Shawkat, brother-in-law to Syrian President Bashar Assad and the head of Syrian military intelligence, has been named as a suspect by the head of UN team investigating the murder of Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri.

Shawkat, one of Syria's most powerful men, "was questioned as a suspect and not as a witness," German magazine Stern wrote, without revealing the source of its information.

Assad had appointed Shawkat Syria's chief of military intelligence shortly after Hariri's assassination on February 14. Sources had said Monday that Mehlis would present the names of some 20 suspects in his report including the names of Syrian officers.

Mehlis is due to present a report to the UN and the Lebanese government this Friday. ..

Late Monday night, the UN Security Council discussed the possibility of extending the Mehlis mission if his report leaves any questions unanswered. The council may ask Mehlis to continue working until the end of the year, said Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu, whose nation holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council.

"If the presentation prompts new questions that would require very specific answers on technical details, these answers would be due by the end of the year," Ungureanu told The Associated Press in an interview....

Garnering more international support for the case, Hariri's parliamentary bloc MPs started a campaign to urge UN Security Council's members to establish an international tribunal to try those accused of Hariri's murder.

Among other embassies, the MPs visited the U.S., Chinese, Japanese and the Romanian.

Lebanese MP Walid Eido said after meeting the U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman he felt a U.S. readiness to support a Lebanese demand to extend Mehlis' mission.

Eido added that Feltman told him the U.S. "is seriously studying its stand for establishing an international private court, especially under the circumstances of the Lebanese judicial system, which is not qualified yet ..." to handle such a trial...

In Beirut, judicial sources said extradition was being sought for Zuhair Mohammad Siddiq, the Syrian Army deserter now held by France on suspicion of misleading the Mehlis commission. - With agencies

U.S., France Preparing U.N. Resolutions

Everyone is awaiting the results of the Mehlis report. As the West begins to plot out how it will use the report to shove the Syria question in front of the UN Security Council in order to get a sanctions regime imposed on Syria, Syrians are also focusing on the problem. Yesterday I interviewed six Damascene young men from prominent Sunni families. All took a surprisingly pro-Bashar line. Now that the choice has boiled down to either supporting Bush or Bashar, Syrians are choosing nationalism, which in this case means Bashar. There is not third option. All said that the lasts 6 months has been very sobering and given Damascenes a reality check. Democracy in Iraq means division and the triumph of sectarian politics over a strong national government. Syrians don't want that.

U.S., France to Introduce U.N. Resolutions Against Syria

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 19, 2005; A16

The United States and France are planning to introduce two U.N. resolutions next week aimed at holding Syria to account for meddling in Lebanon and for its alleged links to the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, according to several sources close to the diplomacy.

The moves would be the toughest international action ever taken against Syria and would be designed to further isolate President Bashar Assad, who for the first time is getting the cold shoulder from key Arab governments such as those in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Western envoys said.

The impending actions will be "the perfect storm for Damascus," said a Western diplomat at the United Nations, speaking on the condition of anonymity because planning is still underway. "It's pretty clear the Syrians don't have any friends left."

The resolutions may be introduced as early as Tuesday, he said. They would follow two reports on Syria expected to be submitted over the next two days to the U.N. Security Council.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan discussed the reports and plans for new resolutions during a working breakfast in New York, said sources familiar with the talks. Rice has been engaged in diplomacy on Syria over the past week during travels to France, Russia and Britain.

Rice requested the meeting, which was not announced until it was over. "The region and the world have a number of issues with Syrian behavior," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, adding that the Lebanese, Iraqi and Palestinian governments have all protested Syrian practices.

The most crucial report expected to be delivered this week is from German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who will submit results of his U.N. investigation into the assassination of Hariri, who was Lebanon's leading reformer. Although the details of the report have been closely held, diplomats said they expect it to implicate Syria in the slaying of Hariri and 19 others in a Feb. 14 bombing, and to say that Syria has not fully complied with the investigation.

The U.N. envoy for Lebanon, Terje Roed-Larsen, is also scheduled to deliver a status report on Resolution 1559, which was co-sponsored by the United States and France last year. It calls for Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon and for the dismantling of militias. This report is expected to say that Syria has facilitated the flow of illicit arms and individuals into Palestinian camps in Lebanon, further undermining Lebanon's stability.

