The Economy and Iraq Border

"Tensions have led to clashes between the Syrian Alawites and the Ismailis, according to often unreliable al-Seyassah, a Kuwaiti paper. The clashes led "to two dead and 30 injured citizens from both sides in the city of al-Salamiyya."

If two people were killed in the Salamiyya clashes, these will be the first deaths produced by the growing tensions among Alawis and Ismailis and marks a worrying escalation in previous clashes in both Masyaf and Qadmous earlier this summer.

The al Watan newspaper claims that there are "Expectations that Assad is to issue a full amnesty for all intellectual prisoners." In fact rumours have been circulating that Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan has been visiting some of the Damascus Spring prisoners in an attempt to make a deal with them for an early release. The word is that they are not cooperating.

New investments in Syria amount to $2.39 billion in 2005

On July 28, the independent Al Wasat newspaper reported that a Syrian economic official stated: “We are witnessing great investments in Syria, which amounted to $2.39 billion during the first quarter of 2005 and included 348 projects distributed all over Syria and mainly in Aleppo. These investments provided 23,000 new job opportunities, especially in the industrial and agricultural sectors where they constituted 88% of the total investments, while the transport sector got 12%. Aleppo had the biggest share of the projects with 48; Damascus had 34; Homs 20; Dara’a and Idleb had nine each.” - Al Wasat, Bahrain

Syrian authorities break into the house of a member in Atassi Forum

On July 28, the independent Al Wasat newspaper reported that the Arab Syrian Human Rights Organization stated that on July 27 the Syrian authorities broke into the house of the detained writer and member of the Atassi Forum, Ali al-Abdullah, and arrested his son, Mohammad, who is a law student because he is in contact with the family committee of political detainees. Al Wasat noted that the families of some detainees had formed, on July 25, a committee to support the political prisoners.

Mohammad participated in the committee and announced to the press that his father, who was arrested four months ago because he read an announcement for ‘al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun’ group, was abused in prison and was put in a solitary cell; which is a violation of his basic human rights, Al Wasat said. The organization added that the Syrian intelligence services also arrested Yassin Hamoui from Daria village on July 26 for having contacts with the same committee, Al Wasat concluded. - Al Wasat, Bahrain

"174 Lebanese kicked out of Syria"

Al Seyassah, an independent Kuwaiti newspaper, reported on July 28 that “security services in Damascus, Syria have called upon 174 Lebanese citizens working in the Syrian capital, warning them to leave the country within 24 hours. This is under the pretext that they do not carry official work permits.”

Syria: Pressure does not help democracy

On July 26, the Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Farouk al-Sharra, stated that his country wants better relations with the US but this does not mean that Washington should exploit these relations by making endless demands because this will not insure stability for the region, the privately owned, opposition Al Ayyam newspaper reported on July 27. Al-Sharra said: “Pressures provoke hardships for people, induce changes in development plans and reduce economic prosperity but they do not bend the people’s will for freedom and democracy,” Al Ayyam added.

When asked about Washington’s unwillingness to negotiate with Syria, he said: “What can Syria do; I sincerely tell you that I liked the new Iranian president’s statement, Mahmoud Ahmadi Najad, who said that we do not urgently need to have relations with the US. Nevertheless, we are ready for dialogue. If they want dialogue, we are ready and if they want stability in Iraq, we also favor that and if they want to establish relationships, so do we." Al-Sharra continued by asking: “Does having good relations with the US make the other country safe and secure? I do not see that in some of the Arab countries,” Al Ayyam noted that he might be insinuating that the countries are Saudi Arabia and Egypt who are facing terrorist attacks. - Al Ayyam Yemen, Yemen

Just the other day Sharaa was quoted in the "Daily Star" arguing that Syria was correct to oppose the Iraq war considering that the United States was failing to bring stability to the country.
Many Syrians worry that Sharaa's needlessly confrontational statements act as a red flag to the American Defense Department. Some suggest that he will be replaced as Foreign Minsiter in the next government reshuffle. “Travelers are waiting two days on the Syrian borders to get to Baghdad”

Al Quds Al Arabi, an independent pan Arab newspaper, reported July 27, that, “Iraqis coming from Syria, are waiting more than 48 hours on the borders between the two countries to enter into Iraq. This is because of the restraints that the American forces and the Iraqi border force are imposing on Iraqis, Arabs, or foreigners who are undergoing extremely thorough searches to get an approval for entering. The health conditions of most of the travelers are very difficult since they are having to spend all this time in the desert in the heat of the day and the cold of the night with a lack of water.”

Al Quds Al Arabi reported that travelers are going through a one lane narrow road where thousands of cars and trucks are waiting to enter while border patrols inspect the documents of the passengers. Many new cars that are to be delivered to Iraq got ruined because they were in the sun for too long. Also, many truck drivers said that their luggage of fruit and vegetables has been ruined because of the desert sun’s heat. The passengers have to sleep in their cars, because the American forces have banned traveling by night.

Iraqi security sources are claiming, the newspaper continued, that, “The searches on the Iraqi Syrian borders have unveiled 1,200 insurgents in one month carrying, Saudi, Yemeni, Sudanese, Egyptian, Pakistani and other nationalities.” The newspaper concluded by saying, “Most of the insurgents are coming from Afghanistan and Kashmir, where they are receiving training on armed assaults.” - Al Quds Al Arabi, United Kingdom

Zeina Bu Rizk of the The Daily explains that Washington is pressing Israel to withdraw from Shebaa Farms and seems to have accepted France's policy toward Hizbullah, "which is, as reportedly put by Hariri himself, "to have the Lebanese solve the Hizbullah question at their own pace." According to Hariri, "there are two main reasons for the growing U.S. interest in Lebanon: first, using Lebanon to pressure Syria; and second, furthering the American agenda of promoting democracy in the Middle East."

U.S. fully committed to bring about Israeli pullout from Shebaa Farms
Syria's exclusion from Rice's agenda illustrates Washington's determination to isolate Damascus

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Among the most important elements of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to the region and to Lebanon last week was the revelation that the Americans are fully committed to convincing Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon to withdraw from Shebaa Farms.

Members of the American delegation accompanying the U.S. secretary of state on her visit to Beirut last Friday said Rice raised this issue with Sharon in Tel Aviv just before coming to Lebanon.

The same sources said Washington considers an Israeli withdrawal from the Shebaa Farms as an increasingly urgent matter, adding that the Americans are committed to talking the Israelis into taking such a step.

For the time being, Rice and the U.S. delegation have not gotten a positive reaction from Sharon, who seemed too concerned with Israel's internal problems, particularly regarding the planned disengagement from the Gaza Strip, to concentrate on the Lebanese-Israeli border issue. However, the U.S. will intensify efforts in this direction, said the sources.

The Americans' interest in an Israeli withdrawal from Shebaa Farms is understandable, especially in light of the long-standing U.S. demand for the deployment of the Lebanese Army along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Washington may believe that an Israeli withdrawal from Shebaa Farms would leave the Lebanese authorities with no excuse to avoid deploying the Lebanese Army at the frontier; eventually, such a step would also reduce the reasons for Hizbullah' existence as an armed faction and would facilitate the integration of the Lebanese resistance into the military.

In the meantime, the "leniency" Lebanese officials who met with Rice said she displayed in her approach to the Hizbullah issue is both surprising and reassuring.

There is a strong belief within the circles of Beirut MP Saad Hariri that the Americans have actually adopted the French position on the issue, which is, as reportedly put by Hariri himself, "to have the Lebanese solve the Hizbullah question at their own pace," on the basis of a constructive internal dialogue that would avoid clashes among the Lebanese on this delicate subject.

Although the Americans remain committed to the full implementation of UN Resolution 1559, especially when it comes to the disarmament of what the resolution refers to as "militias," no strict deadlines have been set.

Among Hariri's associates, a belief prevails that the American's unsuccessful experience in Iraq may have convinced the U.S. that a secure and stable Lebanon in which Hizbullah remains armed, yet "inactive" - at least temporarily - is preferable to an unsafe and chaotic Lebanon that could come as a result forcibly disarming Hizbullah now.

Even if they do not intend on cooperating directly with Hizbullah ministers, the Americans are closely monitoring Hizbullah's participation in the government. Hizbullah's experience in this role may serve as a prelude to its ultimate conversion into an unarmed political party.


As put by Hariri's visitors, the head of the Future Movement believes there are two main reasons for the growing U.S. interest in Lebanon: first, using Lebanon to pressure Syria; and second, furthering the American agenda of promoting democracy in the Middle East.

Rice's visit to Lebanon helped serve both goals. By paying such an exceptional visit to Beirut and excluding Damascus from Rice's itinerary, Washington further isolated Syria, thus increasing the pressure against Damascus.

In this context, Hariri's visitors said the MP was convinced that Rice's visit to Lebanon was primarily a message to Syria. Not only did it show that the U.S. was now establishing new networks of relations with a free and independent Lebanon in which Syria has no say, but Syria's exclusion from the U.S. agenda also illustrated the extent to which Washington was determined to isolate Damascus.

The special attention and enthusiasm with which Rice approached the reform issue is linked to the second aspect of America's interest in Lebanon. The achievement of wide-ranging and effective reform is a prerequisite for strengthening the Lebanese democratic system. This is why Rice insisted on the need for reform and expressed full U.S. readiness to assist Lebanon in this respect.

Hariri, according to his visitors, strongly believes in the need to start reforming the security system in Lebanon; dealing with the precarious security situation should be the government's first priority, the young leader says.

At this stage, these sources report, he is looking to the Americans to help make an initial assessment of Lebanon's security equipment requirements. He also sees a possible role for the U.S. to contribute to satisfying these military equipment needs once identified.

Although Hariri believes in the necessity of restoring friendly Lebanese-Syrian relations and strongly encourages Premier Fouad Siniora to prioritize this issue, individuals who have spoken with Hariri report that he is relieved about not being premier at this point. The current arrangement spares him the delicate mission of having to restore relations himself, at a time when his personal ties with Syrian leaders are still strained.

As long as the results of the ongoing international investigation into the assassination of his father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, are not yet released, Hariri seems to have reservations about cooperating with certain political factions. However, he will be ready to work with all those that are cleared by the investigation's results.

