Hariri in US: What will he Get?

Here is a tough condemnation of Syria by Bill Frist, (copied below) the Senate majority leader. He wants more action from Europe to force Syrian influence from Lebanon.

Part of the reason for Frist’s tough words is that Rafiq Hariri has been in Washington to meet President Bush. Yesterday he spoke at the Woodrow Wilson Institute in Washington DC. I couldn't make his talk as I was speaking at the Middle East Institute in DC at the time and then at Georgetown University with many other Syrianists, in what turned out to be an interesting series of panels organized by Michael Hudson and the Arab Studies Center.

One reporter told me that Hariri had asked George Bush for weapons and equipment to build up the Lebanese military. (A Daily Star article says he may get it.) Hariri spoke about Democracy and how important it was for Washington to support him and the Future Movement if it hoped to make any progress with its Reform of the Greater Middle East project. Hariri wants to go back to Beirut. He will need Bush's help to do it, unless he is to accept the Jeddah formula and make peace with Bashar al-Asad and Hizbullah, which seems to be off the table for now. Junblat undercut that move quickly, but it looked as if Saad Hariri was ready to sign onto the Saudi deal and bow to Hizbullah.

So Hariri came to Washington after Junblat and Dick Cheney scuttled the Saudi attempt to broker a truce between Shiites and Sunnis in Lebanon. Saad wants to know what George can do for him. He gets Frist's article for his troubles. And a nice statement by Rice -- see this: Rice vows to keep pressure on Syria. Rice said: "We will continue to make sure there is no intimidation of the Lebanese people."

Frist blames the Europeans for going soft on terror. He is asking the Europeans to get tough on Syria and Hizbullah. I guess America feels it has done about as much as it can in the way of unilateral sanctions, although I am sure it will find a few more measures to add to the long list it has already come up with to squeeze Syria and Hizbullah. Maybe Washington will give Hariri more arms so he can fight Hizbullah? What else can US authorities do other to send Hariri back empty handed. I guess it can ask Europe to get with the sanctions train. Good luck. A sad day for Saad. Saudi and Egypt have been running interference for Syria with the UN and the Hariri investigation.

There seems to be a consensus in the Middle East that Syria should be forced to pay a price - such as cutting loose a few security chieftains such as Ghazzali - but that it shouldn't be destabilized by having the Asad family targeted, which Asad has made clear would lead to a direct confrontation with the international community. Europe has not declared Hizbullah a terrorist organization, which Frist is quick to point out in his finger-wagging article.

The fact that regional sentiment is blowing in Asad's direction was made clear by the Saudi attempt to broker a sulha between Syria and Lebanon. It was confirmed by General Aoun's recent statement that "his Free Patriotic Movement's closest ally in Lebanon was Hizbullah, as the two held similar views with regards to reform and other internal issues."

This statement by the most powerful Christian in Lebanon drove supporters of the Future Movement crazy. See Michael Young's recent op-ed in the International Herald Tribune, in which he lambastes Aoun for all sorts of sins is good example of the ire he has stirred up. Aoun's biggest sin is clearly that he believes that the international community is going to hang the anti-Syrian Lebanese out to dry. I guess Aoun has some experience with the fickleness of the international community when it comes to supporting Lebanon against Syria. Aoun wants to be president of Lebanon, not to join Saad in exile. I guess Aoun is saying to himself - "Been there. Done that. Hariri, you take the high road this time and I will take the low road. Your dad was PM for over a decade. It is my turn before I join him in the great Baabda in the sky.

Aoun confirmed his stand on Thursday when he said the government should resign if it was unable to end a political crisis that has paralysed decision-making. Here is Reuters quoting Aoun:

"The government crisis ... is building up and we do not feel it is being remedied in a way that can bring results," Aoun said in an interview at his home in the hills above Beirut.

"What does a government do in this situation? If you ask me what I would do, I would resign."

Lebanon's government, dominated by anti-Syrian politicians who won a majority in parliament in elections last year, has been in crisis since five Shi'ite Muslim ministers began boycotting sessions last month. The boycott began after the cabinet voted for an international trial for suspects in the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri last February.

You can be sure that Bashar is enjoying the Lebanese mud fight. He is also enjoying the Hamas victory in Palestine even if it means one more secular nationalist movement loses to Islamists. Like Mubarak, Asad will be smirking at US discomfiture as Washington sees its desire for democracy fulfilled. But Asad better not smirk too long, for the Hamas win also underscores what will happen to him should real elections be allowed in Syria.

Rice, speaking of a possible Hamas win, said last week, "there should be no place in the political process for groups or individuals who refuse to renounce terror and violence, recognize Israel's right to exist, and disarm." Now Washington will have to add the PA on its growing list of governments to sanction and call evil.

So what did Saad Hariri get from Washington that may permit him to return to Beirut? It doesn't seem like much besides words - and perhaps some arms. My guess is that Washington will have to start sending arms to show that it is willing to support Hariri with more than words. He has to be able to deliver something to his supporters to prove that Washington hasn't abandoned him. What will Washington do about Hizbullah if it won't let Hariri compromise with the militia backed party? Building up the Lebanese army is a risky strategy, but one that will have to be undertaken if Washington is going to fight "terror."

Economy

Meanwhile, Asad is making a number of smart economic moves. Syria has recently announced a few new large development contracts meant to boost tourism and investment.

Investors from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Syria received Wednesday an official approval to build a resort in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo with a total cost of $140 million. According to Kuna, the resort which includes three, four and five star hotels containing 900 beds. Recently, the largest tourism project in Syria was launched by Kuwaiti’s Mohammad Abdul-Mohsen Al-Kharafi Company and Syria’s InterContinental Hotel with a total cost of $236 million.

Dardari opened the Audi Bank main Branch in Syria. He also announced that several new Islamic banks would be opening shortly.

Syrian authorities also announced that the economy grew by %4.5 in 2005, which was slightly faster than expected and pulls Syria out of its recession, but isn't near the %7 figure needed to begin reducing its widespread unemployment.

Syria's three main ports in Banyas, Tartus and Latakia have seen increases in tonnage on the order of 25% this year. Tartus and Latakia are the big winners. The overland trade to Iraq is driving it. In 2004, Syria transported half of all the grain imported into Iraq though the Tartus port. A special WFP program managed by my brother-in-law, Mohamed el-Kouhene, was responsible for that.

The big economic news this past week, however, is that gas and cement prices were dramatically increased.

Syria raised the price of gasoline 24 percent on Thursday, largely to counter smuggling to neighboring states, the official Syrian Arab News Agency reported.

SANA said the price of a liter rose from 24.35 Syrian pounds (48 US cents) to 30 pounds (60 US cents). However, at 60 US cents a liter, Syrian gasoline is still relatively cheap. In Lebanon a liter costs 70 cents and in Turkey US$1.72. In Jordan a liter sells for 61 cents, almost the same as in Syria.

This hike in basic commodity prices has caused an uproar by Syrians. See the blogs and comment section of Syria-news. Readers of Syria Comment have been reporting on this in the comment section. But raising prices of gas and cement are necessary, if painful, adjustments Syria must make if it wants to balance its books, slow smuggling, and rationalize its economy. It is a sign that Asad is finding some political courage on the economic issues. These price hikes will certainly increase the gap between rich and poor and will spark some inflation in the short run. But in the long run, they should help reduce government expenditures and promote growth. They are long overdue.

Syria's new five year economic plan was officially launched this week. World Bank people that I have spoken to, who were involved in its gestation process, say it is a good plan if it is implemented. We will see.

Here is the Frist article:

Moving Toward Democracy

Washington DC, January 26, 2006/The New York Sun -
By Bill Frist, Majority leader of the US Senate

A year ago this month, a car bomb killed the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafic Hariri. An ongoing U.N. investigation has implicated the Syrian government in the murder. The Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, may have played a personal role. Several additional high-profile bombings have occurred in the last several months.

Enough is enough: Syria's actions in Lebanon have proven that it has no desire to play by the rules of civilized nations. Now, the United States and its partners need to ramp up the pressure on Damascus. We need to push Syria away from its homegrown brand of Arab fascism and toward democracy, peace, and an authentic end to its interference with Lebanon's affairs. We should start by increasing and expanding our funding for prodemocracy groups in Lebanon and Syria. In the coming Congress, I plan to support legislation that will do just that.
During my travels in Lebanon last year, I visit the late prime minister's grave and met with many of the political opposition leaders who rallied to end the overt Syrian occupation of Lebanon. These leaders have the support of the Lebanese people and at least some Syrians. Now, they need assistance from the international community.

Those who favor Syrian democracy have a difficult task. Since it invaded Lebanon in 1976, the government in Damascus has earned a place for itself on the roll call of the world's most dangerous regimes. The Assad regime funds terrorists, supports groups seeking to undermine the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, seeks weapons of mass destruction, and maintains a domestic police state based on the same fascist Baath ideology that animated Saddam Hussein's regime. Along with its ally in Iran, Syria funds Hezbollah bases in Southern Lebanon that the terrorist group uses to launch rocket attacks against Israel. Syria has also allowed Al Qaeda fighters to enter Iraq through its territory.

Despite the withdrawal of its regular military forces last year, Syrian intelligence agencies remain deeply involved with Lebanon's government, banks, and commercial enterprises. Prime Minister Hariri worked hard to end this interference in his nation's affairs. Like many others, he paid for these efforts with his life.

To honor his memory and restore full Lebanese sovereignty, the U.S. has to broaden its efforts in Syria. Since 2003, we have maintained a tough set of sanctions and restrictions on Syria that have helped isolate the nation. Increased funding for pro-democracy groups isn't enough by itself, however, and sanctions work best when they involve more than one country. To begin with, we need to redouble our efforts to force Syrian cooperation with U.N. investigators and bring Hariri's murderers to justice. And if Syria fails to respond and won't comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions, we need to press our allies to also place tough sanctions on Damascus.

Our allies in Europe have a stake in this effort, and the Bush administration should look for ways to strengthen our partnership with them. The European Union remains Syria's largest trade partner, sends foreign aid to Syria, and has yet to label Hezbollah a terrorist group. The Assad regime interprets this sort of half-hearted diplomacy as a sign of weakness: It's unlikely to modify its behavior as a result.