Syria says it has complied with the United Nations by ending its 29-year occupation and withdrawing about 14,000 troops from Lebanon in April. It also denies any links to the Hariri bombing.

"We have supported the Mehlis mission, and we have been cooperating with Mehlis," Imad Moustapha, Syria's ambassador to the United States, said yesterday. "We are absolutely categoric in saying we had nothing to do with Hariri. . . . If he does not reveal the truth, then this will allow certain people to point fingers here and there without any shred of evidence.

"President Assad has said that if any Syrian individual has been party to this crime or implicated in the assassination of Hariri, then he has committed a treasonous crime."

But key Security Council members have discussed extending the Mehlis mission until Dec. 15, which the U.N. chief can do without going to the Security Council. An extension could be used to continue probing or to provide a psychological boost for Lebanese authorities in persevering in the prosecution of Hariri's slaying, which unleashed the Cedar Revolution.

The scope of any punitive action against Syria is also under discussion, diplomats said. The Bush administration has considered language critical of Syria for support of terrorism that could also be used to punish or pressure Damascus for aiding extremists in Iraq, envoys familiar with the diplomacy said.

But France and other nations want the focus to be limited to Syria's intervention in Lebanon, mainly to prevent Arab backlash at a time of public anger over the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Of particular concern is the position of Algeria, whose socialist government has been close to Damascus in the past. Also, Algeria is now the Arab representative on the 15-member Security Council.

But U.S., European and U.N. officials say Assad's government is facing bleak prospects even in the Arab world. Last month, Assad visited Cairo to win support from Egypt, a political trendsetter that accounts for more than half the Arab population. Instead, U.S. and Arab envoys say, President Hosni Mubarak told him to comply fully with Mehlis -- and not to expect help if Syrian officials are implicated.

After their first summit, held in Paris yesterday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora issued a statement condemning the movement of arms and militants into the Palestinian refugee camps. At a joint news conference, Siniora said he and Abbas are specifically concerned about Syria's role.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

Nadim Ladki of Reuters quotes Patrick Seale on what is going on. He says:

"The death of Ghazi Kanaan shows there are severe tensions at the top, probably an internal power struggle," Patrick Seale, a British writer on the Middle East, told Reuters.

But he said that did not mean Assad's grip on power was necessarily weakening.

"We have to note that the regime continues to control the army and security services, the Syrian opposition is very weak and America is bogged down in Iraq," Seale said.

"I think the prospects for the survival of the regime are better than many people think."

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last week the United Nations would need to act on Syria after Mehlis's report, signaling Washington wanted a tough international stance.

"The (U.N. Security) Council is going to have to be prepared to act in a way that ... allows the chips to fall wherever they may," Rice said after talks in Moscow about Syria.

Arab diplomats say a possible deal between Syria and the United States had been mooted in talks involving Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but the discussions had not borne fruit.

Any such agreement would be likely to guarantee the survival of Assad's government without Syria becoming a pariah state, in return for full cooperation with Mehlis, a crackdown on insurgents crossing into Iraq, and an end to Syrian support to Palestinian and Lebanese militants, the diplomats said.

Assad said last week any Syrian found to have been involved in Hariri's killing would be regarded as a traitor who should be punished, opening the door to a possible handover of any named Syrian suspects to international justice.

Sateh Noureddine, a columnist at Beirut's As-Safir newspaper, said there appeared be no international desire at this time for a regime change in Syria.

"Of course there is a list of demands but there is no intention to change (the regime)," Noureddine said.

FEAR OF INSTABILITY

Many analysts say chaos in neighboring Iraq and the absence of any obvious alternative to Syria's Baathist rulers have reduced U.S. appetite for an upheaval in which military officers or Islamist groups might struggle to fill the power vacuum.

Seale said Washington wanted to deal with Damascus rather than replace Assad and that tough bargaining lay ahead.

"The United States will be setting conditions to try and twist the arm of the regime -- conditions that are not acceptable to the Syrians because implementing them would mean the changing of the nature of the regime," he said.