Hariri is convinced that certain alliances must be made to keep the country stable and secure. This is one of the reasons why he has cooperated closely with Shiite groups.

This is also one of the reasons why Hariri insists on the need to work with former Prime Minister Michel Aoun, despite the fact that the Kesrouan MP will be in the opposition.

Collaboration between Hariri's Future Movement and Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, Hariri's visitors say, has already begun with the parliamentary committee elections two weeks ago and is expected to continue.

Alawi-Ismaili Confrontation in Qadmous - What does it Mean?

Confessional Violence: Alawites Attack Ismaili stores in Qadmous

27 stores and several homes were burnt or destroyed last week in Qadmous. All of them belonged to Ismailis. “I blame the government and the state 100% for failing to stop this violence,” said Samir, an Alawi villager, whose home is only a few kilometers from Qadmous. “Where was the Baath Party? Where were the police,” he asked? “There were a hundred signs that something was going to happen, but no one did anything,” he lamented. “Now what will happen to our town? It will never return to what it was.”

When I got off the bus in the center of Qadmous yesterday, I didn’t notice anything wrong. Not at first. On the contrary, Qadmous is a handsome town and prosperous compared to the forlorn and dusty villages that hug the main road along the hot dessert plain leading from Homs up to feet of the mountain region shared by Syria’s minority sects. The greenery and cool mountain air of Qadmous is so refreshing and welcome to the traveler who arrives from the plains that he breaths deeply and rejoices.

But everything was not alright in Qadmous. The bus deposited me in front of the police station in the center of town – a stately building of neatly cut stone set three meters in from the street. It’s imposing size and calm authority, meant to symbolize the steady hand of the state, belied the fact that on the night of the riots, the six police stationed there did not venture out and did nothing to stop the marauding crowds. Perhaps they didn't know what to do in the face of such multitudes and disorder, except to call for help? The Alawite district president, originally from Latakia, is now fired, accused of being interested only in illicit gain. He failed completely, either to stop the violence when it began, or, more importantly, to take measures that might have prevented it before it started.

No sooner had I deposited my bags on the sidewalk and begun to take my bearings, than my brother-in-law, Firas, appeared. He jumped out of his car and threw his arms around me in greeting. We kissed on both cheeks and then bowed to kiss the other’s shoulder in the customary salutation of the mountain area. Once settled into his passenger seat, I began to take a better look around. Firas, in a hushed voice, began to point out the long black tongues of soot that reached up above many of the shop doorways like angry cobras ready to strick. Every third or fourth store along the main street had been burned. Each had a gaping hole torn into the corrugated mettle sheeting, which the shop owners roll down over their entrances. Some doors had been ripped completely off the stores, leaving the black interiors exposed and allowing the charred contents to come tumbling out on the sidewalk. Had the attackers used pickaxes, I wondered? How had they ripped through the mettle? Firas murmured something about gasoline.

It was Friday, the weekend, and down-town Qadmous was deserted, the unaffected stores shut tight and mute, their tin faces expressionless in their guilty survival. They were all Alawite stores. Only police and security men stood about lazily at the street corners. The quite exacerbated the sense of violence that must have overtaken Qadmous on the July evening. It lent the town an eerie sense of mourning. Evidently, the rampage had begun around nine in the evening and not abated until three in the morning.

As one Alawi observed, “the more modern we become, the more savage.” He was referring to the use of cell phones, which have become ubiquitous over the last two years. “The bad people who started the violence began to call their brothers and cousins on their phones and everyone from the villages surrounding Qadmous hurried to the town center to take part in the revenge against the Ismailis. It happened so quickly. No one expected such a thing.” At 3:00 o’clock in the morning, two battalions [Katiybatayn] of solders finally arrived from nearby military bases to shut off the surrounding roads and staunch the inflow of villagers looking for trouble or merely coming to gawk. Five hundred people have been detained by security and are being questioned.

“We now call our town Falouja,” Firas joked, when we reached the outskirts of the town. He wanted to break the somber mood. “Do you think the Americans ordered this?” He laughed thinly. It is the only time I have heard this question when I knew it wasn’t serious. I laughed more heartily than did Firas.

“So how did it start?” I asked my father-in-law, when I was alone with him that evening and my wife was putting our child to bed? He had been troubled all day long, knowing this question was coming and being unsure how to answer so an American could understand.

Abu Firas is proud of his town and region. I knew whatever explanation he gave could not satisfy him. His pride in Qadmous and in Syria had been dealt a serious blow by the sectarian violence. He is forever telling me how he organized and oversaw the building of the first secondary school in his village. It now serves the 10 surrounding villages. He had the first paved road built to his town – Bayt al-Murj or Bayt Qashqa’ur, in which every house is filled with a family member. Before the road was paved, only a donkey track connected the village to the main road, which had been paved only years earlier. Today the village is only a short 10 kilometer drive to Qadmous. When my father-in-law was a child it took hours to get there. The first time he set eyes on Qadmous was at the age of eight.

His grandfather, Ali Ahmed, the great family patriarch, had bought the entire valley from the Ismailis in 1920 for a hundred gold lira and built the town single-handedly, clearing the trees and underbrush, terracing the stony hillside, building five water-driven grain mills, the only ones for miles around. He prospered and built the first one-room school house in 1948 to provide primary education to his kids and those of the nearby villages. It was only the third school built in the entire region including Qadmous all the way down the mountains to the edge of Baniyas. He raising twelve children, ten of whom survived to built their own houses in town.

Abu Firas measures himself by his grandfather’s accomplishments; last weak he found himself wanting. He was powerless to stop the violence and unable to keep the region on the road to progress established by his forefathers.

“There are no longer any wujha’ [literally “faces” or community elders] of consequence in the region that could step into the void to assume authority and restrain the baser instincts of hot heads and the mob,” he explained. “The younger generation listens to no one. There is no chamber of commerce in Qadmous, no community organizations or leaders of the town able to stop this sort of confessional nonsense and repair relations between the communities before they ignite,” Abu Firas lamented. “Why is this so? Because the government doesn’t permit it. It must control everything and appoint its people. There is only the Party. That is why no one does anything. We sit on our verandas drinking tea and visiting their relatives. It is a waste.” Not knowing whether to blame himself or his government, Abu Firas blamed his government, but he was not happy doing so. He once loved the Baath Party.

My father-in-law was the most successful of his generation of Qasha`urs, rising to be general and second-in-command in the Navy, but his ambitions and steady rise in the military was cut short at the age of 58. Having served 10 years at the rank of “liwa’,” or general, it was up or out according to Syrian law. He was forced to retire. His boss and commander stayed on as head of the Navy well into his 70s because he was related to someone. Even as he grew deaf and unable to carry out his full duties, the commander hung on, forcing able and rising stars like Abu Firas to retire early just as they were reaching their prime.

The living-room to Abu Firas’ village house has a large photo prominently displayed of him shaking hands with Gamal Abdul Nasser on graduation day from the Naval Academy in Alexandria, Egypt in 1960. He was part of the Syrian generation that believed in Arabism and which felt certain the military and Baath Party would lead the way to overcoming sectarianism and building a united and strong society. His faith has not survived well.

He was the first to say that the government and Baath Party had failed to head off the violence which overtook Qadmous. By preventing the emergence of civil society in the region and undermining potential wujha’ (local figures of authority), such as himself, the government has created a social wasteland, in which normal mechanisms for healing old sectarian wounds cannot emerge, and in which people like Abu Firas are spectators, unable to contribute. The young learn to be selfish, looking after their own families and leaving local affairs in the hands of the government administrators who are sent to the district from somewhere else. They have few role models.

Abu Firas explained how there were long and short-term reasons for the violence. For the long-term reasons, he recounted the long history of sectarian competition in the region – how Ismaili Emirs had ruled the mountains when the Alawites began to spread into the area hundreds of years ago, especially after the Ottomans expelled the Shi’a from Aleppo and its surrounding regions in the 16th century. Alawites were the peasants, treated like serfs and indentured servants. The Ismailis, according to local Alawi lore, grew fat and forgot how to work, slowly selling off their land, but they never forgot their arrogance – at least that is what the many Alawis claimed whom I spoke with. Wars broke out and the Alawite peasantry grew stronger and won battle after battle. They bought up more land and prospered because they are an "ambitious, hardworking, and open-minded people." That is how Alawis explain their success.

The Ismailis for the last 200 years have been moving off the mountain. Salamiyya, the Ismaili town on the outskirts of Hama is a product of this recent migration and loss of Ismaili power in the mountains. In short, the long history of communal animosity lives on. As one Alawi in his 20s insisted to me, “Ismaili merchants and bosses still treat us with disrespect. They are “haqiriin” or of base character. They are jealous because we have been successful and now have the state behind us. They have not learned.” Unfortunately, I did not speak with Ismailis, who, I am sure, would tell a very different story.

The short-term reasons for the violence began with a confrontation between Alawi and Ismaili youth over girls. A group of young Alawi men had come to a family entertainment spot and flirted with Ismaili girls. A scuffle broke out. Later the Ismailis led a noisy delegation to the local police station to protest the behavior of the Alawi youth and demand an apology be made and steps be taken to punish the offenders. The police director did nothing. Perhaps he thought the dispute would blow over soon enough and required no action? Perhaps he didn't want to offend the local Alawis, or perhaps, being an Alawi himself, he was not sympathetic to the plight of the Ismailis? Maybe, as some people claimed, he was only interested in collecting small bribes for issuing local liscences and did not care about anyone in the region?

In revenge, the Alawi community enforced a boycott of Ismaili merchants in town. There has always been a reluctance to buy at the store of an Ismaili, but it had been half-hazard. Most importantly, Ismailis, who make up perhaps 50% of Qadmous proper, monopolize certain businesses, most importantly the sweetshops and furniture stores. In order to take advantage of the boycott, several enterprising Alawis began to import sweets from a local market and sell them in Qadmous to satisfy local demand and make a profit.

This enraged the local Ismaili merchants whose businesses were suffering terribly. The surrounding villages and customer base of Qadmous is almost uniquely Alawi. Seeing their livelihoods being destroyed, the Ismailis stoned the store fronts of their competitors. Then all hell broke lose. That evening Ismaili stores were attacked and burnt, causing an estimated 10 million Syrian Pounds of damage.