In the long term, I am convinced that the Syrian and Lebanese population will move their own nations toward democracy if given the chance. Without strong international backing, it may take decades for real change to happen. With support from the international community, however, we can compel Syria to disentangle itself from Lebanon's affairs, move toward democracy, and eventually take its rightful place in the community of nations.

Dr. Frist is majority leader of the United States Senate.
[end]

"Islamism in Syria" by Ibrahim Hamidi

Ibrahim Hamidi has the best articles on the spread of Islamism in Syria. See these articles from the January 4 issue of al-Hayat

4/01/2006 London-based paper argues Syria moving towards "Islamism"
Syrian society is moving increasingly towards Islamism, Ibrahim Hamidi has argued in an article published by London-based Arabic paper Al-Hayat. He said that there had been doubts about reported operations against militant cells by Syrian forces, noting that the timing often coincided with international pressure on Syria. But he went on to argue that these incidents and others point to a developing trend in which Syria is departing from a secular socialist past and witnessing increasing signs of an Islamist future. The following is the text of part one of a two-part report headlined: "Islamist streams on the march in Syria. The authorities launch 'pre-emptive strikes' against takfiri dens", published by London-based newspaper Al-Hayat website on 4 January; subheadings inserted editorially unless otherwise indicated:

The Syrian government's announcement that it recently uncovered and broke up several "takfiri cells" [Muslim trend that considers other Muslims as apostates] raises numerous questions. The first question pertains to the level of the Islamist threat to this country, whose "secular" political system has relied on a pan-Arab socialist-leftist ideology for many years. The ultimate question is how successfully the Syrian authorities can keep the Islamist genie in the bottle.

For the first time since the end of the violent clashes between the authorities and the Islamists in the mid-1980s the government announced at the end of April 2004 that it had foiled a "saboteur group's" attempt to attack a building formerly used as a UN office in Al-Mazzah neighbourhood in south Damascus. A few days later Syrian state television broadcast interviews with two of the culprits, during which they said that their motive was to "lift the injustice imposed on the Muslims". Official sources declared that three of the group's four members had gone to Iraq to fight after Saddam Husayn's regime collapsed in the spring of 2003. Among the group members was a man called Ayman Shlash who had run as a ruling Ba'th party candidate in the parliamentary elections in the spring of 2003.

The Al-Mazzah incident was a warning bell about the potential danger of the "Iraqi Arabs" like the "Afghan Arabs" before them, who had returned to their various Arab countries after their "jihad" experiment against the Soviets.


"Locally manufactured"
Several Western governments and some diplomats in Damascus cast doubt on the possibility that Syria was really in danger of "an Islamist terrorist threat". One US spokesman said that the operation had been "locally manufactured" to enable the Syrian government to claim that, rather than being a sponsor of terrorism as according to US terminology, it stood in the same trench as the rest of the world in combating terrorism.

These questions continued to occupy journalists and diplomats whenever an armed clash occurred between extremist groups and the Syrian "anti-terrorist squads" in the second half of 2005. There were reasons for these questions, namely, that all of the terrorist attacks were forestalled and foiled by the security forces and because the names of the "terrorists" who were captured or killed were generally the names of obscure individuals. Political timing was another factor for doubting the official Syrian accounts, for the announcements about these terrorist operations frequently coincided with mounting foreign political pressure on the country.


Jund al-Sham
The first operation, which was attributed to the "Jund al-Sham Organization for Unity and Jihad" occurred in mid-2005 when the security forces besieged a "terrorist cell" in Damascus' Daff al-Shawk neighbourhood. It was the first time that this group's name appeared in the official Syrian media.

In mid-June 2005 the state-owned newspaper Al-Thawrah and Syrian state television transmitted confessions by persons who were said to be members of the "cell". What was striking, however, was that the television station for the first time showed "Jund al-Sham" pamphlets that indicated that the organization embraces an ideological, political and military "project" against Greater Syria's political regimes and man-made laws. They also said that the group advocated violent means to establish an "Islamic emirate" or "caliphate" in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and the Land of the Two Rivers [Iraq], currently under "Crusader" occupation. This was the substance of the pamphlets that Syrian government sources spoke of.

Ever since then Syrian official media has begun to make periodic announcements about "storming operations" to "break up" takfiri cells in Damascus, then Hamah, then Aleppo, and finally in Idlib at the beginning of December 2005. These were the cities that were the scenes of the most violent clashes between government forces and the Muslim Brotherhood organization in the late 1970s and early 1980s.


Reporting operations
The common denominator among all these operations is that the authorities have confined themselves to a terse official announcement broadcast by the Syrian News Agency, SANA, while television showed a few pictures of stores containing weapons, ammunition and explosive belts. Because it was difficult or impossible to "verify" these reports and exactly when each operation occurred, other media had to rely on the accounts given by official sources especially as eyewitnesses hesitated to tell their stories.

A striking point is that the official announcements altered their description of the extremist groups from "saboteur groups" to "terrorist cells" belonging to "Jund al-Sham". After the most recent incidents, official reports started calling them "takfiri cells" that had been planning to carry out "terrorist operations". The background behind this official change of terminology from "sabotage" to "takfiri" and "terrorism" remained obscure.

Arab experts who specialize in studying extremist Islamist groups believe that the "Jund al-Sham" organization was founded by Syrian, Palestinian and Jordanian individuals in Afghanistan in the 1990s and that it is linked to Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's "Al-Qa'idah of Jihad Organization in the Land of the Two Rivers".

It is hard to know whether there is any connection between "Jund al-Sham" and other organizations that carry similar names. A group carrying the name "Jund al-Sham" claimed responsibility for a suicide operation in a British school in Doha in March 2005.

In 2004 a statement was released in Ayn al-Hulwah camp in Lebanon by a group carrying the name "Jund al-Sham". In April 2005 a group calling itself the "Group of Succour and Jihad in Greater Syria" claimed responsibility for Prime Minister Al-Hariri's assassination. It was not taken seriously by Lebanese, Arab and international circles.


A "takfiri" farm and the philosopher of doubt [subheading as published]
According to official sources, a recent operation occurred on a farm in Al-Hamidiyah village, close to the city of Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, hometown of the famous Arab sceptic philosopher Abu-al-Ala al-Ma'arri in Idlib Governorate. It was very violent because it involved a "major headquarters of the fundamentalist groups". Eight died, three of whom blew themselves up with explosive belts in the same way used by Iraqi terrorists and the terrorists who carried out the simultaneous bombings in three Jordanian hotels in November 2005.

Informed sources said that the Syrian security forces arrived at dawn at the farm located on the side of the Damascus-Aleppo highway. The forces surrounded the place and asked all those who were inside the location to surrender. They refused. The security forces requested reinforcements and a helicopter arrived to show the fundamentalists that the government forces were serious. They were asked a second time to surrender but again they refused and indeed began to loudly denounce the security forces and call them infidels.



"Positive message" on Iraq
It is widely believed that the storming of this hideout came in the context of the official Syrian efforts to "combat the jihadists" who wish to go and fight the Americans in Iraq. Damascus, it is said, wished to send a positive message to the Americans and the British that it was "breaking up" networks that wished to back the insurgency in Iraq. This happened at a time when it was coming under international pressure regarding the investigation into Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri's assassination.

A Western diplomat said that he believes that "this hideout was used to smuggle weapons to Iraq". Official sources, however, said that the discovery of this hideout, "which belonged to an Arab fundamentalist organization," came as a result of confessions made by two persons who sustained serious wounds during a security raid that occurred in Aleppo's Al-Naqqarin neighbourhood two days before this operation. That raid, the official sources said, led to the discovery of an explosives factory in that region, which links northern Syria to central Iraq. SANA declared that the Aleppo group had been planning attacks on Syrian officials and government offices.


Al-Khaznawi assassination
In addition to these announced operations, it is believed that other operations occurred about which no announcements were made for security reasons. These operations undoubtedly indicate that Islamist communities in secular-pan-Arab Syria have started to breed certain fanatical groups. One should note at this point that in June 2005 an enlightened cleric, Shaykh Ma'shuq al-Khaznawi, was assassinated two weeks after he was abducted from a Damascus street.

Islamist parliament member Muhammad Habash attributed Al-Khaznawi's assassination to the wish of Salafi Muslims and extremists to dictate their own agenda both to their narrow conservative Islamist circles and also to the wider non-conservative Muslim community. Habash added that he received a death threat on his cellular telephone a few days prior to Al-Khaznawi's kidnapping because of the "enlightened and anti-fanatical ideas" that he embraces and advocates in his writings, the pamphlets published by the Islamic Studies Centres that he directs, and the Friday sermons that he delivers at Al-Zahra Mosque in Al-Mazzah neighbourhood.

Habash said that the uncovering of the "Jund al-Sham" organization and Al-Khaznawi's assassination come under the same heading of "religious fanaticism".

Meanwhile in June 2005 some Western newspapers including the Christian Science Monitor accused certain security circles in Syria of kidnapping and assassinating Al-Khaznawi because he held a meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood's leader in Brussels in February 2005. The brotherhood is a banned group in Syria in accordance with Law 49 of 1980.

Western diplomatic sources have explained the killing of Al-Khaznawi as the "meeting point" of three factors: the growing Islamism in the country, a political "opposition" that lacks broad popularity, and the Syrian Kurds who are organized in around 13 unlicensed political parties, which now enjoy regional status as a result of their political gains in Iraq and the international popular support they get in Europe. The Syrian government has denied this and asserted that Al-Khaznawi's kidnapping from Damascus followed by his torture and murder was merely a criminal action according to the confessions made by the abductors even before his body was found buried in a grave in Dayr al-Zur in northeastern Syria.



Towards Islamism
Parliamentary deputy Habash, who founded the Islamic Studies Centre, is one of the people who are following the movement of Syrian society towards Islamism in a country that has long been regarded as secular and that has long struggled to maintain a pan-Arab, progressive, and secularist character.

Habash formerly told Al-Hayat that he believes that around 80 per cent of the Syrian people are conservative and 20 per cent are reformist and that only one per cent of them are fanatical. He warned, however, that the "80 per cent have no political project and whenever they think of politics, they search for a leader or a cleric who might either be a reformist or a hardliner."