Political sources said Mehlis was likely to complain about "insufficient" Syrian cooperation with his inquiry and might ask to interrogate more Syrian officials, possibly abroad.

Noureddine said Mehlis's findings would make it almost impossible for Lahoud, a staunch Syrian ally, to stay in office.

"There'll be no major earthquake in Lebanon. There'll be only one element: the presidency," he said, adding that the legitimacy of Lahoud had been already in doubt since Syria imposed an extension of his term last year.

"He is the last and worst symbol of the Syrian phase in Lebanon... The other (pro-Syrian politicians) have popular support, but not Lahoud. He's finished," Noureddine said.

Lebanon's government, dominated by anti-Syrian ministers, has asked Annan to extend Mehlis's mission to December 15 to help Lebanese prosecutors draw up indictments against the suspects.

Lebanese authorities have tightened security in and around the capital in case the Mehlis report proves explosive.

Regularizing borders:
Lebanese Premier Fuad Sanyoura has affirmed that relations between Syria and Lebanon could be could be good and solid if ties based on mutual respect. Sanyoura called for establishing Embassies in both countries in the near future. He also said that preparations are underway to draw borders. "We have asked specialized committees to handle this matter. We make contacts with Syria through the Syrian-Lebanese Council. This would clear up the question of Shabaa Farms.


Sunday, October 16, 2005
Bashar Assad is the problem, said Rafik Hariri
Al-Mustaqbal published Monday statements Rafik Hariri reportedly made off the record shortly before his assassination.

“Our problem is not with Emile Lahoud. Look how he recoiled when the orders came to [make Omar Karami Prime Minister]. And our problem is not with Rustom Ghazaleh who, as the Syrian leadership said, represents and implements what Syria wants in Lebanon to the letter. Our problem, actually, is with Bashar Assad.”

The paper claims Assad offered to exchange UNSC 1559 with Lahoud’s head but Hariri rejected, opting instead to up the ante with the Syrian regime.

“We will not be tools in Bashar’s hands,” he told reporters, apparently off the record. “One day he orders an extension and another a dethronement. He wants Lahoud changed now to impose someone else possibly worse for six years. What interests us is changing the methodology (Nahj), not changing masks.”

Hariri, in a subsequent meeting with Ghazaleh, informed the latter that there was no need for Syria to interfere in his choice of candidates for the parliamentary election. “If you view me as an opponent, you cannot demand political support from me,” he told Syria’s intelligence chief in Lebanon.

Syria Opposition Speaks Out

The Syrian opposition may be down, but it is not out. Today an array of civil society leaders and opposition parties put out an announcement calling for a coalition of democratic forces to help find a soft landing for Syria. They want careful and step-by-step change in order to protect Syria from chaos and to institute the rule of law and democracy based on respect for the individual and citizens' rights.

The declaration also called for "preparing the way to convene a national conference that all ambitious forces to make a change can take part, including the ones that accepts that from the ruling regime."

The declaration was signed by the democratic national coalition in Syria; the Kurdisk democratic alliance in Syria; the civil society revival committees; the Kurdish democratic front in Syria; the al-Mustaqbal ( future) party; the Syrian committee for human rights, and independent figures including the opposition parliamentarian Riad Seif who is currently in prison.

This new coalition, which was attended by Kurds activists, called for uniting visions and attitudes of the opposition in order to achieve basic demands including democratic and deep change in the country.

Activist Akram al-Bunni said that the opposition parties call for halting acts of repression and to open a new page in the history of the Syrian homeland.

In conclusion of its meeting in Damascus, the party issued what is called "The Damascus declaration" whose signatories called on all components of the Syrian people for the "need of the fundamental change in the country and rejection of all forms of partial or incomplete reforms."

The Christian family that runs my neighborhood grocery store turned there noses up at this announcement because it was made with Islamic groups. They believe the Muslim brotherhood is deeply sectarian and is just using democracy as windowdressing to get to power. Many Christians share this anxiety about change in Syria.

Sami Moubayed has an interesting article calling for democracy in Syria: "It is time to return to Syria of the Fifties." This is his boldest statement on this subject. He is not a fan of the old leftist or Islamic parties and hopes that the Syrian secular elites will again articulate firm possitions.