The outbreak of sectarian violence in Qadmous comes only a few months after similar clashes tore apart Misyaf, a mountain town some 20 minutes by car from Qadmous. Though less violent, those clashes, which began with a dispute among taxi drivers, inflamed communal tensions between the two Shiite communities who have shared the mountains for 100s of years. Today Qadmous has a new district president, a Christian, who is known for his even-handedness and discipline. He has replaced the Alawi who came from Latakia.

Syria’s Baath regime has suffered a terrible blow in the high peeks of the Coastal Mountains. Since 1970, the main legitimizing slogan and proudest accomplishment of the state is that it has brought stability and security to Syrians. That legitimacy was badly frayed on the July night that sectarian violence burned through Qadmous. Few people express open devotion to the Baath Party. Most no longer believe that it is helping them to modernize as it once did. On the contrary, they complain that the regime’s efforts to dismantle and wipe away all traditional forms of authority have deprived them of any shield against the darker passions of sectarian and ethnic hatred that still simmer below the surface of village life.

As one local resident said to me, “What happened in Qadmous, could happen anywhere in Syria. If the state were lifted off this society, who knows what would happen to our country? Maybe we would become Iraq?” Ironically, the absence of civil society, has created an ever greater need for state authority. Even as people criticize the corruption of local officials, they insist on ever more vigilant state intervention. The absence of alternative sources of authority and leadership in Syria, means that the authoritarian state is needed more than ever. What would be the alternative? Qadmous? Iraq?

News Round Up

Syria delivers 12 fundamentalists to Saudi Arabia (Thanks to mideastwire.com)

On July 26, the Syrian Arab News Agency said that Syria had extradited 12 extremists linked to the death of a Tunisian extremist who was going to establish a training camp for fundamentalists on Lebanese territories, the privately owned, opposition Al Ayyam newspaper reported. The agency said: “The Syrian authorities started to deliver some extremists who are of different Arab nationalities to their home countries. The men were suspected of being responsible for a gun fight along the Syrian-Lebanese border on June 22 which led to the murder of a Tunisian man, called Majdi Bin Mohammad Bin Said al-Zraibi,” Al Ayyam noted. Al-Manar Lebanese TV Station had stated back then that the extremists were arrested when they were crossing the borders from Iraq to Lebanon, Al Ayyam concluded. - Al Ayyam Yemen, Yemen

"Three Syrian judges taken to 'political security' on corruption charges"

Al Seyassah, an independent Kuwaiti newspaper, reported on July 26 that "Syrian Judge Mahmoud Suleyman, head of the Revocation Court in Syria, and his deputies, Judge Ali Agha and Judge Mufaq Shamu have been taken into custody. All three were then transferred to the political security apparatus where they are being interrogated. They are being charged with several corruption cases linked to their involvement with Syrian oil companies." - Al Seyassah, Kuwait

Syrian sources deny Saddam Hussein's relatives in Damascus

On July 25, the Elaph website reported that "Syrian sources in Al-Zabadani, a rural area on the outskirts of Damascus, have denied recently circulated reports that a number of Saddam's relatives are attending schools in Al-Zabadani. The sources noted that like other districts in Syria, a number of Iraqis are living in Al-Zabadani; however, according to official records, they are not related to Saddam. "In a statement issued by the US Department of the Treasury, the United States accused Syria of sheltering the sons of Sab'awi Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, half brother of ousted president Saddam Husayni in the Al-Zabadani area. Sab'awi, who was arrested and handed over by Syria, is currently being detained by US forces in Iraq. Damascus believes "that the United States is launching a continuous campaign of accusations against Syria in the wake of security setbacks faced by the US forces in Iraq.

"In the meantime, Iraqi officials have accused Syria of sheltering terrorists and announced that they possess their pictures and addresses in Damascus. However, the Syrian side confirmed that despite the demand by the Syrian security delegation that has visited Baghdad recently, no evidence or documents regarding the presence of terrorists in Syria were presented by the Iraqis," the website wrote. - Elaph, United Kingdom

Iraqi minister blasts Syria on terroristsCNN - 1 hour agoBAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's defense minister criticized Syria on Tuesday for ignoring Iraqi demands "to stop the infiltration of terrorists."

Syria to extradite 21 Tunisian extremists to TunisKuwait News Agency, Kuwait - 2 hours agoDAMASCUS, July 26 (KUNA) -- Syria will extradite 21 Tunsian extremists captured after armed confrontations with an extremist group sprearheaded by Tunisian.

SYRIA: RELATIVES OF POLITICAL PRISONERS ORDERED NOT TO MEET

Damascus, 25 July (AKI) - Syrian police have ordered members of a newly-formed support group made up of relatives of political prisoners not to meet, without first obtaining official permission to do so. The Commission of Relatives of Prisoners of Opinion and of Conscience (CRPOC) was holding its inaugural meeting on Monday when police surrounded the building where the launch was being held, in the town of Dariya near the capital Damascus. The police then peacefully broke up the meeting, but first warned one of the group's leaders, Abu Haytham al-Hamawi, not to organise another one without the authorities' consent.

Syria's interior minister, Ghazi Kanaan, recently stated that there are no political prisoners held in Syrian jails, a claim disputed by the CRPOC, which says its members represent more than 500 such detainees.

According to the support group, some 600 political prisoners are held in Syria. Of these, 200 were arrested this year alone, "only for having exercised their basic rights, such as freedom of opinion and expression," the group said in a statement, in which authorities are accused of "preventing relatives from visiting the detainees, denying them access to lawyers and even refusing to disclose where they are being jailed."

At its launch, the CRPOC released a list containing the names of 533 people it says are political prisoners.

Interview with Ayman Abdelnour by Joe Pace

Interview with Ayman Abdel Nour - Editor-in-Chief of "All4Syria" and Member of the Baath Party
By Joe Pace
21 July 2005

Many analysts were disappointed by the results of the Ba’th conference and pointed to it as evidence that Bashar is not committed to reform. Why do you think that the conference did not result in more substantial changes?

You have to take into consideration that you are speaking about a party that has 2 million members and you want to keep it united as one body. Second, you have to understand that Bashar’s speech was addressed to both the Syrians and the West, so it contains different messages. I think that now that the Regional Command has only 14 members, it will be able to enact change much faster than the old 21 member Command.

The Bath Party is not a party; it is a movement. It contains all the elements of Syrian society, from the illiterate to the most highly educated teacher who wins international prizes. You find secular people and conservative people. What unites them is that they want to build Syria and a better future. Everything is big and vague and general, especially in the application. If you read the literature in the 1960s, its all out of date and nobody is applying it because it is against imperialism and for Marxism and such.

They gather and they discuss the agenda and then they tell the government what to do and what to say.

Now they have a new definition of socialism: social justice and equality under the law. The right to have a job. Sadat did the same in Egypt and it split his party into three parts.

For the conference, this was the biggest recommendation they could make and still stay united. If they had taken a more reformist stance they would split and fracture.

What are the lines on which they would fracture?

The fracture lines are in the labor rights. There was a huge debate for the last nine months to adapt a new definition instead of this social, directed economy. The debate was about the market economy, they saw that it would jeopardize the rights of the worker and labor unions and privilege the private sector. So they adopted the name, the social market economy.

The president wants to say that they are separating the Bath from the government. This is important for the business community because we are heading for a market economy. Third, this is a message to the Damascene business community, since he brought an independent (Abdullah al-Dardari—deputy prime minister for economic affairs) to help economic reform and he has orders to do anything for the businessmen. They want to absorb and buy the business community. For the first time, the president met with the Damascus Chamber of Commerce.

It was opposed by all the peasants and labor unions.

How would you describe the new members of the regional command? Do you consider them reformists?

It depends on what you mean by reformists. You have to have a vision and an understanding about what has happened in other countries. You have to know languages and follow the western media and understand international relations. You have to visit other countries and study the experiment of reforms there and met officials and diplomats. According to these criteria, you will find only two or three in the regional command who fit into this category. The others want to develop, to reform, but they don’t have any plans or agenda. But at least, they will not stop reform initiatives like the previous Command.

What sort of things did the previous one stop?

It stopped the economic reform plan twice. It stopped the draft law, suggested by the government, to reduce the steps to give licenses for NGOs. The new government is preparing the draft and will send it to the parliament and regional command soon. In 2003 the president ordered the Bath to stop interfering with the daily work of the government, but the command paralyzed the decision after a few months from passing it. [Decision 408, 21 June 2003]. But these guys are new and poor so they don’t have an economic interest to defend like the older generation.

In the constitution, the Bath regional command sets the agenda. And the government implements the policy. This was the reality.

We have to let the Bath Party work as a political party, as any ruling party, and the government should work as the government of the nation. Right now the Bath interferes in every small issue. Now they are separated.

Why was All4Syria — a website Ayman created in 2004 that compiles articles mostly written by regime critics — banned when several oppositional websites are permitted in Syria?

For a simple reason: let us assume now that we have a PC and we surf the internet. We go to those opposition cites and what do we see? The Assad family is very corrupt and we have to change them or kill them. The Alawites are running Syria and we should finish them off. We need freedom of speech and to free political prisoners. The corruption in Syria must end. The Bath is very bad—we should abolish it. You go to my website and you see: this is the official, this is his name, he did this, made this decision, which is wrong because of this, and because of his wrong decision he will impact this sector in this way. The president sent this delegation, and they are under-qualified and should be changed an replaced the following people, and I list them. The Baath Congress lacks reformists, I wrote following elections in June; the government should appoint 150 reformists into the Party to make up for their absence, I recommended.

If the average person reads the opposition websites, they think “we will not endanger our lives with these Utopianists.” But the regular citizen reads my news…. There is no concrete or useable information against the officials in the opposition websites. “All4Syria,” is actually much more scandalous because those in the government who employ these idiots will see how badly qualified they are and figure out with whom they should be replaced.

The purpose of “All4Syria” is to launch dialogue. It’s the first sanctioned newsletter to cross all the red lines and all the taboos in Syria. It was the first to criticize the intelligence apparatus, the National Bath Command, the Regional Command, even employees in the presidential palace. So we were the first to promote the sense of freedom of speech, to open dialogue. It strengthens the community. When people see that they can participate in the dialogue, they will defend their society.