One official expert said: "Not all the conservatives are searching for a leader or a shaykh because the stream that is demanding pluralism and democracy is widespread among conservatives and reformists alike."

Others believe that the Syrians are conservative by nature and that pan-Arab ideology arose in the country at the end of the 19th century when "the sick man of Europe, that is, Ottoman Turkey" grew feeble and the Ottoman Empire, which Islamist ideologues now regard as a 400-year extension of the Islamic Caliphate, began to collapse.

Symbolic signs [subheading as published]
An observation of the apparent changes in the country and its population makes it seem probable that the secular-pan-Arab Syria is becoming increasingly Islamist. This can be seen through symbolic signs like wearing the veil and the proliferation in bookshops of Islamic books instead of communist writings and "Soviet novels". Indeed the large bookshop that lies opposite the Russian Cultural Centre in Damascus's 29 May Street has become one of the largest distributors of religious books and an advanced centre of disseminating religious culture. Formerly the bookshops on this street were full of Marxist books and were frequented by customers who had freed themselves of many local social restrictions.

Coinciding with the increasingly familiar scene of bearded young Syrian men wearing short jallabah as a sign of "Islamic Salafism" most of the restaurants on the Barada River and the Ayn al-Khadra and Al-Fayja neighbourhood on the outskirts of Damascus have stopped offering alcoholic beverages on their menus and have set aside separate sections for families in compliance with conservative social traditions. Indeed these restaurants are now vying with each other to hang the portraits of famous clerics on the walls.

During this year's month of Ramadan Damascus inhabitants in rich neighbourhood started to hang pictures with Islamic themes from their balconies. During last year's Ramadan one citizen in the township of Jurmana, which has a Christian community, was jailed because he "behaved in a way contrary to public morality" by smoking in public while others were fasting.

These Islamist signs become increasingly clear the further we get away from Damascus and into rural Syria. It is precisely such rural areas that were in the past scenes of violent clashes between the Muslim Brotherhood and the authorities.

Al-Hayat previously noted that the red colours of the slogan "We will crush the Muslim Brotherhood gang, the puppet of imperialism and Zionism," which had been daubed on a wall, had started to fade. New slogans written in bright green are starting to appear on the highway between the capital and Ma'arrat al-Nu'man. They state: "Do not forget to mention God," and "Pray for the prophet." These slogans have replaced earlier mottos that spoke of secularism, communism and Arab nationalism, for example "No life in this country except for progressiveness and socialism."

In addition to these new slogans green domes are increasing in number in several Syrian villages and towns, with the best specimens rising alongside the highways.

Furthermore, Akram al-Jundi, an inhabitant of Ma'arrat al-Nu'man and the first Syrian citizen to obtain a licence to operate a private television station, which he did in the early 1960s, insists on broadcasting religious programmes on his channel, which has a capital of 12m dollars which he gathered during his work in the Gulf.

When you visit villages and rural neighbourhood, you can hear stories that explain what is happening. In the village of Urum al-Jawz, located in rough mountainous terrain that had once been a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold and a scene of armed clashes, the young man Muhammad al-Nuri could in the past declare openly that he was a communist, for example, or defy local social traditions in the way he dressed and behaved. Fasting was not compulsory in those days and young women rarely wore the Islamic veil. Today, however, the rebellious young man has become a shaykh or at least a conservative man who clings to social traditions. He believes that "Islam is the alternative solution" to communist ideology, which he learnt in a Soviet university and from paperbacks that were given as gifts to Syrian young men.



Story of a generation
The story of Muhammad, who is now in his fifties, tells the story of an entire Syrian generation. Muhammad studied in Moscow in the 1980s and returned as a learned and rebellious man to educate the villagers in "secularism". Two decades later he had surrendered to the power of society and traditions. Indeed Muhammad is now more religiously committed than Ahmad Yusuf, who calls himself the young men's friend, who returned to the village after 10 years in Saudi Arabia, bringing with him conservative Islamist slogans mixed with some Salafi ideas and many Gulf customs in dress and daily behaviour.

In the past the competition between the two "rebellious" young men focused on digging away at the foundations of the strong wall of traditions and social customs because their enthusiasm was strong and their dreams of change were bigger than the village's few scattered houses. Today the competition is focused in reverse and tends to bolster the wall of traditions and attain a greater level of stringent religious commitment. To the local society today, a "virtuous" young man is someone who spends a greater part of his time at the large mosque that was built a few years ago next to the highway so that travellers between Aleppo and the coastal city of Latakia could see it. It replaced the old mosque that was located in a remote corner of the village. In this way the mosque would tell the millions passing along the road in their cars: Look and see how committed we are to our religion.

Hajj Ahmad, as he came to be called after returning from his expatriate years in the Gulf, was at the forefront of the effort to collect donations to build the "Al-Iman" [faith] Mosque on a hill in Urum al-Jawz. Shaykh Muhammad now sends his four children to this mosque to study religion. Formerly he dreamed of building a cultural centre or a large clinic on one of the village hills. His two boys fast in Ramadan and the two girls started wearing the veil before reaching the age of 10. Just as a reminder, this "shaykh" planned in his youth to marry a Soviet woman and have unveiled liberal daughters, just as several thousand other Syrians who studied in the Eastern Bloc used to dream.

Simply put, the experiences of these two men in the past two decades are a specimen of the transformation in the ranks of a generation whose government made ardent efforts to turn society into a modern civil society. The efforts failed and brought about contrary results.

Source: Al-Hayat website, London, in Arabic 4 Jan 06

"Islamism in Syria" by Ibrahim Hamidi

Ibrahim Hamidi has the best articles on the spread of Islamism in Syria. See these articles from the January 4 issue of al-Hayat

4/01/2006 London-based paper argues Syria moving towards "Islamism"
Syrian society is moving increasingly towards Islamism, Ibrahim Hamidi has argued in an article published by London-based Arabic paper Al-Hayat. He said that there had been doubts about reported operations against militant cells by Syrian forces, noting that the timing often coincided with international pressure on Syria. But he went on to argue that these incidents and others point to a developing trend in which Syria is departing from a secular socialist past and witnessing increasing signs of an Islamist future. The following is the text of part one of a two-part report headlined: "Islamist streams on the march in Syria. The authorities launch 'pre-emptive strikes' against takfiri dens", published by London-based newspaper Al-Hayat website on 4 January; subheadings inserted editorially unless otherwise indicated:

The Syrian government's announcement that it recently uncovered and broke up several "takfiri cells" [Muslim trend that considers other Muslims as apostates] raises numerous questions. The first question pertains to the level of the Islamist threat to this country, whose "secular" political system has relied on a pan-Arab socialist-leftist ideology for many years. The ultimate question is how successfully the Syrian authorities can keep the Islamist genie in the bottle.

For the first time since the end of the violent clashes between the authorities and the Islamists in the mid-1980s the government announced at the end of April 2004 that it had foiled a "saboteur group's" attempt to attack a building formerly used as a UN office in Al-Mazzah neighbourhood in south Damascus. A few days later Syrian state television broadcast interviews with two of the culprits, during which they said that their motive was to "lift the injustice imposed on the Muslims". Official sources declared that three of the group's four members had gone to Iraq to fight after Saddam Husayn's regime collapsed in the spring of 2003. Among the group members was a man called Ayman Shlash who had run as a ruling Ba'th party candidate in the parliamentary elections in the spring of 2003.

The Al-Mazzah incident was a warning bell about the potential danger of the "Iraqi Arabs" like the "Afghan Arabs" before them, who had returned to their various Arab countries after their "jihad" experiment against the Soviets.


"Locally manufactured"
Several Western governments and some diplomats in Damascus cast doubt on the possibility that Syria was really in danger of "an Islamist terrorist threat". One US spokesman said that the operation had been "locally manufactured" to enable the Syrian government to claim that, rather than being a sponsor of terrorism as according to US terminology, it stood in the same trench as the rest of the world in combating terrorism.

These questions continued to occupy journalists and diplomats whenever an armed clash occurred between extremist groups and the Syrian "anti-terrorist squads" in the second half of 2005. There were reasons for these questions, namely, that all of the terrorist attacks were forestalled and foiled by the security forces and because the names of the "terrorists" who were captured or killed were generally the names of obscure individuals. Political timing was another factor for doubting the official Syrian accounts, for the announcements about these terrorist operations frequently coincided with mounting foreign political pressure on the country.


Jund al-Sham
The first operation, which was attributed to the "Jund al-Sham Organization for Unity and Jihad" occurred in mid-2005 when the security forces besieged a "terrorist cell" in Damascus' Daff al-Shawk neighbourhood. It was the first time that this group's name appeared in the official Syrian media.

In mid-June 2005 the state-owned newspaper Al-Thawrah and Syrian state television transmitted confessions by persons who were said to be members of the "cell". What was striking, however, was that the television station for the first time showed "Jund al-Sham" pamphlets that indicated that the organization embraces an ideological, political and military "project" against Greater Syria's political regimes and man-made laws. They also said that the group advocated violent means to establish an "Islamic emirate" or "caliphate" in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and the Land of the Two Rivers [Iraq], currently under "Crusader" occupation. This was the substance of the pamphlets that Syrian government sources spoke of.

Ever since then Syrian official media has begun to make periodic announcements about "storming operations" to "break up" takfiri cells in Damascus, then Hamah, then Aleppo, and finally in Idlib at the beginning of December 2005. These were the cities that were the scenes of the most violent clashes between government forces and the Muslim Brotherhood organization in the late 1970s and early 1980s.


Reporting operations
The common denominator among all these operations is that the authorities have confined themselves to a terse official announcement broadcast by the Syrian News Agency, SANA, while television showed a few pictures of stores containing weapons, ammunition and explosive belts. Because it was difficult or impossible to "verify" these reports and exactly when each operation occurred, other media had to rely on the accounts given by official sources especially as eyewitnesses hesitated to tell their stories.

A striking point is that the official announcements altered their description of the extremist groups from "saboteur groups" to "terrorist cells" belonging to "Jund al-Sham". After the most recent incidents, official reports started calling them "takfiri cells" that had been planning to carry out "terrorist operations". The background behind this official change of terminology from "sabotage" to "takfiri" and "terrorism" remained obscure.