The opposition statement was published on the al-Ra'i website in arabic on Oct. 16.

إعلان دمشق
للتغيير الوطني الديمقراطي

تتعرض سورية اليوم لأخطار لم تشهدها من قبل ، نتيجة السياسات التي سلكها النظام ، وأوصلت البلاد إلى وضع يدعو للقلق على سلامتها الوطنية ومصير شعبها. وهي اليوم على مفترق طرق بحاجة إلى مراجعة ذاتها والإفادة من تجربتها التاريخية أكثر من أي وقت مضى . فاحتكار السلطة لكل شيء، خلال أكثر من ثلاثين عاماً ، أسس نظاماً تسلطياً شمولياً فئوياً ، أدى إلى انعدام السياسة في المجتمع ، وخروج الناس من دائرة الاهتمام بالشأن العام ، مما أورث البلاد هذا الحجم من الدمار المتمثل بتهتك النسيج الاجتماعي الوطني للشعب السوري ، والانهيار الاقتصادي الذي يهدد البلاد ، والأزمات المتفاقمة من كل نوع . إلى جانب العزلة الخانقة التي وضع النظام البلاد فيها ، نتيجة سياساته المدمرة والمغامرة وقصيرة النظر على المستوى العربي والإقليمي وخاصة في لبنان ، التي بنيت على أسس استنسابية وليس على هدى المصالح الوطنية العليا .

كل ذلك ، وغيره كثير ، يتطلب تعبئة جميع طاقات سورية الوطن والشعب ، في مهمة تغيير إنقاذية ، تخرج البلاد من صيغة الدولة الأمنية إلى صيغة الدولة السياسية ، لتتمكن من تعزيز استقلالها ووحدتها ، ويتمكن شعبها من الإمساك بمقاليد الأمور في بلاده والمشاركة في إدارة شؤونها بحرية . إن التحولات المطلوبة تطال مختلف جوانب الحياة ، وتشمل الدولة والسلطة والمجتمع ، وتؤدي إلى تغيير السياسات السورية في الداخل والخارج . وشعوراً من الموقعين بأن اللحظة الراهنة تتطلب موقفاً وطنياً شجاعاً و مسؤولاً ، يخرج البلاد من حالة الضعف والانتظار التي تسم الحياة السياسية الراهنة، ويجنبها مخاطر تلوح بوضوح في الأفق. وإيماناً منهم بأن خطاً واضحاً ومتماسكاً تجمع عليه قوى المجتمع المختلفة ، ويبرز أهداف التغيير الديمقراطي في هذه المرحلة ، يكتسب أهمية خاصة في إنجاز هذا التغيير على يد الشعب السوري ووفق إرادته ومصالحه ، ويساعد على تجنب الانتهازية والتطرف في العمل العام فقد اجتمعت إرادتهم بالتوافق على الأسس التالية :

إقامة النظام الوطني الديمقراطي هو المدخل الأساس في مشروع التغيير و الإصلاح السياسي . ويجب أن يكون سلمياً ومتدرجاً ومبنياً على التوافق ، وقائماً على الحوار والاعتراف بالآخر .

نبذ الفكر الشمولي والقطع مع جميع المشاريع الإقصائية والوصائية والاستئصالية ، تحت أي ذريعة كانت تاريخية أو واقعية ، ونبذ العنف في ممارسة العمل السياسي ، والعمل على منعه وتجنبه بأي شكل ومن أي طرف كان .

الإسلام الذي هو دين الأكثرية وعقيدتها بمقاصده السامية وقيمه العليا وشريعته السمحاء يعتبر المكون الثقافي الأبرز في حياة الأمة والشعب . تشكلت حضارتنا العربية في إطار أفكاره وقيمه وأخلاقه ، وبالتفاعل مع الثقافات التاريخية الوطنية الأخرى في مجتمعنا، ومن خلال الاعتدال والتسامح والتفاعل المشترك ، بعيداً عن التعصب والعنف والإقصاء . مع الحرص الشديد على احترام عقائد الآخرين وثقافتهم وخصوصيتهم أياً كانت انتماءاتهم الدينية والمذهبية والفكرية، والانفتاح على الثقافات الجديدة والمعاصرة.