What is the impetus for reform?

There is a genuine need from inside. They cannot continue in the same way with the same people with the same slogans in the 21st century. First, a socialist, directed economy cannot attract foreign investors or even the Syrian ex-pats. Investment is very badly needed to create jobs for the labor market. The unemployment rate is increasing and this will cause a huge problem for the regime in the future, which will not be able to control the streets.

Second, Syria needs to improve its trade balance. Oil and raw materials account for more than 80% of the total exports. In 2011 consumption will match production, so Syria will start paying for its energy balance. So it needs hard currency; unless it changes the structure of its export to be finished material, it won’t be able to cover the trade deficit and to bring in hard currency. This is even more pressing because of the high growth rate and because of the need for technology and equipment to replace the old generation that was used in the public sector in the 80s—all imported from the USSR.

Third, there are the bourgeois and the new businessman and some high officials – this layer needs an open market to prosper and grow, so it pushed for changing the economy thoroughly and the tools used by the government and Bath party.

They cannot continue with the one party system because of this new class, the rise of conservative Muslims. They need associations and entities to defend their interests. Unless these associations are controlled by laws that require transparence and allow them to work above the table, they will work under the table, risking the stability of the regime.

Are they going to get rid of the one-party system?

Yes, they cannot keep on like this. Especially after the fall of Iraq. Now everyone is saying that the one party dictatorship only exists in North Korea, Cuba and Syria. It’s become a joke. So they need a new system. But that doesn’t mean they would compromise their interests.

How do they do that without compromising their interests?

There are a lot of systems: there is the Turkish model in which the National Security Council controls everything and defends the constitution and secularism. Or the Chinese system: one party, but they can absorb the businessmen. There is also the experiment of Jordan, in which the parties fight inside the parliament but under the head of the regime who is the king.

What sort of party law do you expect?

I expect it after a year or a year and a half; it will forbid explicitly ethnic or religiously based parties. They will have to be nationwide, having offices and members in all 14 governorates, and to gain a licence, parties will have to surpass a certain minimal threshold of members—a few thousand.

What do you say to those who contend that the party law is window-dressing; specifically, that it will mandate impossible conditions for parties to obtain licenses? Such as there have to be supporters in every district, there have to be several thousand members, etc.

Does the Democratic party in the US not have supporters in every state? Is any state not represented by the German parties? How can you have a national party and not have representatives in every part of the country? This is not a big issue.

Regarding numbers, I think that it will be a few thousand, but there is a difference between members and supporters through signature. Until now it is unclear because you can gather one million signatures of people who agree with your objectives and slogans, but it doesn’t mean that they are members. It’s unclear whether they want signatures or members. The party must be serious, not like Jordan where there are 35 parties and only two succeed in electing people to parliament, so the others are like a political salon, not a party.

Then is the Party Law going to be accompanied by a Press Law that enables prospective parties to disseminate their platform in order to get the prerequisite number of members?

If the leadership does not have a clear vision towards the transfer of democracy, this will fail. The most important thing is not the Party Law by itself. More important is the election law which could undo the accomplishments of the party law. We need a new information law. We need a new law for syndicates. We need a new law for private associations and NGOs. We need a new law for the right to access information. Unless those laws are completed and have a vision, we have a problem; it will bring more problems. We have a lot of new laws in different sectors that bring more problems than they solve because they are miswritten. Then the government forms a committee to explain the law and explain how to implement the law, then in the end, they end up rewriting the law and it just creates more confusion.

The new information law—there are many changes from the publication law. It adds many chapters to enable giving licenses to television, radio stations and websites. They replace the jail penalty with a fine. It takes away the power of the prime minister to close a publication and gives it to all government members. So if the government wants to close a publication they will study it in a report written by a committee of three members (including minister of justice) to justify this position, then send it to the whole government to vote.

This regime has tried human rights activists in the High National Security Court for "disseminating false information" and issued prison sentences. Under this new law, could someone—say, from a political party or a human rights organization—be imprisoned on similar grounds under the new law?

The new law covers journalists. You will still need the names from the security apparatus before getting approval so no political newspapers will be accepted.

A lot of Western analysts speculate on competing power centers within the government; to what extent do you think power is truly centralized in the hand of President Bashar?

The president is 100% in control of the government. That was very clear when he changed all the high officials in the army and the intelligence apparatuses.

What role do you think the opposition will play in these reformist initiatives?

There is no opposition. At the congress, it gave the government a good image that there is a democratic opposition. A lot of websites are opened which highly criticized the regime and the president. The government considers this good because it shows the Syrian citizens how idiotic and immature the opposition is, so they will stick with the regime. But when it begins to become a problem, they will ban it.

What are the circumstances under which the government would begin to fear the opposition?

The government fears that they will be united. If some of them had an agreement with foreign powers to interfere. And if the government fails to deliver to citizens a better level of life and job opportunities, the people will be able to be mobilized. Even if they don’t agree with the slogans or the objectives of the opposition, they will move against the regime. So the regime is trying right now to finish and tackle the tension points that concern the average citizen and to solve them. This is why the government has taken a lot of popular decisions in the last 3 months, like reducing the car customs, new ISPs and reducing costs of the internet fees, buying the industrial businessmen through launching the first industrial conference, and signing all the requests from the industrialists. For the first time in his 5 years, the president met with the board of the Chambers of Commerce in Damascus and Aleppo.

Will the effect of these decisions trickle down to the lower classes or are there new government initiatives to appease that segment?

There is a set of issues they will do soon to buy all the people. They will have the new law for the NGOs and they will start to formulate a social safety net to give loan and aid to the poor people and also they will have a plan to develop areas in the northeast of Syria.

How threatened does the regime feel from US pressures and how do you think it is likely to respond?

It fears instability. All the same, the government is very sure that it cannot be changed. The US will not interfere militarily, and there are is no other way to change the regime. There is no real opposition that could mobilize the street. And also, there isn’t a clear cause which would make people rise up and go to the street because the regime is also solving direct points of tension. This is the difference between this regime and Saddam’s regime.

Here the regime is very clever. It doesn’t ignore even the smallest point of tension that an outside power might take advantage of. You cannot name any single problems that would mobilize the people. They directly solve the problem. This is their strategy, which they inherited from Hafez. Do not let anything spiral out of control; finish it when it is small. Kill it or solve it.

How is this regime likely to respond to increasing international isolation?

It has an exit strategy; walking towards democracy like the announcements after the congress, bringing a new independent deputy prime minister - Abdullah al-Dardari - and trying to build bridges to the EU and to enhance the relationship with Turkey and the Arab world.

How did the withdrawal from Lebanon impact internal stability? Did the regime loose face in the eyes of the people?

It would have had a greater impact if it weren’t accompanied with those harsh, awful slogans used by the Lebanese opposition against Syrian people. But those slogans keep the street with the regime because it has touched them, not the Syrian officials who took the money or the Syrians who mistreated the Lebanese. The mistake of the Lebanese is that they attacked the Syrian people and the Syrians—the average citizen felt humiliated and insulted. So he is now backing the procedures taken by the government, like arresting the fisherman and raising lawsuits against the Lebanese for the killing of the Syrian laborers and for the border inspections of Lebanese trucks.

It damaged the prestige of the regime a little, but this move on the Lebanese part killed everything. Economically, Lebanon will be more affected than the Syrians.

Syria News Round Up

The Free Democratic Assembly, a new political party headed by a women, has just been announced. Bara'a Yaghi of Syria-news covers the story. The party has a number of prominent Damascene family names in it as well as representatives from different "currents" of Syrian society. Rihab al-Biytar heads the party and claims it is neither fully in opposition or fully loyal to the government. It will stand for the preeminence of the individual, supremacy of the law, and separation of church and state. (Thanks to Haisam for sending the link)

“Syria: Taxes are increasing and hurting the limited income population”
Elaph, United Kingdom

The private pan Arab newspaper Elaph reported that Syrians are suffering from an increase in taxes over the last few years. “The government has increased the taxes even on the limited income employees something that affected their standard of living,” Elaph reported. The VAT in Syria has reached 11% which is a large figure compared to the living standard in the country. Human Rights activist lawyer Anwar Al Boni was quoted as saying: “The Syrian people are not only suffering from political oppression and a lack of freedom in the society, but also from an economic oppression and [an inability] to find job opportunities." On the other hand, the Syrian government has refused to admit that it is implementing new taxes but the government claimed it is reforming the tax system in Syria. “The government wants to reform the tax system in order to be able to collect taxes efficiently since it loses around 4 million US dollars annually from people not ! paying their taxes,” Elaph added. Critics of the government said the main reason for the economic failure in Syria is corruption, the newspaper concluded.

Syria prosecutes a number of judges for misconduct
July 25,

The independent Al Wasat newspaper reported that the Syrian Minister of Justice, Mohammad al-Ghafri, declared: “I am going to prosecute some judges who have breached the law and exploited their positions by acting in a biased way concerning some trials.” Al-Ghafri added that the judicial authorities have formed a new judicial inspection board to monitor the actions of judges and stated that the actual number of convicted judges is small relative to the actual corrupt judges at work. The newspaper also stated that the ministry of foreign affairs relocated some staff from the central administration to embassies and Syrian consulates and transferred a lot of ambassadors to other capitals as an administrative and routine step.

Syria's Media Demands Beirut Apology for Anti-Assad 'Insults' before Seniora Goes to Damascus

Syria's state-run media has demanded a public apology from Beirut for alleged
insults unleashed against the Assad regime in the aftermath of Rafik Hariri's
assassination, saying even this apology may virtually not be enough to normalize
relations and call off Syria's ongoing trade war against Lebanon....

Ibrahim Hamidi, writing in al-Hayat (Arabic) says Syrian sources suggest the border crisis between Lebanon and Syria will be settled within 5 days.