Arab experts who specialize in studying extremist Islamist groups believe that the "Jund al-Sham" organization was founded by Syrian, Palestinian and Jordanian individuals in Afghanistan in the 1990s and that it is linked to Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's "Al-Qa'idah of Jihad Organization in the Land of the Two Rivers".

It is hard to know whether there is any connection between "Jund al-Sham" and other organizations that carry similar names. A group carrying the name "Jund al-Sham" claimed responsibility for a suicide operation in a British school in Doha in March 2005.

In 2004 a statement was released in Ayn al-Hulwah camp in Lebanon by a group carrying the name "Jund al-Sham". In April 2005 a group calling itself the "Group of Succour and Jihad in Greater Syria" claimed responsibility for Prime Minister Al-Hariri's assassination. It was not taken seriously by Lebanese, Arab and international circles.


A "takfiri" farm and the philosopher of doubt [subheading as published]
According to official sources, a recent operation occurred on a farm in Al-Hamidiyah village, close to the city of Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, hometown of the famous Arab sceptic philosopher Abu-al-Ala al-Ma'arri in Idlib Governorate. It was very violent because it involved a "major headquarters of the fundamentalist groups". Eight died, three of whom blew themselves up with explosive belts in the same way used by Iraqi terrorists and the terrorists who carried out the simultaneous bombings in three Jordanian hotels in November 2005.

Informed sources said that the Syrian security forces arrived at dawn at the farm located on the side of the Damascus-Aleppo highway. The forces surrounded the place and asked all those who were inside the location to surrender. They refused. The security forces requested reinforcements and a helicopter arrived to show the fundamentalists that the government forces were serious. They were asked a second time to surrender but again they refused and indeed began to loudly denounce the security forces and call them infidels.



"Positive message" on Iraq
It is widely believed that the storming of this hideout came in the context of the official Syrian efforts to "combat the jihadists" who wish to go and fight the Americans in Iraq. Damascus, it is said, wished to send a positive message to the Americans and the British that it was "breaking up" networks that wished to back the insurgency in Iraq. This happened at a time when it was coming under international pressure regarding the investigation into Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri's assassination.

A Western diplomat said that he believes that "this hideout was used to smuggle weapons to Iraq". Official sources, however, said that the discovery of this hideout, "which belonged to an Arab fundamentalist organization," came as a result of confessions made by two persons who sustained serious wounds during a security raid that occurred in Aleppo's Al-Naqqarin neighbourhood two days before this operation. That raid, the official sources said, led to the discovery of an explosives factory in that region, which links northern Syria to central Iraq. SANA declared that the Aleppo group had been planning attacks on Syrian officials and government offices.


Al-Khaznawi assassination
In addition to these announced operations, it is believed that other operations occurred about which no announcements were made for security reasons. These operations undoubtedly indicate that Islamist communities in secular-pan-Arab Syria have started to breed certain fanatical groups. One should note at this point that in June 2005 an enlightened cleric, Shaykh Ma'shuq al-Khaznawi, was assassinated two weeks after he was abducted from a Damascus street.

Islamist parliament member Muhammad Habash attributed Al-Khaznawi's assassination to the wish of Salafi Muslims and extremists to dictate their own agenda both to their narrow conservative Islamist circles and also to the wider non-conservative Muslim community. Habash added that he received a death threat on his cellular telephone a few days prior to Al-Khaznawi's kidnapping because of the "enlightened and anti-fanatical ideas" that he embraces and advocates in his writings, the pamphlets published by the Islamic Studies Centres that he directs, and the Friday sermons that he delivers at Al-Zahra Mosque in Al-Mazzah neighbourhood.

Habash said that the uncovering of the "Jund al-Sham" organization and Al-Khaznawi's assassination come under the same heading of "religious fanaticism".

Meanwhile in June 2005 some Western newspapers including the Christian Science Monitor accused certain security circles in Syria of kidnapping and assassinating Al-Khaznawi because he held a meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood's leader in Brussels in February 2005. The brotherhood is a banned group in Syria in accordance with Law 49 of 1980.

Western diplomatic sources have explained the killing of Al-Khaznawi as the "meeting point" of three factors: the growing Islamism in the country, a political "opposition" that lacks broad popularity, and the Syrian Kurds who are organized in around 13 unlicensed political parties, which now enjoy regional status as a result of their political gains in Iraq and the international popular support they get in Europe. The Syrian government has denied this and asserted that Al-Khaznawi's kidnapping from Damascus followed by his torture and murder was merely a criminal action according to the confessions made by the abductors even before his body was found buried in a grave in Dayr al-Zur in northeastern Syria.



Towards Islamism
Parliamentary deputy Habash, who founded the Islamic Studies Centre, is one of the people who are following the movement of Syrian society towards Islamism in a country that has long been regarded as secular and that has long struggled to maintain a pan-Arab, progressive, and secularist character.

Habash formerly told Al-Hayat that he believes that around 80 per cent of the Syrian people are conservative and 20 per cent are reformist and that only one per cent of them are fanatical. He warned, however, that the "80 per cent have no political project and whenever they think of politics, they search for a leader or a cleric who might either be a reformist or a hardliner."

One official expert said: "Not all the conservatives are searching for a leader or a shaykh because the stream that is demanding pluralism and democracy is widespread among conservatives and reformists alike."

Others believe that the Syrians are conservative by nature and that pan-Arab ideology arose in the country at the end of the 19th century when "the sick man of Europe, that is, Ottoman Turkey" grew feeble and the Ottoman Empire, which Islamist ideologues now regard as a 400-year extension of the Islamic Caliphate, began to collapse.

Symbolic signs [subheading as published]
An observation of the apparent changes in the country and its population makes it seem probable that the secular-pan-Arab Syria is becoming increasingly Islamist. This can be seen through symbolic signs like wearing the veil and the proliferation in bookshops of Islamic books instead of communist writings and "Soviet novels". Indeed the large bookshop that lies opposite the Russian Cultural Centre in Damascus's 29 May Street has become one of the largest distributors of religious books and an advanced centre of disseminating religious culture. Formerly the bookshops on this street were full of Marxist books and were frequented by customers who had freed themselves of many local social restrictions.

Coinciding with the increasingly familiar scene of bearded young Syrian men wearing short jallabah as a sign of "Islamic Salafism" most of the restaurants on the Barada River and the Ayn al-Khadra and Al-Fayja neighbourhood on the outskirts of Damascus have stopped offering alcoholic beverages on their menus and have set aside separate sections for families in compliance with conservative social traditions. Indeed these restaurants are now vying with each other to hang the portraits of famous clerics on the walls.

During this year's month of Ramadan Damascus inhabitants in rich neighbourhood started to hang pictures with Islamic themes from their balconies. During last year's Ramadan one citizen in the township of Jurmana, which has a Christian community, was jailed because he "behaved in a way contrary to public morality" by smoking in public while others were fasting.

These Islamist signs become increasingly clear the further we get away from Damascus and into rural Syria. It is precisely such rural areas that were in the past scenes of violent clashes between the Muslim Brotherhood and the authorities.

Al-Hayat previously noted that the red colours of the slogan "We will crush the Muslim Brotherhood gang, the puppet of imperialism and Zionism," which had been daubed on a wall, had started to fade. New slogans written in bright green are starting to appear on the highway between the capital and Ma'arrat al-Nu'man. They state: "Do not forget to mention God," and "Pray for the prophet." These slogans have replaced earlier mottos that spoke of secularism, communism and Arab nationalism, for example "No life in this country except for progressiveness and socialism."

In addition to these new slogans green domes are increasing in number in several Syrian villages and towns, with the best specimens rising alongside the highways.

Furthermore, Akram al-Jundi, an inhabitant of Ma'arrat al-Nu'man and the first Syrian citizen to obtain a licence to operate a private television station, which he did in the early 1960s, insists on broadcasting religious programmes on his channel, which has a capital of 12m dollars which he gathered during his work in the Gulf.

When you visit villages and rural neighbourhood, you can hear stories that explain what is happening. In the village of Urum al-Jawz, located in rough mountainous terrain that had once been a Muslim Brotherhood stronghold and a scene of armed clashes, the young man Muhammad al-Nuri could in the past declare openly that he was a communist, for example, or defy local social traditions in the way he dressed and behaved. Fasting was not compulsory in those days and young women rarely wore the Islamic veil. Today, however, the rebellious young man has become a shaykh or at least a conservative man who clings to social traditions. He believes that "Islam is the alternative solution" to communist ideology, which he learnt in a Soviet university and from paperbacks that were given as gifts to Syrian young men.



Story of a generation
The story of Muhammad, who is now in his fifties, tells the story of an entire Syrian generation. Muhammad studied in Moscow in the 1980s and returned as a learned and rebellious man to educate the villagers in "secularism". Two decades later he had surrendered to the power of society and traditions. Indeed Muhammad is now more religiously committed than Ahmad Yusuf, who calls himself the young men's friend, who returned to the village after 10 years in Saudi Arabia, bringing with him conservative Islamist slogans mixed with some Salafi ideas and many Gulf customs in dress and daily behaviour.

In the past the competition between the two "rebellious" young men focused on digging away at the foundations of the strong wall of traditions and social customs because their enthusiasm was strong and their dreams of change were bigger than the village's few scattered houses. Today the competition is focused in reverse and tends to bolster the wall of traditions and attain a greater level of stringent religious commitment. To the local society today, a "virtuous" young man is someone who spends a greater part of his time at the large mosque that was built a few years ago next to the highway so that travellers between Aleppo and the coastal city of Latakia could see it. It replaced the old mosque that was located in a remote corner of the village. In this way the mosque would tell the millions passing along the road in their cars: Look and see how committed we are to our religion.

Hajj Ahmad, as he came to be called after returning from his expatriate years in the Gulf, was at the forefront of the effort to collect donations to build the "Al-Iman" [faith] Mosque on a hill in Urum al-Jawz. Shaykh Muhammad now sends his four children to this mosque to study religion. Formerly he dreamed of building a cultural centre or a large clinic on one of the village hills. His two boys fast in Ramadan and the two girls started wearing the veil before reaching the age of 10. Just as a reminder, this "shaykh" planned in his youth to marry a Soviet woman and have unveiled liberal daughters, just as several thousand other Syrians who studied in the Eastern Bloc used to dream.