ليس لأي حزب أو تيار حق الادعاء بدور استثنائي . وليس لأحد الحق في نبذ الآخر واضطهاده وسلبه حقه في الوجود والتعبير الحر والمشاركة في الوطن .

اعتماد الديمقراطية كنظام حديث عالمي القيم والأسس ، يقوم على مبادئ الحرية وسيادة الشعب ودولة المؤسسات وتداول السلطة، من خلال انتخابات حرة ودورية، تمكن الشعب من محاسبة السلطة وتغييرها.

بناء دولة حديثة ، يقوم نظامها السياسي على عقد اجتماعي جديد . ينتج عنه دستور ديمقراطي عصري يجعل المواطنة معياراً للانتماء ، ويعتمد التعددية وتداول السلطة سلمياً وسيادة القانون في دولة يتمتع جميع مواطنيها بذات الحقوق والواجبات، بصرف النظر عن الجنس أو الدين أو الإثنية أو الطائفة أو العشيرة، ويمنع عودة الاستبداد بأشكال جديدة.

التوجه إلى جميع مكونات الشعب السوري ، إلى جميع تياراته الفكرية وطبقاته الاجتماعية وأحزابه السياسية وفعالياته الثقافية والاقتصادية والاجتماعية ، وإفساح المجال أمامها للتعبير عن رؤاها ومصالحها وتطلعاتها ، وتمكينها من المشاركة بحرية في عملية التغيير .

ضمان حرية الأفراد والجماعات والأقليات القومية في التعبير عن نفسها ، والمحافظة على دورها وحقوقها الثقافية واللغوية، واحترام الدولة لتلك الحقوق ورعايتها، في إطار الدستور وتحت سقف القانون .

إيجاد حل ديمقراطي عادل للقضية الكردية في سورية. بما يضمن المساواة التامة للمواطنين الأكراد السوريين مع بقية المواطنين من حيث حقوق الجنسية والثقافة وتعلم اللغة القومية وبقية الحقوق الدستورية والسياسية والاجتماعية والقانونية، على قاعدة وحدة سورية أرضاً وشعباً . ولابد من إعادة الجنسية وحقوق المواطنة للذين حرموا منها ، وتسوية هذا الملف كلياً .

الالتزام بسلامة المتحد الوطني السوري الراهن وأمنه ووحدته ، ومعالجة مشكلاته من خلال الحوار ، والحفاظ على وحدة الوطن والشعب في كل الظروف. والالتزام بتحرير الأراضي المحتلة واستعادة الجولان إلى الوطن . وتمكين سورية من أداء دور عربي وإقليمي إيجابي فعال .

إلغاء كل أشكال الاستثناء من الحياة العامة ، بوقف العمل بقانون الطوارئ ، وإلغاء الأحكام العرفية والمحاكم الاستثنائية ، وجميع القوانين ذات العلاقة ، ومنها القانون / 49 / لعام 1980 ، وإطلاق سراح جميع السجناء السياسيين ، وعودة جميع الملاحقين والمنفيين قسراً وطوعاً عودة كريمة آمنة بضمانات قانونية، وإنهاء كل أشكال الاضطهاد السياسي، برد المظالم إلى أهلها وفتح صفحة جديدة في تاريخ البلاد .

تعزيز قوة الجيش الوطني والحفاظ على روحه المهنية، وإبقائه خارج إطار الصراع السياسي واللعبة الديمقراطية ، وحصر مهمته في صيانة استقلال البلاد و الحفاظ على النظام الدستوري والدفاع عن الوطن والشعب .

تحرير المنظمات الشعبية والاتحادات والنقابات وغرف التجارة والصناعة والزراعة من وصاية الدولة والهيمنة الحزبية والأمنية . وتوفير شروط العمل الحر لها كمنظمات مجتمع مدني .

إطلاق الحريات العامة ، وتنظيم الحياة السياسية عبر قانون عصري للأحزاب ، وتنظيم الإعلام والانتخابات وفق قوانين عصرية توفر الحرية والعدالة والفرص المتساوية أمام الجميع .