Recent rumors that Ghazi Kanaan, Shalish, and Shara'a - the last of the "old guard" - will step down before the announcement of the new government, which is due shortly, has been written up by Akhbar al-Sharq. I copy the Arabic version. (Thanks to a commentator)

* قرار متوقع بتسريح ذي الهمة شاليش .. وغازي كنعان يستعد لمغادرة وزارة الداخلية
دمشق - أخبار الشرق (خاص)

علمت أخبار الشرق أن الرئيس بشار الأسد قد يصدر قريباً قراراً بتسريح قائد حرسه الشخصي اللواء ذي الهمة شاليش.
وذكرت مصادر وثيقة الاطلاع في العاصمة السورية دمشق لأخبار الشرق أن شاليش أُبعد عن مهمة حراسة الرئيس الأسد، وهناك قرار بتسريحه، ولا يُعرف إن كان سيُعلن أم لا.

ويعود هذا التسريح إلى قرار الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية قررت في 9 حزيران/ يونيو 2005 معاقبة شركة "إس إي إس إنترناشنال كوربورايشن" التي يملكها اللواء ذو الهمة شاليش (ابن عمة الرئيس بشار الأسد)، ويديرها ابن أخيه آصف عيسى شاليش، إذ صنفت وزارة المالية الأمريكية المذكورين "كداعمين للنظام العراقي السابق"، وقررت معاقبتهما في إطار سعيها لتجميد ممتلكات نظام صدام حسين وكبار مسؤوليه وأفراد أسرهم ووكلائهم والعاملين لحسابهم.

وورد اسم اللواء ذي الهمة شاليش (49 عاماً) في القرار الأمريكي على أنه "الجنرال زهير شاليش"، الذي قال القرار إنه يملك الشركة المقصودة والتي يقع مقرها على طريق حرستا حمص الرئيسي شمال دمشق. وأورد بيان وزارة المالية الأمريكية اسم "ذو الهمة شاليش" كأحد الأسماء التي يُعرف بها "الجنرال زهير"، كما سمته.

وحسب نصر القرار الأمريكي فقد "كانت إس إي إس، التي يملكها (ذو الهمة) ويديرها آصف، بمثابة "مستخدم نهائي مزيف" للعراق، يساعد في الحصول على سلع مرتبطة بالدفاع للقوات المسلحة العراقية. وبوصفها شركة سورية، تمكنت إس إي إس من تزويد المصدّرين في دول متعددة بوثائق تنص على أنها المستخدم النهائي، مشيرة إلى أن سوريا لا العراق هي المقصد النهائي للسلع المصدَرة. وكانت إس إي إس تقوم بعد ذلك بإعداد الترتيبات لنقل السلع إلى وسيلة شحن أخرى وشحنها إلى العراق، مما أتاح للنظام العراقي الحصول على سلع عسكرية - مما يتعارض مع العقوبات التي فرضتها عليه الأمم المتحدة".

كما اتهم القرار اللواء ذا الهمة وآصف شاليش بالعمل "لصالح النظام العراقي السابق وعدد من كبار مسؤوليه. وقدم زهير وآصف مساعدة شخصية لابن صدام حسين البكر، عدي صدام حسين، ولسكرتير الرئيس السابق، عبد الحميد محمود التكريتي (..). وتظهر المعلومات المتوفرة أن عُدي استفاد كثيراً من علاقته مع (ذي الهمة) وآصف وإس إي إس. وبشكل خاص، يُقال إن (ذا الهمة) وآصف عملا بناء على طلب من عُدي على إعادة أديب شعبان، مساعد عُدي، إلى العراق بعد أن كان أديب قد فر منه".

ويمضي القرار الأمريكي إلى القول "تشير المعلومات المتوفرة للحكومة الأميركية إلى أن (ذا الهمة) كان ضالعاً في الجهود الرامية إلى مساعدة عبد الحميد محمود التكريتي في الهرب من العراق أثناء عملية "الحرية العراقية" (الحرب الأمريكية على العراق). وهناك من الأسباب ما يدعو إلى الاعتقاد بأنه عرض مساعدة ابن صدام حسين الأصغر، قصي صدام حسين، على مغادرة العراق".

كما يتهم اللواء ذا الهمة شاليش بأنه خصص مبلغاً من المال كمكافأة شهرية لأسرة عبد الحمد محمود التكريتي، الذي كان حول مبلغاً كبيراً إليه. ويقول البيان "تشير المعلومات المتوفرة لدى الحكومة الأميركية إلى أن شركة إس إي إس قامت، منذ سقوط النظام العراقي السابق، بتوظيف أو مساعدة عدد من مسؤولي النظام السابق، وخاصة منير ممدوح عوض الكبيسي، مدير شركة البشائر التجارية. وقد كانت شركة البشائر من أكبر الشركات التي استخدمها العراق كواجهة للحصول على الأسلحة"، علماً أن كلاً من منير والبشائر تشملهما العقوبات الأمريكية على النظام العراقي السابق.

ومعروف أن اسم اللواء ذي الهمة شاليش وشقيقه رياض شاليش مدير مؤسسة الإسكان العسكري السورية الحكومية يرتبط كثيراً بقضايا الفساد الضالعة فيها المؤسسة المذكورة في داخل البلاد.

غازي كنعان:
من جهة ثانية؛ أكدت مصادر مطلعة لأخبار الشرق أن أيام اللواء المتقاعد غازي كنعان في وزارة الداخلية باتت معدودة، بل وأنه بدأ يستعد شخصياً لمغادرة منصبه و"ضب أغراضه".

وحسب معلومات متداولة في بعض الأوساط بدمشق؛ فإن ثمة مرشحين اثنين أكثر حظاً من غيرهما في خلافة كنعان في وزارة الداخلية، هما نواف الفارس محافظ القنيطرة الحالي والذي كان رئيساً لفرع الأمن السياسي في اللاذقية أيام أزمة إغلاق ميناء رفعت الأسد وكان قائد عملية الهجوم على الميناء، وصقر خير بك وهو ضابط كبير في وزارة الداخلية.

وكانت الولايات المتحدة اتخذت أيضاً في ختام شهر حزيران/ يونيو 2005 قراراً بتجميد أموال غازي كنعان الذي كان يرأس جهاز الأمن والاستطلاع التابع للمخابرات العسكرية السورية في لبنان قبل أن ينتقل إلى رئاسة جهاز الأمن السياسي بدمشق ويصبح لاحقاً وزيراً للداخلية. كما جمدت واشنطن أموال العميد رستم غزالة الذي خلف كنعان في لبنان عام 2002.

* وزير الخارجية السوري يرغب في الاستقالة من منصبه
دمشق - أخبار الشرق (خاص)

تشير مصادر في دمشق إلى أن وزير الخارجية السوري فاروق الشرع قد يعتزل منصبه هذا الذي يتولاه منذ 21 عاماً، خلال الفترة القريبة القادمة.
وتوقعت المصادر أن تُساق أسباب صحية لهذا الخروج من المنصب، لا سيما وأن الوزير الشرع عانى في الأعوام القليلة الماضية من مشكلات في القلب. وكانت توقعات كثيرة راجت في دمشق بشأن تولي وليد المعلم، نائب الوزير، منصب وزير الخارجية في أول تعديل وزاري مقبل.
واختير فاروق الشرع عضواً في القيادة القطرية الجديدة لحزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي، وكان المؤتمر القطري العاشر الذي تم اختيار القيادة خلاله في 6 - 9 حزيران/ يونيو 2005 قد أوصى بعدم تعيين أعضاء القيادة في مناصب تنفيذية، ما عدا رئيس الوزراء الذي هو عضو في القيادة بحكم منصبه. علماً أن القيادة الحالية فيها أكثر من وزير واحد، إذ تضم أيضاً الدكتور محمد الحسين وزير المالية.
وحسب مصادر مطلعة، فإن وزير الخارجية فاروق الشرع لم يُخفِ لمقربين منه شعوره بنوع من الكآبة وخيبة الأمل، من الحملة الصحفية التي شنتها جهات سورية داخلية لتحميله مسؤولية الفشل الدبلوماسي في إدارة السياسة الخارجية السورية، ووصول دمشق إلى عزلة إقليمية ودولية. وتقول المصادر إن الشرع يميل إلى طلب عدم التجديد له، وعدم تولي أي منصب تنفيذي آخر، على أن يبقى في القيادة القطرية لحزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي الحاكم.
وكان نائب الرئيس السابق عبد الحليم خدام، الذي تولى وزارة الخارجية بين عامي 1970 و1984، قبل الشرع؛ قد وجه انتقادات صريحة للسياسة الخارجية السورية في لبنان أثناء مناقشات اللجنة السياسية للمؤتمر القطري لحزب البعث، واحتد النقاش بينه وبين الشرع، الذي رد بدوره بانتقاد خدام لغيابه عن البلاد أثناء صدور قرار مجلس الأمن الدولي رقم 1559.

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Will America carry out Punitive Stikes against Syria?

A friend in Washington just wrote me this email:

I just spoke briefly yesterday with a fellow who has many contacts in the Pentagon, military and civilian: he says the Pentagon is 100% certain that Syria is a haven for organizers of insurgency and is likely to get whacked, not to bring about regime change, just to punish. There's no point to challenge the 100% certainty piece...this is what they believe...just like they were 100% certain about wmd's in Iraq.

This only means that the Defense Department is angry. It has accused Syria of operating several foreign-Jihadist training camps near Aleppo. It is hard to believe that State and other departments would want to open another front by punitive bombings of Syria, but one never knows.

[Addition July 25] Nur-al-Cubicle adds to this in the comments below:...

From what I read, France, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia oppose any idea of US punative strikes against Syria.

The new Saudi Ambassador to Washington, Turki al-Faisal, publically warned Washington that Iraq's border security problem must be resolved on the Iraqi side of the frontier. Lebanon's Prime Minister Siniora interrupted remarks by Condoleeza Rice when she attempted to lash out at Syria during her recent unannounced 7-hour visit to Beirut.

Daily Press Briefing
Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman
Washington, DC
July 21, 2005
QUESTION: Today, Syria hit back at the accusations about their borders, the militants crossing their borders, saying that so far they had detained thousands of would-be insurgents.

MR. ERELI: Syria?

QUESTION: Yes, Syria. And they speak about 1,200 foreign extremists and more than 4,000 Syrians. Do you have any comment on that?