Simply put, the experiences of these two men in the past two decades are a specimen of the transformation in the ranks of a generation whose government made ardent efforts to turn society into a modern civil society. The efforts failed and brought about contrary results.

Source: Al-Hayat website, London, in Arabic 4 Jan 06

Who Killed Hariri? The "Pushed Against the Wall" Thesis" as elaborated by Nasrallah and Asad

Who killed Hariri? This is the question that runs through Hassan Nasrallah's interview with al-Hayat. Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah, absolves Syria of responsibility, but he also tries to explain the context which led to Hariri's murder. He blames Walid Jumblatt's intransigent refusal to reconcile with the Syrians in December 2004 and join a Hariri government under Lahoud for leading to Hariri's death. It is in this context that Hariri's murder, according to Nasrallah, becomes understandable. In his explanation of the context, Nasrallah elaborates the "Syria Pushed to the Wall" thesis.

The complete Nasrallah interview with al-Hayat is now available in English at (Dar Al-Hayat). T_desco, who has been following the Lebanon wrangle closely, underlines the importance of this interview, because Nasrallah is quite frank about his reading of Syrian-Lebanese relations and their history.

Nasrallah claims that Bashar al-Asad does not want to return to Lebanon to control its affairs as it did in the past. "When I said in an interview that Syria did not want to return to Lebanon in the way that prevailed in the past, I meant it, and I know this," Nasrallah says. All the same Nasrallah is outspoken about his belief that Syria will always have a role in Lebanon. He argues that the present forces who oppose Syria are bad for Lebanese interests because they are determined to overturn the Syrian government, which will only provoke war between the two countries. More importantly, he claims they will lose. Here are his words:

Today, I'm not working to re-introduce Syrian forces in Lebanon, or re-introducing Syrian intelligence here, or Syrian influence. By the way, whether or not we like it, or whether or not others like it, Syria has influence in Lebanon that no one can eliminate, due to what is said about common factors of history and geography, and a network of interests, and the intersection of family and social relations.

There's another goal that we're working for. We reject fighting Syria from Lebanon. We reject seeing Lebanese involved in any project to bring down the Syrian regime. This is dangerous for Syria and Lebanon. Due to Lebanese, national reasons, we believe that any war, in terms of politics, security or the media, not to speak of a military war that some of them want to drag Lebanon into, represents something that is against Lebanese national interests, regardless of the pan-Arab issue, or Israel, or the strategic situation in the region, because it is a losing war, based on all criteria and balances of power. What we're saying today is that in Lebanon, there are those who want to bring down the regime in Syria.

Nasrallah claims his fight is with Junblat and others, less vocal, who want to overturn the Syrian regime with US support. He regrets that an understanding with Syria has been torpedoed. He says:

The final attempt, in Jeddah, between King Abdullah bin Abdel-Aziz and President Bashar al-Assad was an attempt to arrange things between Lebanon and Syria, in a way that puts Lebanon at ease, and puts Syria at ease as well, providing an opportunity for the investigation to be concluded. Before anyone knew what happened during this meeting, the attacks began from Lebanon, of course using
language that was less (harsh) than what the secretary general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, was subject to. I have the feeling that in Lebanon there are those who don't want any kind of understanding to be reached with Syria, under any consideration, and some of those are the most fearful about revealing the truth about the assassination of Prime Minister al-Hariri.

Nasrallah argues that Hizbullah did not benefit politically from Syria's presence in Lebanon as others parties did.

al Hayat: There are those who say that Hizbullah has a program to see Syrian influence return to Lebanon.

Sayyed Nasrallah (Laughs): First of all, this is a charge that has no evidence behind it. Second, if we take Hizbullah, how has it benefited from the Syrian presence in Lebanon? I'm not talking about the last 30 years, since Hizbullah didn't exist prior to 1982. From 1982 until the present, when Syrian forces exited Lebanon, how has Hizbullah benefited from the Syrian presence in Lebanon? How has Junblatt benefited? Or the many, many others?

Let's talk about the period of Syria's presence in Lebanon. First of all, our presence in state administrations: we don't have any presence. On the contrary, the doors have been closed to us when it comes to the bureaucracy. As for the regions in which we are active, and in which we enjoy a moral and popular influence, deprivation and poverty have increased. We haven't benefited in terms of state positions, or projects, or development, or official political power, or in any domain where others have benefited. Therefore, we have no problem with whoever wants to judge this period; in fact we are comfortable about the topic because we were "outside" (the equation).

Of course, the Syrian presence in Lebanon concerned us in two respects. First, the principal factor involved securing domestic stability, due to the fragility of the situation. Second, this presence constituted a protective shield for the resistance against the Israeli occupation. Therefore, my position on Syria is subject to national and strategic considerations, and not personal calculations, or party-based calculations, or short-term interests. I didn't support Syria in Lebanon because I would receive positions in state administrations, or because it would secure projects for me, or give me a budget to work with, or ministers, or MPs in Parliament. That's how they work. On the contrary, the Syrian committee that used to manage Lebanese affairs up to 2000 would purposely ignore Hizbullah when it came to the Lebanese domestic (political) formula.

Sayyed Nasrallah: There are many such people, including Walid Jumblatt, who call for US troops to occupy Syria and eliminate the regime, like they did in Iraq. This is clear. He has called on the Syrian opposition to receive assistance from outside the country. Walid Jumblatt is distinguished by the fact that he says what he wants. There are others who do things and don't say anything. Don't ask me who these people are; when they say so, I'll tell you. In our opinion, this is dangerous for Lebanon. Today, our problem is that some of them want us to be part of their open war against Syria, and we reject this. The problem isn't that they don't want Syrian influence in Lebanon, while we do. This is not true.

Who is responsible for the deterioration of Lebanese-Syrian relations on the eve of Hariri's assassination on February 14, 2005? Nasrallah blames Junblatt and claims that Asad was trying to reconcile with Junblatt. Of course, this is a highly self-interested version because of the recent hostile exchange between Nassrallah and Junblatt, in which the Druze warlord stepped up his campaign against the Shiite warlord, claiming his party's allegiance to Iran and Syria overshadowed its loyalty to Lebanon.

Also, it must be remembered that at the time Nasrallah's attempted reconciliation between Asad and Jumblatt Syria had just extended Lahoud's presidency in contravention to the Lebanese constitution and was trying to impose its will on Hariri and Jumblatt. Hamadeh, Jumblatt's ally, had just been almost killed in an effort to intimidate Junblatt. Here are Nasrallah's words about the atmosphere during the week before Hariri's murder:

I realized that Walid Jumblatt had no serious intention of reconciling with the Syrians, even prior to PM Hariri's assassination, and that Walid Jumblatt had taken the decision to enter into a conflict with this regime. Even so, I believe that what he said at the Bristol was hurtful to me personally, as a mediator, and to Prime Minister al-Hariri, who was enthusiastic about the mediation, and to the Syrians themselves. It was clear, and I can attest to the fact that this was the climate prior to PM Hariri's assassination.

President al-Assad demonstrated the required positive reaction to overcome the problem with Walid Jumblatt, but Walid Jumblatt insisted on clashing with the regime in Syria. After al-Hariri's assassination, things became more difficult. It was no longer possible to talk about mediation.

Nasrallah even obliquely accuses Jumblatt’s refusal to reconcile with Asad for creating the atmosphere of confrontation with Syria which led to Hariri's death. According to Nasrallah, Rafik al-Hariri was ready to make up with the Syrians after the September 2004 Lahoud extension (which Hariri begrudgingly facilitated). Hariri told Nasrallah in December 2004 that he was prepared to form a government, but only if it included Walid Jumblatt. (Hamadeh was almost killed in October, well before this December effort to bring him back into the Syrian game.) Nasrallah explains:

We even worked with our Syrian brethren to clarify that the circumstances, and the country's interest, after [Lahoud's] extension, required that Prime Minister al-Hariri form the new government. However, al-Hariri said to me, "I have a problem with forming a government without Walid Jumblatt. In light of the difficult climate between Jumblatt and the Syrians, it will be hard to form a Cabinet. I want you to help me regarding Jumblatt, and his relationship with
the Syrians.

Jumblatt refused to reconcile, having already committed himself to UN Resolution 1559 and the Franco-American effort to yank Lebanon out of Syria's sphere of influence and into their own. According to Nasrallah, this is the key to the context of Hariri's assassination.

The logic of Nasrallah's history and explanation could also be used to explain why Syria killed Hariri, even though Nasrallah insists on pointing the finger variously at Israel, al-Qa'ida, or other obscure anti-Syrian and anti-"resistance" forces. Here is my reading: Syria believed that Lahoud is the key to its grip on Lebanon and its interests there so Bashar extended Lahoud's presidency, despite US and French admonitions not to. Hariri was willing to re-enter the circle of Syrian domination, despite his humiliation at the hands of Bashar over the Lahoud affaire, but only if Jumblatt would also reconcile with Syria and join his government. Jumblatt refused, going over to the dark side. Hariri begins to go over to the dark side with Junblatt. Syria takes him out. In Nasrallah's "resistance" logic, this is not really Syria's fault, but Jumblatt’s. Syria, which, in Nasrallah's view, still stands for "pan-Arab" interests, has been pushed to the wall by the West. Anyone who joins this pressure becomes a "traitor" and plays with fire. Thus, it is not Syria (even if it pulled the trigger) but the forces alligned against Syria who are the real assassins.

Bashar al-Asad has tried to bolster this line of reasoning. In an interview last October 7 with Jihad El Khazen, Asad claimed that France and the US had already made the decision to gin up a Security Council Resolution against Syria's presence in Lebanon as early as June 2004. Thus Lahoud's extension was a defensive move to fortify Syria's team in Lebanon and not an aggressive initiation of the tit for tat war that resulted in Hariri's murder. Here is how al-Khazen summarized his two-hour interview with Bashar al-Asad:

President al-Assad links the extension of President Emile Lahoud's mandate to the battle in which France and the US joined forces against Syria, each for its own reasons. The White House is pressuring to rein in the Syrian position regarding the US military presence in Iraq and the confrontation with Israel. France found itself in a big political dispute with the US and decided to offer Syria as a price for reducing the harshness of Washington's position against Paris.