ضمان حق العمل السياسي لجميع مكونات الشعب السوري على اختلاف الانتماءات الدينية والقومية والاجتماعية .

التأكيد على انتماء سورية إلى المنظومة العربية، وإقامة أوسع علاقات التعاون معها، وتوثيق الروابط الاستراتيجية والسياسية والاقتصادية التي تؤدي بالأمة إلى طريق التوحد. وتصحيح العلاقة مع لبنان،لتقوم على أسس الحرية والاستقلال والسيادة والمصالح المشتركة بين الشعبين والدولتين.

الالتزام بجميع المعاهدات والمواثيق الدولية وشرعة حقوق الإنسان، والعمل ضمن إطار الأمم المتحدة وبالتعاون مع المجموعة الدولية على بناء نظام عالمي أكثر عدلاً، قائم على مبادىء السلام وتبادل المصالح، وعلى درء العدوان وحق الشعوب في مقاومة الاحتلال، والوقوف ضد جميع أشكال الإرهاب والعنف الموجه ضد المدنيين.

ويرى الموقعون على هذا الإعلان ، أن عملية التغيير قد بدأت ، بما هي فعل ضرورة لا تقبل التأجيل نظراً لحاجة البلاد إليها، وهي ليست موجهة ضد أحد، بل تتطلب جهود الجميع . وهنا ندعو أبناء وطننا البعثيين وإخوتنا من أبناء مختلف الفئات السياسية والثقافية والدينية والمذهبية إلى المشاركة معنا وعدم التردد والحذر، لأن التغيير المنشود لصالح الجميع ولا يخشاه إلا المتورطون بالجرائم والفساد. و يمكن أن يتم تنظيمها وفق ما يلي :

1. فتح القنوات لحوار وطني شامل ومتكافئ بين جميع مكونات الشعب السوري وفئاته الاجتماعية والسياسية والاقتصادية وفي كل المناطق وفق منطلقات قاعدية تتمثل في :

ضرورة التغيير الجذري في البلاد ، ورفض كل أشكال الإصلاحات الترقيعية أو الجزئية أو الالتفافية .

العمل على وقف حالة التدهور واحتمالات الانهيار والفوضى ، التي قد تجرها على البلاد عقلية التعصب والثأر والتطرف وممانعة التغيير الديمقراطي .

رفض التغيير الذي يأتي محمولاً من الخارج، مع إدراكنا التام لحقيقة وموضوعية الارتباط بين الداخلي والخارجي في مختلف التطورات السياسية التي يشهدها عالمنا المعاصر، دون دفع البلاد إلى العزلة والمغامرة والمواقف غير المسؤولة. والحرص على استقلالها ووحدة أراضيها.

2. تشجيع المبادرات للعودة بالمجتمع إلى السياسة، وإعادة اهتمام الناس بالشأن العام، وتنشيط المجتمع المدني.

3. تشكيل اللجان والمجالس والمنتديات والهيئات المختلفة ، محلياً وعلى مستوى البلاد ، لتنظيم الحراك العام الثقافي والاجتماعي والسياسي والاقتصادي ، ومساعدتها على لعب دور هام في إنهاض الوعي الوطني وتنفيس الاحتقانات ، وتوحيد الشعب وراء أهداف التغيير .

4. التوافق الوطني الشامل على برنامج مشترك ومستقل لقوى المعارضة، يرسم خطوات مرحلة التحول ، ومعالم سورية الديمقراطية في المستقبل .

5. تمهيد الطريق لعقد مؤتمر وطني ، يمكن أن تشارك فيه جميع القوى الطامحة إلى التغيير، بما فيها من يقبل بذلك من أهل النظام ، لإقامة النظام الوطني الديمقراطي بالاستناد إلى التوافقات الواردة في هذا الإعلان ، وعلى قاعدة ائتلاف وطني ديمقراطي واسع .

6. الدعوة إلى انتخاب جمعية تأسيسية، تضع دستوراً جديداً للبلاد، يقطع الطريق على المغامرين والمتطرفين. يكفل الفصل بين السلطات، ويضمن استقلال القضاء، ويحقق الاندماج الوطني بترسيخ مبدأ المواطنة.