MR. ERELI: (A) It's a number that, I guess, hard to verify but; (b) and I think this is the important point, the really important point is that there's no indication, whether or not they detained 1,400 people and whether or not those 1,400 people are really as problematic as they might suggest, there's still no indication, frankly, that the problem of support for the insurgency from Syria has ended. And that's the bottom line. The Iraqis are telling us that Syria is a problem. Other evidence indicates that Syria's a problem. So regardless of what's happened with these 1,400,
there are serious issues that remain in terms of insurgency activity in Iraq that is being conducted because of support and other facilitation from inside Syria.

And it remains an issue that we continue to press the Syrian Government about, that the Iraqis, more importantly, continue to press the Syrian Government about, and that frankly continues to undermine stability in Iraq, in which therefore is a problem not just for Iraq, but for the whole neighborhood.

Lebanon

The European Union is scheduled to hold a working session on the growing crisis in Lebanon on Monday in Brussels. Washington is consulting with the international community for a solution to put an end to Syria's domination over Lebanon.

U.S. and European officials also charged that Syria continues to maintain presence in Lebanon through intelligence agents, who were supposed to be removed by the end of April, according to U.N Resolution 1559.

The White House blamed Damascus explicitly for blocking the three attempts by Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to form a cabinet of Ministers. Lahoud vetoed all three, despite the support of the majority of Parliament for the last iteration.

The EU is joining the US in putting pressure on Syria. The Daily Star reports

EU foreign ministers called on Syria to improve relations with neighboring Lebanon and Iraq. It also warned Damascus to cut support to groups that oppose stability in the region in order to ensure future EU aid and trade.

The ministers said: "A positive Syrian contribution to regional stability would contribute to deepening the EU-Syria relationship."

The EU has stalled the full implementation of a billion dollar cooperation agreement that offers Syria aid and better trade access because of its refusal to live up to EU demands to fight terrorism and cooperate in fostering peace in the Middle East.

Commenting on the Lebanese-Syrian border crisis, EU ministers urged Syria to "support the legitimate and sovereign new government of Lebanon allowing for smooth circulation of goods between the two countries."

But it looks like the government crisis in Lebanon may be coming to an end. Siniora and President Lahoud promise an announcement this afternoon.

Sana news agency is now reporting that the border is open, but we will have to see what that means.

Al-Dabbusiyah, 17 July: Syrian and Lebanese ordinary people and drivers stressed that they crossed Al-Dabbusiyah border point with the sisterly Lebanon to and from Lebanon, adding that the Syrian authorities provide them with all possible facilities and deal in a flexible way with all arriving and departing passengers.

SANA staff reporters who visited the Al-Dabbusiyah area several times said there was an ordinary crossing traffic on both sides, and all the personnel there were working very hard to alleviate traffic jams on the borders with Lebanon, particularly the trucks coming from Lebanon.

Director of the Syrian Customs in the area Abd-al-Hadi Darwish said the main reason for the jam is the bridge used for the two-way border crossing is narrow and was originally built under the French mandate on Syrian and Lebanon.

He added that there are ongoing preparations on the Syrian side of Al-Dabbusiyah to expand and modernize this crossing point.

Economic stranglehold

Syria has prevented Lebanese goods from passing through the Lebanese-Syrian border, where Beirut averaged 300 export shipments per day prior to Syria's withdrawal, over the past two weeks the number has dropped to a staggering zero. Jones said Syria is now trying to "undermine the Lebanese economy by blocking Lebanese exports so that millions of dollars of produce rots" at the Lebanese-Syrian border.

Damascus blames the delays on increased checks to prevent weapons and explosives being smuggled into Syria. Many Lebanese however believe Syria is being revengeful, after enduring a humbling withdrawal as a result of the Valentines Day assassination, which targeted and killed Rafik Hariri.

The economic crisis is threatening 50,000 jobs in Lebanon, and is estimated to be costing $300,000 a day in lost business.

"This is an obvious attempt to create an economic stranglehold on the most vulnerable sector of Lebanon's economy -- farmers and small merchants," a State Department official said. "Syria has historically been the gate through which Lebanese produce and products go to the rest of the region. Syria is now pulling out every dirty trick from its importation guide to have maximum dilatory effect."

These an-Nahar headlines paint the grissly picture of Lebanese-Syrian relations over the last few weeks.

Syria Frees 9 Lebanese Fishermen Detained over the Past 3 Days

Syria Demands Compensation to Families of 35 Workers Killed in Lebanon

Egypt, Arab League Pressure Assad to Stop Trade War Against Lebanon

Shootout Flares on Syria's Border Between Lebanese Police, Smugglers

Lahoud, Seniora in 'Irremediable Discord' as Lebanon Teeters on Brink of Abyss.

Opposition Report: Hazim an-Nahar interviewed by Joe Pace

Joe Pace of Harvard University has agreed to write up interviews with opposition figures in Syria for publication on "Syria Comment." This week he has interviewed Hazim an-Nahar a member of the Arab Workers Revolutionary Party, who also serves on the administrative committee for the Jamal al-Atassi Forum for Democratic Dialogue.

Joe is doing research on the effects of US Foreign Policy in Syria. He is a research
fellow at Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. I am very grateful to him for agreeing to share some of his research with us. Hopefully other researchers will do the same. It is a great service to us all and will help researchers get feed-back on their work and perhaps even some notice for themselves and their work.

Joe Pace can be reached by email at jpace@fas.harvard.edu.

Here is Joe Pace's interview with Hazim an-Hahar
*****************

Hazim an-Nahar has an interesting perspective on US foreign policy; while he remains skeptical of US motives, he told me that the opposition is hypocritical for not recognizing the ways in which it has benefited from US pressure.

There are six communist parties (Hazim was insistent that I not include socialist-Nasser parties in that category) in Syria, two of which are in the National Progressive Front. Given how few communists there are running around Syria, the first question I asked him was,

Why the abundance of communist parties?

“Because the parties splinter. The parties usually don’t split for doctrinal reasons; they split for personal reasons. In fact, there are no substantive differences between the parties. The Front doesn’t allow elections, so splitting is the only way to resolve internal disputes. It’s a deliberate tactic on the part of the regime to keep the parties small and weak."

If there are no substantive differences between the parties, how does the party base choose which of the two new parties to join?

"The parties are totally backwards and undeveloped. Its like the Bedouins—they follow whatever leader they have personal allegiance to."

I asked him about the National Coordination Committee (for which he represents his party), which was formed in the beginning of 2005 to coordinate oppositional efforts. He took a dim view of the Committee's contribution to a more unified opposition.

“The committee is a mixture of all the parties and organizations of the opposition. But its ineffective. It just publishes shared statements for protests and sit-ins. Before the creation of the committee, coordination was very basic and shallow. Unfortunately, even after its creation, coordination remains very basic and the situation hardly differs from before. The main difference is that we have a place and a specific time to meet, but it doesn’t amount to real coordination.” (For that matter, no one I've spoken to in the opposition is optimistic about the coordination committee. Most of the political parties view it as a forum emasculated by the insistence of human rights organizations that its work be confined to human rights issues, not political ones. Many of the Arabs doubt that its Kurdish participants are sincere in their desire to be part of the Syrian opposition, accusing them of dual allegiances. Several Kurdish members have accused the Arab members of backtracking on the committee's charter to find a democratic solution to the Kurdish issue, and they are discussing ceasing their participation).

There was very little coordination especially between the Kurds and Arabs prior to the committee's inception. What suddenly motivated the idea of coordination?

“The political changes inside of Syria including the release of political prisoners and the relative increase in freedoms encouraged us to coordinate. Until that point, we thought of coordination and cooperation between the Kurds and Arabs as a red line. The changes in the region encouraged us to start dialoguing. For example, the Iraq war: the presence of the occupation weakened the regime’s capacity for internal control, relatively speaking. Before, they could arrest 100 people and no one listened or cared. Now they arrest one person and the world listens. We’ve also benefited from the role of the media and the internet. It has really emboldened us to meet more.

“When Bush started to talk about the Greater Middle East and reform in the region, it forced the regimes to start talking about reform. Before they used to say the situation was great. Of course, now they say reform must come from within, but at least they are talking about the need for reform. And of course, reform will occur on their terms. But American policy inspired much of the conversation about reform. It indirectly encouraged the opposition to be bolder and speak out. But at the same time, most of the opposition is strongly opposed to the American project. This is the great irony.

“America doesn’t want to reform the region for the benefit of its people. It has its own interests. Before, its interests lay in the continuation of despots. But now its interests are in line with relatively democratization of the region.”

If the opposition is benefiting from American pressure, why are they so insistent in their opposition a continuation of pressure?

“They oppose the American project vocally to prove their nationalist credentials. The regime accuses them of being treasonous supporters of America, and it’s a strategy that has been somewhat successful.

“Everyone in the opposition admits that the US has spurred talk of reform, but only between themselves. The opposition has gotten stronger in part because of foreign pressure, but they say they stand firmly against America. Its contradictory. Any pressure on the regime contributes to its weakening, which makes our work easier.”

But in spite of international pressure and scrutiny, the government has increased its oppression of civil society activists. How do you explain the new crackdown?

“There are two theories. One is that the regime and the US struck a deal. Syria helps the US deal with the terrorists in exchange for US silence on the human rights and democracy issue. This is a very popular explanation among opposition figures.

The second is that they are trying to display strength to obscure their growing weakness. They’re cracking down to ensure that they don’t have to face pressure from both the internal and external front.”

Has the crackdown worked?

“Absolutely. People are very frightened. In the months between the assassination of Hariri and the national conference, there was more bold talk on the streets about reform. People felt encouraged and the opposition grew. Mind you, we don’t define growth in terms of the number of people who join parties, but the number of people who are sympathetic. But after the national conference, the fear returned. Six people were arrested in Homs for discussing emigration from the Jazeera region—despite the fact they were Ba’thists.”

What are the necessary conditions for the opposition to grow in strength?

“The growth of the opposition has been extremely slow because of the lingering fear imprinted by 30 years of despotism. There are three conditions. First, the different tiers of the opposition must unite. Second, we need to arrive at a clear program for implementing democratic changes in Syria. Third, the opposition needs to renew its political platform, especially as it pertains to the outside world. There is no future for the opposition without a new platform—the current platform is ill. We can no longer afford to be afraid of the outside world. But that does not mean we should depend on the foreign powers to realize all of our demands as some of the Kurds do.”

How do you plan on attracting people to the opposition?