*The agreement over Syria between President George Bush and President Jacques Chirac began in Normandy in June 2004, when the extension hadn't yet been raised. When the Syrians heard in roughly August that the two countries were preparing a Security Council Resolution against Damascus and its interests, extension became possible.

This is the "pushed to the wall" thesis that both Bashar and Nasrallah elaborate. The death of Hariri becomes "objectively" not Syria's fault because Syria was defending itself along with higher Arab interests against a plot by the Israeli oriented West and their minions in Lebanon. This is the logic that Asad is selling to Syrians. This explains why Asad accuses the Israelis of murdering Hariri and may actually believe it at some metaphysical level. More importantly, it is why so many Middle Easterners accept the logic. They believe it at some deeper psychological level, which helps them avow Asad's technical innocence.

The Manichean struggle between Israel and the Arab World, in which both sides claim to be "existentially" threatened, has unraveled ordinary morality. Murder gets swept into a larger allegorical reading of light and darkness. As the cosmic logic of good and evil takes over, murder becomes "collateral damage" and we enter into the twilight zone of myth in which human actions lose their meaning in the face of contending Gods. The ends justify the means. Higher principles, such as Arabism/, Islam or democracy/ freedom trump smaller ones, such as murder.

Unfortunately, Arab leaders and their followers are not the only ones to do this.

"COURT IN THE MIDDLE" from Syria Today

COURT IN THE MIDDLE
Syria Today
December 2005

Islamic laws applied in Syria too often do little or nothing to protect the rights of women. As Dalia Haidar reports, activists are now calling for widescale reforms.

One month after her wedding, Loubna al-Sharif was beaten by her husband several times. They had scarcely finished their honeymoon, Loubna said, and she could not understand what had led to her new husband’s sudden, harsh treatment.

A few months later, she became pregnant. She was still only 19 years old, and she wanted to keep the baby, but her husband forced her to have an abortion. He continued to beat and verbally abuse her until she finally fled to her parents’ house and filed for divorce.

But the process of divorcing her husband only prolonged Loubna’s agony.

“I became depressed by the judicial system here,” said Loubna, who is now 24 years old and works a translator for a private magazine. “It took me two and a half years to get a divorce and, in the process, my file was lost three times in the justice palace.”

But according to Loubna, her real problem wasn’t the delays, but a whole system of laws unfairly skewed in favour of men.

“Even the judge had a masculine mentality, and the lawyers were pushing me to solve it peacefully without asking for my rights,” said Loubna, who finally obtained her divorce in a Syrian court which operates under a code of so-called ‘personal status laws’ which are mainly derived from Islamic law. “They kept repeating sayings of the prophet in order to convince me to end my case.”

According to Da’ad Mousa, a prominent Damascus lawyer and women’s rights advocate, Syrian women enjoy many privileges in the public sphere that their counterparts in other parts of the Arab world are denied. They have relatively high rates of employment, political involvement and access to higher education. Fifteen percent of Syria’s lawyers are female, and in Syria’s parliament, 12% of the seats are held by women.

And yet, said Mousa, Syrian women continue to face discrimination in the personal sphere, particularly when it comes to issues of marriage and divorce.

“Women in Syria suffer from discrimination in their private lives, and it is not just related to tradition; it is also a legal discrimination,” said Mousa. A whole host of laws related to family life and women’s status should be completely rewritten, she suggested.

In Syria, there is no one court that specialises in family law. Rather, family issues are handled in three separate courts, for Muslims, Christians, and Jews, according to a range of personal status laws.

For Muslims, marriage, divorce and child custody issues are managed in the Islamic courts, located in each of Syria’s major cities. There are separate courts, known as the Spiritual Court, for both Jews and Christians, functioning, in the case of the Christians, according to the rules of each Christian sect. The Jewish courts are rarely used, although they have not been closed down.

All the courts function according to Syria’s code of personal status laws, which deal with issues related to inheritance and child custody. The personal status laws were first issued in 1953 and reformed by the People’s Assembly in 1975 and in 2003.

The latest reforms allowed divorced mothers four years extra custody over their children, up to the age of 15 for girls and 13 for boys, before the right to custody passes to the father. At 18 years old the child is deemed to be an adult and can choose to live wherever he or she pleases.

Lawyers and human rights activists say the laws are still badly in need of reform.

“The family law, which is called the personal status law, should be reviewed from the first article to the last one,” said Da'ad Mousa.

According to Syria’s personal status laws, for example, Syrian women do not have the right to pass along Syrian nationality to their children. Interfaith marriages and civil marriages are banned in Syria; even if a Syrian couple has a civil wedding abroad, their marriage will be considered illegal when they return home.

Syrian law is particularly harsh to women when it comes to divorce, say women who have been through divorce in Syrian courts. Men, according to the law, can divorce their wives directly and quickly, without a legal case, simply by telling the wife, “You are divorced,” three times.

On the other hand, women who want to divorce their husbands must navigate a multitude of legal hurdles, even though Islam theoretically gives women the right to divorce their husbands in the event of domestic violence or if the husband has a sexual problem. Women must file for separation, which generally takes about two years in Syria’s Islamic courts. If she wins the separation case, she is free to marry again.

According to Mohammed Ismaiel, a Damascus lawyer, Islam is the force that protected women’s rights to property, employment and education after generations of slavery and unfairness. The problem, he said, lies not with the laws themselves but in their implementation.

“The law is good, but the process of implementing it is really wrong,” Ismaiel said. “Prolonging the case is the main problem. We need to increase the numbers of Islamic courts and judges, and shorten the period between the trials,” he added.


Activists are currently working to change many aspects of Syria’s personal status laws. For example, an article in the personal status law gives men alone the right to pass along Syrian citizenship to their children. This poses problems for Syrian women who have short-lived marriages to foreigners; many young mothers find themselves abandoned by their foreign husbands, raising children in Syria who are not recognized by their fathers and who are denied Syrian nationality.

Not all of the legal issues that arise in families are handled in Syria’s separate religious courts. Some types of familial financial disagreements are handled in Syria’s civil courts, and issues of physical and sexual abuse in families, as well as the so-called ‘honour crimes,’ are handled in Syria’s criminal courts, the laws of which date from the French mandate era of the early 1920s.

Honour crimes typically occur when a man suspects a female relative of an illicit sexual affair, and then kills her, believing that doing so will restore his family’s ‘honour.’ Syrian lawyers and activists say that honour crimes are among the most common issues discussed in Syria’s criminal courts, and that men involved in such cases often go unpunished.

According to Da’ad Mousa, the lawyer, Syrian law actually takes into account the fact that such men would consider their female relatives’ actions a reflection on their ‘honour,’ and become incensed at the mere suspicion of an infraction. Though such cases are greatly underreported, Mousa said, more than 100 cases of honor killings were reported in Syrian newspapers between 2000 and 2003.

A group of Syrian women’s rights activists have recently launched a campaign called ‘Stop the Honour Killing,’ lobbying Syria’s parliament and Ministry of Justice to change the articles in the criminal law code (namely nos. 242, 241, 240, 239, and 548) which make it easier for men to escape punishment in the event of an honour killing. In September, a young Druze bride was killed by her brother because she had married outside her religion. Her death triggered a public outcry.

The organisers of the campaign have already collected 7,700 signatures in an online petition, and plan to send the petition to the president of Syria and the parliament, requesting changes to these articles.

Meanwhile, changes to these articles are being actively discussed in government.

“We are asking for changes to some articles in the personal status law because we feel that the current situation demands it,” said Mohammad Habash, an Islamist parliamentarian and head of the Islamic Studies Centre in Damascus. “I have personally asked for the removal of the articles in the criminal law code that permits honour killing because it directly contradicts Islam.”

Another group of women’s rights activists, the Etana Press, recently hosted a conference on the intersection of law and tradition in Syria and their effect on women’s rights. According to the conference’s organisers, their aim was to improve Syrian women’s legal status by creating dialogue between the Syrian government and local NGOs.

“This conference is trying to open a dialogue between the government and the activists, in addition to connecting between the people and the different organisations in Syria,” said Ma'an Abdelsalam, a human rights activist and the director of Etana press.

The conference, which was attended by delegations of women from all over the Middle East and Europeended by creating a list of sixteen recommendations to be presented to the Syrian government. The recommendations urged the government to review the articles of the criminal law code which make it easier for honour killings to take place, to reform the personal status law so that all Syrians are treated equally, regardless of religion or sect, to create a special civil family court for the resolution of legal issues related to the family, and to encourage religious figures to support the principle of equality between men and women.

For Loubna al Sahrif, though her experience of the Islamic law that drives the workings of Syria’s family courts was a painful one, she argues that it is the understanding of Islam that needs reform, rather than the faith itself.

“Even though for a long time time I felt like a social outcast, I am happy I did not give up and that I pursued my rights. We need to understand the way we understand and practise Islamic law.”


Courts dealing in family issues in Syria

The Islamic Court: Rules on personal issues, such as marriage, divorce and child custody, for all Syrian Muslims. The court works from the ‘personal status law’ which was issued in 1953 and was reformed by the People’s Assembly after a presidential decree in 1975 and 2003. This law is based on Islamic, or sharia’a law.

Spiritual Courts: For both Christians and Jewish from all sects.
The Christian court functions according to the particular laws of each Christian sect with regards to marriage divorce and personal issues. The court follows the ‘personal status law’ in solving other issues like inheritance and child custody.

Confessional Court: A court for the Druze, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, which functions according to Druze law.

Panel Court: Works from the criminal law that was issued on June 22, 1949, three years after Syria’s independence from France, and specialises in family crimes issues such as aggressiveness, family planning, abortion, rape, sexual abuse and so-called ‘honour crimes.’

Civil Court: Specialised in financial and estate disagreement between families and functions according to the Syrian civil law which was issued on May 18, 1949.

Asad's Speech to Lawyers Union Jan.

In his much-anticipated speech today Bashar al- Assad refused to submit to UN's interview request in Hariri's probe. The President's tone was less hostile to the US and Lebanon than it was during his speech of November 10, 2005 at the University of Damascus, though he blamed Lebanese officials for the failure of a Saudi Arabian initiative to defuse tensions between the two countries. All in all, there was not much new and Asad hewed to the message he has been refining for months. Reuters called Asad, "down beat."