7. إجراء انتخابات تشريعية حرة ونزيهة ، تنتج نظاماً وطنياً كامل الشرعية ، يحكم البلاد وفق الدستور والقوانين النافذة، وبدلالة رأي الأكثرية السياسية و برامجها .

وبعد ، هذه خطوات عريضة لمشروع التغيير الديمقراطي ، كما نراه ، والذي تحتاجه سورية ، وينشده شعبها . يبقى مفتوحاً لمشاركة جميع القوى الوطنية من أحزاب سياسية وهيئات مدنية وأهلية وشخصيات سياسية وثقافية ومهنية ، يتقبل التزاماتهم وإسهاماتهم ، ويظل عرضة لإعادة النظر من خلال ازدياد جماعية العمل السياسي وطاقاته المجتمعية الفاعلة .

إننا نتعاهد على العمل من أجل إنهاء مرحلة الاستبداد، ونعلن استعدادنا لتقديم التضحيات الضرورية من أجل ذلك، وبذل كل ما يلزم لإقلاع عملية التغيير الديمقراطي،وبناء سورية الحديثة وطناً حراً لكل أبنائها،والحفاظ على حرية شعبها،وحماية استقلالها الوطني .


دمشق في 16 / 10 / 2005

الأحزاب والمنظمات

التجمع الوطني الديمقراطي في سورية
التحالف الديمقراطي الكردي في سورية
لجان إحياء المجتمع المدني
الجبهة الديمقراطية الكردية في سورية
حزب المستقبل ( الشيخ نواف البشير )

الشخصيات الوطنية
رياض سيف
جودت سعيد
د. عبد الرزاق عيد
سمير النشار
د. فداء أكرم الحوراني
د. عادل زكار
عبد الكريم الضحاك
هيثم المالح
نايف قيسية

توضيحات حول إعلان دمشق للتغيير الديمقراطي

Israel's Position on Bashar - No Good Alternative

Here are several stories from the Israeli press, which help us to understand what Israel wants from Syria. Some worry about chaos. Others worry that a weak democratic leader in Syria would mean giving up the Golan because America would seek to prop him up by demanding Israel cede the Golan.

Experts Say the Assad Regime Won't Collapse
Orly Halpern,
THE JERUSALEM POST
Oct. 16, 2005 (Kindly sent to me by Timur Goksel of AUB)

With one week to go before the release of the UN report about the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri and the US ratcheting up the rhetoric of Syria's imminent demise, experts say that the last Baathist regime is under no immediate threat of collapse.

“I don't think anything could topple the regime other than a full scale invasion,” Ambassador Edward Walker, former assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and president of the Middle East Institute, a Washington, DC-based think tank, told The Jerusalem Post.

According to a Western analyst based in Beirut, the Syrian Baathist regime is not likely to fall because “there is no substitute.” Speaking to the Post on condition of anonymity he said that although the Syrian regime is under “tremendous pressure, it is in no imminent danger. If you want this regime to go there has to be a substitute. But there is no opposition, no civil society. Everything is under control, it's a police state. Is any one waiting in the wings? If there were he wouldn't be here anymore. Look what happened to Ghazi Kenaan.”

Last week, Kenaan, the powerful Syrian interior minister died in what the Syrian administration said was suicide. Some Western analysts suggested that Kenaan was killed because he was responsible for Hariri's death. But the Beirut-based analyst told The Post that Kenaan was a supporter of Hariri and was likely killed because he could implicate the guilty parties. Whatever the cause of his death it has put the spotlight stronger on Syria.

Recently US officials have either publicly stated or leaked to the press possible action against Syria. Walker said that limited military action was in the cards. “If the Syrians don't [act], then this administration will up the ante with military action and we would see cross-border operations,” he said acknowledging that “all this talk of military intervention is a conscious leak to build the pressure.” However, if the results of the UN investigation of Hariri's death point to Syria, the affect on Syria could be fatal to the regime. Elements in the Syrian regime are widely believed to be respons