“We cant attract followers until we are united. When the average Syrian sees a divided, enfeebled opposition, no one is inspired to participate. The second thing we need to do is overcome the fear and that is likely to be achieved through one of two ways: foreign pressure or an economic crisis that compels people to demand more from their government."

Do you expect any positive changes from this regime?

“I expect that the changes will be trivial and aimed at beautifying the regime’s image to the international community.”

Niqash - An Iraqi Civil Society Experiment on the Web

An interesting new civil society experiment is running on the web called Niqash A friend, Matthias Klein, is editor of the English section. It will be interesting to see how such experiments develop and is well worth supporting. Here is their blurb.

*niqash* is a space for Iraqi citizens to exchange views on the current political process and to debate the processes that are shaping the Iraqi society. Its main focus is on issues relevant to the drafting of the new Iraqi constitution. Its main goal is to facilitate a public and popular debate on the current political process in Iraq. In order to do so, *niqash* provides background information, organizes expert exchanges on current topics, and offers every visitor the possibility to participate in discussions or even create a personal web-diary (blog). A newsletter keeps registered users updated. There is also a Niqash Radio Station, the broadcasts of which are downloadable.

*niqash* is produced by an Arab-German-Kurdish team in Berlin & Amman. It is published in English, Arabic, and Kurdish.

The project is funded by the German Foreign Ministry and supported by the Friedrich-Ebert-Foundation.

US - Syrian Relations - My Views and Others

The following roundtable Discussion between Israeli and US academics and ex-government officials about Syria carried out on March 31 is a bit dated, but still very interesting, especially as we try to understand how thinking about Syria during the pullout process from Lebanon evolved. It is important to remember that this discussion took place in March when some analysts were pushing the idea that Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon would so weaken Syria that the regime would collapse. This has turned out to be wrong.

I believe that some of the Israeli academics misread the present climate of the regional and international scene.

Barry Rubin sums up the beliefs of many when he says that:

First, Asad won't be able to deliver the necessary "economic benefits" to his people, which will cause eventual economic collapse.

Second, "On top of this are all the foreign policy problems, which his behavior--supporting Hizballah, backing the insurgents in Iraq, encouraging Palestinian terrorism against Israel, destabilizing and then retreating from Lebanon, provoking the United States and so on--has exacerbated."

Dr. Paul Jureidini says, "I really believe [Bashar] to be a hardliner with a not very good understanding of the world around him."

Dr. Hillel Frisch says:

When you have a country under international pressure as indeed was the case in Eastern Europe, you have revolution. When you don't have that international relations' pressure, you might be able to continue the regime. I think that the United States is aiming for revolution in Syria. It's aiming for revolution in Syria for two reasons.

One, as a first step in isolating Iran and its nuclear policy and the future showdown that is inevitable between the United States and Iran, and the second reason is that it jibes well with the promotion of democracy.

I don't think that Bashar Assad in the near future has a fighting chance. I think that Syria just has to go the Eastern Europe, Russian route. Any kind of opening will not be an opening, but a deluge and he has very little possibility of extricating himself from the situation.

Joshua Landis' comments: This overall analysis relies on the assumption that the US is winning in the Middle East and has changed the basic international context such that a soviet-style, top-down, one-party state with a backward economy, such as Syria, cannot continue to survive.

This analysis may have looked correct a year ago, or even after the temporary success of the Iraqi elections, but it doesn't look correct today. Principally, because America is losing in Iraq and probably in Afghanistan as well. At least, it isn't winning, and Sunni militants are gaining confidence that they can drive the Americans out. See this New York Times article, "Iraq's Rush to Failure" By J ALEXANDER THIER, Published: July 14, 2005. The title says it all.

The chaos and increased militancy the US has produced in the Middle East since its invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq is going to get worse in the short to medium term. This will produce greater regional and international legitimacy for Bashar, rather than less. Syria will look like an island of stability, which few will want to submerge. We cannot use the Eastern European model, as Dr. Hirsch does, to gauge the pressures on Syria. A forth wave of democratization is not going to take place in the Middle East - at least it doesn't look likely in the next few years.

Some evidence for this is that the EU countries are revamping and funding their "civil society" programs for Syria. This indicates that they believe in the "slow reform" that Bashar is arguing for. They do not believe that "revolution" or "collapse" in Syria will produce anything but chaos and more headaches. Syria's institutions and opposition figures are not ready to stand alone or to take advantage of radical change.

This all adds up to support for Bashar. No one today wants to see a failed state in Syria, such as we have in Iraq or Afghanistan. Bashar has read the regional trends and mood better than the American administration or Israelis. His legitimacy is growing in Europe because they are very worried about the refugees and militants pouring out of Iraq, which may end up in Europe. They share this worry with Syria.

Bashar has begun to crack down on militants crossing through Syria into and out of Iraq. This has become the "top" priority for the US and Europeans and regional Arab powers. They will have to work with Bashar on this and overlook Syria's infractions in Lebanon, Palestine, and elsewhere. Alternatives to Bashar are rapidly becoming too bleak to consider.

Bashar has gained greater legitimacy within Syria for the same reason. Syrians are feeling threatened by the deteriorating regional situation and rapid rise of militancy in Iraq and the region, which they fear may overtake Syria. Bashar is their only hope for forestalling chaos in their streets. Most Syrians don't trust America.

Last night I had dinner with Syrian friends who work with Iraqi refugees and human rights issues in Syria. They are extremely anxious about failure in Iraq and said,

We cannot face failure in Iraq. It will be a disaster for Syria. In the last decades we have seen the rise of militant Islam in the region and collapse of the old "secular" order - Iran, Algeria, Hizbullah, Iraq, Hamas. Even Turkey, in some aspects, has been growing more religious. There are troubles in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Syria is an island of "secularism" trying to hang on. I predict that in a few years there will be no more Christians in Iraq. The division of the country into three basic blocs - Kurdish, Sunni and Shi'i is very destructive. the mosaic is being destroyed. I fear our mosaic in Syria will be destroyed too."

When I suggested that America was winning and that Lebanon could be seen as an example of this, they were not impressed. They responded:

There were always elections in Lebanon. The elections which just took place are the same elections with the same results that have been taking place in Lebanon for decades. They are not new or "American." The Lebanese are too divided to carry out their revolution. Yes, the Syrians are out, but not much has changed otherwise.

I don't think Lebanon is going to be the engine of change in the Middle East that America says it will. People are not gaining faith in America and its democracy message. They are losing faith. The Arab view of America is much worse today than it was before the invasion of Iraq. The one area where America has some control and could do something, which is Palestine, it refuses to do anything. I fear the situation in the region is going to get worse and not better.

This bleak picture may just be temporary. Iraqi Shiites may yet pull themselves together and stand up an army which can bring order to their country. However, many people are beginning to predict a Somalia type destiny for Iraq with no central state and the country breaking up into emulous militias and continued chaos. Hopefully that will not be the case, but more and more people are beginning to factor such a possibility into their calculations.

Bashar may not turn out to be part of the solution. The hawks may be right that he is implacably set against American goals, but this does not mean he will fail. Many Lebanese believe that Syria wants Siniora to fail in Lebanon so that the more pro-Syrian Mikati is named as the next Prime Minister. They point to the closing of the border between Lebanon and Syria as proof of Syria's pressure in this direction. Others say that Syria is not cracking down on militants, but only pretending to, while it continues to fan the flames of Sunni militancy in Iraq.

My own sense is that Syria is not the engine of US failure in the region as some want to make it out to be. The Lebanese should be pulling together; they have yet to do this. The Iraqis should be pulling together; they are as divided as ever. Syria cannot force either population to agree on their future. Neither can the US. These are battles that can only be won by the citizens of Lebanon and Iraq. Syria can play a minor disruptive role in each country, but not a decisive one. More importantly, I do not believe Bashar is a "hardliner" who fails to understand local realities. I think he is looking after HIS Syrian interests and that he is neither the angel nor devil that he is often made out to be. I believe he will weather the difficult period he is going through and that Washington will be forced to deal with him, even if it has to hold its nose as it does.

This is because the Bush project is not going well. Washington will need Syria's assistance as the US departs from Iraq, and Bashar will give that assistance. As the US demonstrates that it is serious about drawing down its troops in Iraq and withdrawing from the country, Bashar will move aggressively to crack down on militants. It is what Bashar says he will do. He has repeated time and again that Syria wants an independent Iraq. This means an Iraq with no foreign troops. It also wants a stable Iraq. Syria and the US will be able to agree on measures to help stabilize Iraq once Syria sees that America is serious about leaving the country. Neither country wants Sunni militants washing around the Middle East, but they will only be able to agree on the measures to stop militants once Syria believes America has given up its grasp of Iraq.

Many Americans will say that such as Syrian stance is suicidal, because American failure in Iraq will necessarily mean bad news for Alawites in Syria. This is not how the Syrian regime sees it, however. It sees a heavy American presence in the Middle East as its number one enemy. Number two is Sunni militants. So far Syria has not had a Sunni militancy problem in Syria for over twenty years. It has had an American problem. When the threat equation changes, the Syrian government will change its policy.

Anyway, here is the roundtable discussion:

SYRIA UNDER BASHAR; LEBANON AFTER SYRIAN WITHDRAWAL
A GLORIA CENTER ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

On March 31, 2005, the U.S. Department of State's InternationalInformation Programs in Washington D.C., the Public Affairs Office at the U.S. Embassy in Israel, and the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center jointly held an international videoconference seminar, focusing on events in Syria and Lebanon. The seminar's central purpose was to assess the Syrian regime's direction and implications of the Syrian army's withdrawal from Lebanon.

The purpose of this seminar was not to make policy recommendations or reflect any political agenda, but to present the individual views of several scholars studying the region, thinking out loud in trying to develop their own understanding of these issues.

Brief biographies of the participants can be found at the end of the article.

This seminar is part of the GLORIA Center's Experts Forum series. The GLORIA Center wishes to thank the Bradley Foundation for its support of this series.

**************************

Dr. Paul Jureidini: I think the time has come to ask the real Bashar Assad to step forward. A lot of us, myself included, initially had hoped he would be the reformer that everybody hoped for. I have begun to believe that Bashar Assad is a hardliner, who may be for some time was able to hide his hard line.