President Bashar Assad, invoking Syria's national sovereignty, indicated Saturday he would not submit to an interview request from the U.N. investigation into Rafik Hariri's assassination. In a speech to the Arab Lawyers Union, Assad pledged, however, to continue cooperation with the international probe the former Lebanese premier's assassination.

The U.N. investigation has said Syria has not been sufficiently forthcoming and the Security Council demanded full cooperation.

"The issue of national sovereignty is paramount, not the (U.N.) Security Council decision, or others," Assad said. The Syrian leader did not specifically address the request by the U.N. investigation for an interview with him and his foreign minister about threats Assad allegedly made against Hariri months before the Feb. 14 assassination. That left open the possibility that he might later agree to meet with U.N. investigators, rather than submit to an interview.

"We should not give up our national sovereignty even if the circumstance requires that we fight for our country. We must be prepared for that.”

In a swipe at the Syrian opposition he said: "Anyone who accepts ... something to be above his national sovereignty in any country or place in the world, should swap his nationality and sacrifice it and take in its place an international one from the United Nations." He called the UN panel "a condemnation committee, not an investigation committee.”

Kofi Annan tried to softened the international reaction to Asad's speech by stating on Friday that Syria will facilitate the UN probe, which suggests he will accept Asad's refusal to testify on grounds of national sovereignty as legitimate.

Asad returned to his indirect accusations that Israel was behind the Hariri murder by accusing Israel of murdering Yasser Arafat when he said, "Of the many assassinations that Israel carried out in a methodical and organized way, the most dangerous thing that Israel did was the assassination of President Yasser Arafat."

On Reform, Asad let down Syrians who may still be expecting something dramatic. He said very little other than that he would not be pushed into things by the West. "Reform begins with our domestic needs and we totally reject any reform imposed from outside under any slogan or pretext," he said.

"We are still at the beginning of a long road, but we will not let it be said that we have achieved nothing. Maybe the (pace) is slow ... but we are speeding as much as possible.”

Asad referred in a general way to moving ahead with the new party law that was recommended at last June's Baath Party meeting, as well as to the anti-corruption campaign that he has talked about since coming to power, and developing an independent judiciary. He said:

We are undertaking several projects that will boost public participation and help enrich democratic life, whether it be linked to the parties’ law or to election and local government laws."

"We are also working on strengthening institutions, the rule of law and judicial independence to activate political life, enrich our national activities and remedy some negative symptoms it is facing.”

Sana has published these paragraphs from the speech

In his address at the Arab Bar Association Conference, President Bashar al-Assad has stressed that the Iraqi issue is a political, pan-Arab and moral earthquake to the Arab Nation and has created a new reality in the Middle East, the tragic feature of which have begun to surface on the structure of its societies, and to shake the conventions and national and pan-Arab affiliation.

“ Phenomenon of terrorism has begun to expand threatening to sabotage the national and social texture of the countries in the region due to wrong international and regional pre-mediated stances regarding the Arab Nation,” al-Assad said, pointing out that terrorism phenomenon is being used as a tool by some forces that allege combating terrorism to terrorize the others…

President al-Assad indicated in his address at the Arab Bar Association Conference that all roads have been blocked before the Middle East peace process not only because the Israeli governments rejection to respond to peace requirements and continuous denial of the Arab rights, but the current international situation and influential forces are not ready also to push the peace process forward, in addition to non commitment of the international community to meet its requirements regarding the peace process and stability in the region…

The current events and circumstances have been the results of the past decades but have intensified in recent years and the Arab nation in paying high price for strange projects and settling the debts of others on its land from the blood of its sons and their stability, " Al-Assad stressed in his address.

In his address at the Arab Bar Association which is being held in Damascus President al-Assad stresses that the stage through which the Arab nation is passing requires high sense of affiliation and readiness for giving and honest work in addition to clarity of vision and direction…

President Bashar al-Assad expressed high appreciation Saturday over the sincere efforts of the Arab lawyers in advocating the right and defending the Arab nation’s causes.

He lauded the Arab lawyers’ solidarity with Syria in the face of dangers surrounding her.

SANA

Yesterday's news was the Syria and Iran – Joint Statement that came at the end of the President of Iran's visit to Damascus.

Syria and Iran have agreed to launch joint projects in oil and land and air transport, the official Syria Times newspaper reported

Israeli Defense Ministers Shaul Mofaz blamed Iran and Syria for financing and ordering the Tel Aviv bombing. The defense establishment has "decisive proof that the attack in Tel Aviv was a direct result of the Axis of Terror that operates between Iran and Syria," said Mofaz. "Iran supplied the money, and [Islamic] Jihad's headquarters in Damascus directed the organization's operatives in Nablus, giving operational orders and instructions."

Syria denies it was involved in the Tel Aviv bombing

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in Damascus Jan. 20 at a meeting with the leaders of 10 Palestinian movements. Among the leaders present were Islamic Jihad head Abdullah Ramadan Shala, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-GC leader Ahmed Jibril. The Palestinian leaders pledged to continue their armed struggle and expressed solidarity with Syria as well as Iran and its right to nuclear technology.

"Defining Post-Syria Lebanon" by Michael Young

Riad Seif, the imprisoned member of parliament, who was freed yesterday after almost five years in jail said on al-Jazeera TV that he believes that the Assad regime cannot be reformed and that regime change is the only option available to Syrians.

Here is a fine article by Michael Young summing up the "two visions" of Lebanon that are dividing Shiite from Sunni, and indeed the rest of Lebanon.

PolicyWatch #1070
A Tale of Two Countries: Defining Post-Syria Lebanon

By Michael Young
January 20, 2006

When Shiite ministers recently “suspended” their participation in the Lebanese cabinet, though without resigning, it highlighted an increasingly apparent reality in post-Syria Lebanon: Two powerful camps coexist today. One, led by Hizballah, in alliance with the Amal movement, sits atop a Shiite community generally, though not unanimously, supporting their positions. The other reflects a cross-communal parliamentary majority, the cornerstone of which is the Sunni-led Future Movement of Saad Hariri, son of the murdered former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.
This dichotomy is imperfect. Beyond sectarian affiliation, other fault lines divide the political actors, most importantly their attitude toward Syria. However, since the Syrian military withdrawal in April 2005, it would be fair to say that Lebanon is being buffeted by two broad visions for the future, and that the sectarian backdrop to this contest is mainly Sunni-Shiite, not Muslim-Christian, which was the main divide before Lebanon’s civil war began in 1975.

Two Visions for Post-Syria Lebanon

The Hariri vision is based on the classic urban merchant ideal, in which Lebanon is to be transformed into a liberal investment hub pursuing unhindered transactions with the West and the Arab world. Muslims and Christians must coexist in friendship, though the conservatism pervading this approach means the dictates of sectarianism are respected. Relations with Israel are to be governed by the 1949 Armistice Agreement, but no permanent agreement can be signed before all the Arab states accept peace. Proponents of this vision want the truth about who killed Rafiq Hariri, believe the Syrian regime was responsible, and have few qualms about seeing Damascus punished, whatever that means for regional stability. This vision is not strictly a Sunni one, but Sunnis are its main proponents and believe it embodies the values of the late prime minister.

The downside, and a potentially serious one, is that very different Sunni groups coexist under the Hariri “big tent.” Rafiq Hariri always highlighted the urbane moderation of his vision, but he could never completely conceal that, as a strong Sunni leader, he also appealed to radical Sunni Islamists and a Sunni underclass, both more likely to think in harsher sectarian terms than the pragmatists Hariri preferred to advertise.

Against this stands another vision, associated with the two Shiite parties—Hizballah and, far more ambiguously, the depleted Amal movement. This outlook is characterized by mistrust of the West, particularly the United States, and a desire to pursue the armed struggle against Israel, both in Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority. Proponents of this vision emphasize that Shiites have always staunchly defended Lebanese nationalism, have never cut deals with the outside, and proved their bona fides by expelling the Israelis in 2000. They refuse to regard Syria as an enemy, and recall that it was under the Syrians that Shiites were first given a prominent role in Lebanese political life. Economically, the parties oppose deep privatization of public utilities. Shiite employment in state institutions has been the paramount instrument of communal promotion in recent years. For poor Shiites, Hariri’s “merchant republic” offered few inducements. Even spatially, the community is concentrated in areas far from the rebuilt city center—the jewel in the crown of Hariri’s reconstruction of Beirut.

Many Shiites embrace this outlook, and specifically back Hizballah because, for the first time after decades of marginalization, the community is respected. No more ideological than others, Shiites nonetheless regard Hizballah’s militancy a badge of honor, and a legitimate lever with which to demand more in intersectarian bargaining. That is why they feel that UN efforts to disarm Hizballah will merely weaken their community once again. This dovetails with Hizballah’s own fear that, without weapons, it would be just another sectarian organization, forced to abandon its towering ambition to be a regional vanguard in the struggle against Israel and the United States. Arms also allow Hizballah to fulfill an implicit contract with Iran, whereby its threat to Israel from southern Lebanon can help deter an Israeli attack against Iranian nuclear facilities. Neither the party nor its supporters sees a contradiction between Hizballah’s claim to be a guardian of Lebanese sovereignty and its alliances with Iran and Syria.

Goodbye Syria; Hello What?

Even before Syrian soldiers began pulling out of Lebanon, that prestidigitator of Lebanese minority politics, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, had grasped that the aftermath would be shaped by the struggle between the Hariri camp and Hizballah—between Sunnis and Shiites. That is why he sought to mediate between the two, hoping to enhance his own authority. The practical impact of this was Jumblatt’s engineering of a consensus around a controversial law governing parliamentary elections in summer 2005. The law gerrymandered districts so that Hizballah and Amal could maintain large blocs in the 128-seat parliament, despite the Syrian departure, while Jumblatt and Hariri expanded their sway.