There is no question. Bashar Assad was unknown. There was opposition to him from the clique around Hafiz Assad, the people we call the Emirs. The army didn't know him. The security people didn't know him. The party didn't know him although he was a member. When he was in London he was really concentrating on ophthalmology and not on trying to understand the West. When he came back, he had six years on the job training with his father and the last year of his pre-presidency was pretty much Bashar running Syria.

The opposition was fairly tough and Hafiz Assad began removing those who constituted a threat. He pushed into retirement his most powerful advisors and supporters leaving Bashar with a second tier which was loyal but not of the best quality. This group basically had no idea of what was going on in the world. They refused to believe after September 11 that the United States would go Afghanistan and then Iraq. And they refused to believe that they would be subjected to a lot of pressure if they didn't behave. They always insisted that fear of an Islamist takeover would insulate them from a serious international challenge. And now this miscalculation has come back to haunt them.

I am convinced that Bashar is a hardliner. He is not the captive of the hardliners. He really believes in the ideology and the balderdash that comes out of the Ba'th party, however upset he may be by the regime's corruption and other problems.

Now he is in the process of promoting his own people who are holding key positions including in the army and security agencies. These choices show that he is not changing Syria's policies or governmental practices.

Dr. Mordecai Kedar: What Bashar Assad really lacks is "the killer instinct", which his father had in excessive quantities. And when you lack the killer instinct in such a regime, you cannot be the head of the regime even if you hold that title. Bashar did allow "clubs" (muntadayat) to discuss the country's society and state in late 2000 and early 2001 but closed them down when they began to get out of control and threaten the regime.

Dr. Flynt Leverett: I don't agree with an assessment that Bashar is really a closet hardliner. I think Bashar does have genuine reformist impulses. I think Dr. Jordini is right that it is easy to overstate the impact of his relatively limited time in the West. He himself told me, in an interview about a year ago that basically in his time in London he learned the route between the flat where he lived and the hospital where he worked. He did not come to office with a well-elaborated vision for pursuing change inside Syria, but I think he does have a genuine sense that things need to be different in Syria.

I think he wants to give primacy to economic reform; social reform would come alongside that and then political reform is kind of the last piece of how you change Syria. He is a gradualist. His approach to doing this would probably require years to bear fruit and there is an interesting question given his strategic situation, does he really have the kind of time to allow that sort of strategy to play out, but I think that is his long-term strategy. I think he is building up a network of Western- trained technocrats in second-tier positions of influence in the system, people with PhDs in economics, management, and computer science. People who've had experience in international financial institutions or in the Western private sector. And he's trying to develop this network as almost a kind of alternative regime to the old guard. He's not had much success in moving these people into top ministerial positions yet, but again, I think this is part of his long-term gradualist strategy for reform.

One thing that I take as an indicator-a confirmation of his reformist impulses--is the woman he married. Asma’ Assad is the daughter of a Sunni expatriate from a notable family in Homs, a man who has made a career as a world-class interventional cardiologist in London. She was born and raised and educated entirely in the UK; graduated from the University of London with a degree in computer science; went through the investment banker training program at JP Morgan; worked as an investment banker at Deutschebank; and, at the time that Bashar proposed to her, had been accepted to the MBA program at Harvard Business School. We can ask what turning down Harvard Business School to marry Bashar says about her judgment, but I think that the fact that Bashar proposed to someone like that, over his family's objections, says something about where his impulses lie.

I think that this is someone who has a reformist outlook, but as I said, his own personal vision is attenuated and even though he is developing this alternative network around him, I think--and he will acknowledge this in conversation--he lacks the kind of technocratic expertise around him in sufficient quantities and in kind of administrative structure, that will let him develop really systematic approaches for reform. In other words, I think that Bashar is ultimately engageable, but he is someone who is going to require a lot of help and a lot of empowerment along the way.

Prof. Barry Rubin: I really do not believe that Bashar is a reformer and am doubtful that we have seen much evidence of that. One symbolic detail is that much was made of his being the head of the Syrian Internet Society. Only a little research is needed to find out that his late brother, who had no interest in Internet, was the previous president of that group. Bashar inherited that job as he did the job of president.

Even if he were so inclined, the massive problems he faces--and the way he responds to them--would foreclose such an outcome. To pick just one example, there are the Islamist and ethnic issues. He knows that there is a Sunni Muslim majority and the more he opens up the system the more powerful he makes that sector. Economic liberalization would also give them proportionately more power to Sunnis. We also see the problem he's had with the Kurds--their riots and his repression.

There is also the difficulty of his delivering economic benefits or changing the regime's basic structure of the regime, challenging the privileges which the current governing elite gets, which doesn't want to be deprived of the privileges. On top of this are all the foreign policy problems, which his behavior--supporting Hizballah, backing the insurgents in Iraq, encouraging Palestinian terrorism against Israel, destabilizing and then retreating from Lebanon, provoking the United States and so on--has exacerbated.

Assuming that he wants to make change, even in the long run, he certainly has gone about it a strange way. And the objective conditions are also difficult, even if compared to the Jordanian and Egyptian regimes. This is true even if we restrict ourselves to limited reforms to make Syria more competitive. We should also mention the economic costs to Syria of the pull-out from Lebanon. Are hundreds of thousands of Syrian workers going to come back unemployed. Is the Syrian elite going to lose the privileges it obtains from such things as counterfeiting, drug smuggling, other smuggling, and regular business in Lebanon? So he has a very heavy burden in fact on his rule and regime.

Martha Neff Kessler: Well I would certainly second the points that Barry has made. But I also think there are some very eerie parallels between what this young man faces and what his father faced back in the early 1970s when he came to power. And that is nearly the most compelling truth about Syria: that regional and international politics have constrained what is possible in that country in a way that is more dramatic than virtually any place else. Yet Bashar's strategic problem is also bigger than almost anything his father faced. That will be what will preoccupy him and any reform effort will be of secondary concern and probably motivated at this point more by foreign policy considerations, that is placating or accommodating or acquiescing to whatever is foisted upon him from the outside rather than things genuinely instigated from his own agenda.


Prof. Amatzia Baram: It's extremely difficult for me to imagine a moderating Ba'th regime. It is possible, but it is near impossible. What a Ba'th regime can do with relative ease is economic liberalization. Like China. It would have happened in Iraq--at least on a small scale--had Iraq not gone through such huge crisis, had Saddam Hussein not pushed such horrible adventures. The balance to this change is the continued power of the secret police. When Saddam started to liberalize economically, and he really meant to do that--no political liberalization, only economic-he found very quickly that the security agencies stymied this whole project as they started breathing down the necks of entrepreneurs.

But, had he had more time he would have been able to do something. So I can see it happening in Syria, and I can see happening not only because it's possible but because it's unavoidable. Because when 1 million Syrian workers go back from Lebanon to Syria he'll have to do something and the Iraqi oil revenues are no longer streaming into Assad's pockets.

So he will have to do it I would say there is a reasonable chance he will do it. Very slowly, but he'll do it. When it comes to political liberalization, this would be very difficult. Maybe in very small steps maybe over many years, so much so that we won't even fell it very much. Is Assad really a hardliner or he is a would-be reformer who cannot deliver? It is very difficult to tell. I don't know. But I do know that the memory of what happened to the rulers of the USSR, Romania, and Yugoslavia is very much in the minds of the Syrian elite. And he will be very worried of similar developments. So, again, I see a hardline leader in practice with some economic changes liberalization but what he truly is I don't know. I think he is working according to constraints. I agree 100% with Martha; I don't know when Assad, the father, was under such stress. And Bashar is now under huge pressure – from almost every direction.

Dr. Kedar: I think that one point should be added here-that many people in the political arena in Syria accuse Bashar of personal responsibilities for the failures of the policies of Syria during the last 5 years. He started gambling on Iraq-he renewed the connections between Iraq and Syria--and it exploded in his face. He is losing Lebanon, after he was given this state by his father as a gift. And now, he is having his relations with Europe, which traditionally was behind him, in a very problematic stage, not to mention what he is going through with the United States. I think that everybody there accuses him for what he did or for what he didn't do. This also doesn't ease his situation vis-a-vis his own people.

Dr. Flynt Leverett: His father didn't really become the uncontested master of Syria, perceived as this very astute player of the regional game, until he had passed through a series of defining challenges. He established Syrian hegemony in Lebanon. He defended that hegemony against both the United States and Israel. He put down a significant challenge to the regime from the Muslim Brotherhood, and he put down a challenge to his own authority from his brother. After he had passed through all of these challenges, he was the lion of Damascus, he was the uncontested ruler of Syria, and he was perceived as this master of regional diplomacy. Bashar has not passed through those kinds of defining challenges almost five years into his presidency. I think Martha's right that he's in the middle of such a challenge now. And in contrast to Kr. Kedar, I would at least like to throw out a scenario in which Bashar could emerge from this situation, actually maybe stronger than he is right now. If four months from now, six months from now, a year from now, he is seen as being able to maintain the ability to influence the most important strategic decisions-in Lebanon, through Hizballah, through other pro-Syrian actors, through other connections that he has to Lebanese power structure--if he can still set he outer limits of Lebanese policy, in the face of all the pressure that's been put on him, I think he will be seen domestically and regionally as a stronger figure than he is today.

He may end up being seen as someone who lost Lebanon, who blew it in Iraq, who squandered an important part of his father's legacy, and if that it is the way he is seen six months from now, a year from now, I think that could have serious consequences for him at home. But I don't think it's inevitable that that's the way things come out. He could still emerge as effectively a winner.

Dr. Paul Jureidini: There are some other factors to be considered. First, as we know, minorities in the Middle East are mistrusted and minorities in power are hated. The Alawites in Syria are a minority in power and the Sunnis don't like it. This regime, like Hafiz Assad's regime, will never share power. Because sharing power means the dissolution of the present set-up. I don't think political reform will ever come because it may mean the end of the Alawites.

Two, when they talk about economic reform, it's always from above. It's always the state guiding that process. Even with the few reforms he's done, economic reforms, they don't amount to anything. If we want an example of Assad the hardliner, take a look at Lebanon. He could have gotten rid of the openly pro-Syrian cabinet and appointed other friendly but respected figures