The initial losers were the Christians, whose most powerful politician, Michel Aoun, was left out of the deal. However, the angry backlash in the Christian community was such that Aoun, who had just returned from exile, swept all seats in the Christian heartland, establishing his own substantial bloc. Aoun has tried to remain nonaligned in the Hariri-Hizballah faceoff, but his electors deeply mistrust Hizballah’s relationship with Syria, compelling him to strengthen his ties with the Hariri-Jumblatt alliance.

After the elections, Jumblatt’s strategy was to continue collaborating with the Shiites in a new government. The Druze leader induced the inexperienced Hariri to approve the re-election of Amal leader Nabih Birri as speaker of parliament, though Birri had been a main prop of Syrian hegemony. And when Hariri’s associate, Fouad Siniora, formed a government, he made sure Hizballah and Amal received key portfolios—the first time Hizballah entered the cabinet. However, this was an unnatural marriage. Soon, the compromise between the Hariri-Jumblatt camp and Hizballah and Amal turned into a virtual divorce.

The professed reason was passage, by a cabinet majority vote led by Hariri’s and Jumblatt’s ministers, of a decision asking the UN to form a tribunal “with an international coloring” to try those responsible for Rafiq Hariri’s murder. Hizballah and Amal, at least publicly, declined to sanction the decision and suspended their participation in cabinet sessions. In fact, the dispute went deeper, capping a period of palpable tension as Hizballah and Amal refused to adopt positions that might harm Syria. Damascus fears an international or mixed tribunal because it would have the power to convict Syrians, without the Syrian regime’s being able to control the outcome. The Shiite ministers were also displeased with Siniora’s running of cabinet sessions, where he often outmaneuvered them. He understood they could not resign, since Hizballah views its participation in the government as institutional cover to resist surrendering its arms.

Deadlock prevails to this day, with no clear sign when a solution might be forthcoming. Hizballah sought to make Hariri back an agreement that would have traded a Shiite return to the cabinet for Hariri’s approval of a resolution defending against the party’s disarmament. Hariri, rejected this, spurred on by the versatile Jumblatt, who, after failing to break Hizballah away from Syria, became the party’s most vociferous critic.

No consensus exists on a vision for Lebanon. Hizballah’s strategic alliances with Syria and, more significantly, Iran make improbable a serious dialogue on disarmament, which the party’s leaders consider an existential threat. Nor does Hizballah feel an urge to compromise, since it retains support among Shiites. The Hariri-Jumblatt tandem, in turn, controls a slight majority in parliament, but suffers from the physical absence of Saad Hariri, who lives outside Lebanon, fearing assassination. Moreover, Hariri is said to be under pressure from the Saudis to be more conciliatory with Syria, since Riyadh does not want events in Lebanon to destabilize the Syrian regime. The sectarian contours of the Hariri-Hizballah rivalry are sharpening, and while violence remains unlikely, the fight for Lebanon’s soul will continue for some time to come.

Michael Young is opinion editor of Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper and a contributing editor at Reason magazine.

Dalila - apologies

Yes, I did fall into BP's trap. (You got me.) I apologize for suggesting that Arif Dalilah is sectarian minded and not a total Syrian, which caused a firestorm of complain and recrimination in my comment section. My fault. In haste, I copied a short bio of Dalilah sent by one of my readers which said that "he called for the Alawite sect not to follow the Assad family in their sectarian policies. He believed that this will cause the demise of the Alawite people."

I am a bit surprised that JAM, of all SC readers, would get so exercised by this statement as it is the line that he has been preaching. All the same, I have no knowledge that Dalilah thinks about Alawites as a community or would suggest a political strategy to them. Here is the information about Dalila that JAM suggests we read for the truth.

Also, I did not suggest he had been freed. My post began: "Unfortunately, Dr Kamal al-Labwani and Professor Aref Dalilah remain incarcerated."

News Round UP (January 18, 2006)

The big news today is that Syria freed some of the Damascus Spring prisoners: Riad Seif, Mamoun al Homsi, Fawaz Tello, Walid al-Bunni and Habib Isa were released today. Unforturnately, Dr Kamal al-Labwani and Professor Aref Dalilah remain incarcerated.

Here is BBC: Syria frees opposition activists

Syria has released two prominent opposition activists, who were jailed for five years in 2002, their lawyer has said.
Anwar al-Bunni said former independent MPs Riyad Sayf and Mamun al-Himsi had been released in Damascus.

The two were arrested in September 2001 after the authorities restricted open discussion by civil society groups.

Last June, opposition figures and intellectuals signed a letter urging the release of political prisoners.

They also called for the abolition of Syria's 42-year-old emergency law, which activists say permits arbitrary arrests and trials.

"The judiciary has decided to release them," Mr Bunni told the AFP news agency.

The two men were convicted in April 2002 for attempting to change the constitution by force and forming an illegal organization.

In November, Syria freed 190 political prisoners, including two prominent human rights activists, Mohammed Raadoun and Ali Abdullah.

Readers have sent in short bios of the Damascus Spring prisoners (thanks)
Dr. Aref Dalilah:

He studied economics at the universities of Damascus and Aleppo and became the Dean of Economics at the University of Aleppo in 1998. He used his posts in academia to call for freedom of expression, liberal economics policies, and the strengthening of civic societies, which got him in trouble with the government. A renowned publisher of papers and thesis in economic sciences, he was harassed constantly by the Syrian intelligence for his views that he expressed openly.

He was sentenced to a 10-year prison term on September 20, 2000, during Baschar al-Assad’s first 5 months of rule, after he called for the Alawite sect not to follow the Assad family in their sectarian policies. He believed that this will cause the demise of the Alawite people.

Dr. Dalilah is not known for any enmity towards the United States or its allies. His release will enhance the image of the US in Syria.

Riad Seif:

As a Member of the Parliament, he engaged fully in the “Spring of Damascus” by opening his home to intellectuals and academics for open democracy forums.

He was imprisoned on September 6, 2001 for five years for his public criticism of the Makhlouf family (cousins to the Assads) and a book he wrote on corruption in the bidding of the Syrian cellular license, which incidentally was granted to the Makhloufs thus exposing corruption within the Assad family. It is believed that even when his prison term expires, he will not be released because of his charisma and popularity.

Mr. Seif is a Sunni Muslim, liberal in his views, and is not known to have been critical of the United States or its allies. His daughter has visited Germany in the hope that the German government can support his freedom, which they did but to no avail. His release will be a big blow for Ba’athism and will enhance the image of the US in Syria.

Here is a short blurb I sent to Sami Moubayed about the releases:

Everyone is trying to assess the importance of the release of the Damascus Spring prisoners. The optimists, who have been saying all along that Bashar al-Asad is a frustrated reformer, will take heart. They will point to the release as the first major sign that their president is finally ready to move ahead with domestic reform. What had stopped him in the past? The "old guard." With the ouster of ex-Vice President, Abdul Halim Khaddam, the consummate "old guard" infighter and nemesis of the President, the optimists argue, Bashar al-Asad can precede with his stalled reform program.

The pessimists will see this as a political stunt. Long ago they dismissed their president as a Baathist ideologue, who is incapable of real reform. Some even argue that the old guard was smarter than the new.

Syria has many reforms sitting on the shelf. We will have to see if they are dusted off and given real life in the political process. Hemmed in by an international investigation and facing recriminations from all sides, Syrians are desperate for some good news. Many Syrians will be willing to forgive Asad for his foreign policy blunders if he can grow the economy and convince them that he will not drive the country toward poverty.

Bashar al-Assad will make an important speech on Saturday, announcing internal reforms.

The other big news is the Cheney visit to the region. He is trying to push a Saudi deal that will bring Syria to justice, without destabilizing the region. Here is a bit of an article:

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday held talks with Saudi, Egyptian and Lebanese leaders in a bid to resolve a stand-off between Syria and the United Nations over the assassination of a former Lebanese premier.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia, two Arab heavyweights who are key U.S. allies in the region, are trying to defuse tension over the killing of ex-Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, and Saudi officials have talked of a Saudi mediation effort.

Analysts say Egypt and Saudi Arabia are worried that the crisis between Syria and the U.N. could escalate and detract attention from other problems destabilizing the region.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told Britain's Financial Times in an interview published on Tuesday that the kingdom had made proposals for an agreement, but was waiting for a response from Beirut and Damascus.

Prince Saud said Saudi Arabia had urged Syria to co-operate with the UN probe “without reservations”.

Arab press reports have cited a seven-point plan, worked out by Saudi Arabia and Egypt, that includes putting an end to media campaigns, ceasing provocative statements from politicians, exchanging diplomatic representation and co-ordinating foreign policy.

Trish Schuh, the author of the recently quoted article that accused Farid Ghadry's Syria Reform Party of being linked to Abramoff, sends this note:

Dear Mr. Landis,

I am the original author of the comment/article on Syria that Mr. Farid Ghadry denied (concerning his relationship w/ Jack Abramoff).

As per Reform Party of Syria not using "shared office space" with Jack Abramoff: I personally checked with different sources- including the building maintenance crew on duty concerning the RPS, because RPS is not listed in the building's lobby directory- and none of the staff knew of it and the doorman claimed they'd never gotten mail under that name. Nor did the receptionist/secretary on duty know of the RPS. This is not how a legitimate organization usually runs.

I returned to Abramoff's office (2 or 3 times total) and finally insisted they look through Abramoff's client roster. Then the secretary on duty at "Middle Gate Ventures" found RPS listed in her files. She even gave me RPS's number to call- which accurately matched the number on the official RPS website.

I then requested to speak to a supervisor who could give an RPS statement on the "latest" in Lebanon. The supervisor declined, saying she didn’t know and that they were not authorized to speak to the press.

Thank you,
Trish Schuh

Sami Moubayed has written an important article, "Iran and the art of crisis management," in which he argues for the appeasement of Ahmadinejad. The crux of his argument is that there is a system of checks and balances in the Iranian government, unlike the often invoked but "false" historical analogies with Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. It is an intriguing argument. Moubayed believes Ahmadinejad's many Iranian enemies will depose him, if they are not silenced by American and Israeli saber rattling. It is a worthy argument, but one that, I fear, is already lost. Both Washington and Israel have their own elections to run and saber rattling serves too many important domestic purposes to be sheathed.

T_desco writes wrote in the comment section:

It turns out that Ibrahim Michel Jarjoura is indeed a new Hussam:

Another Witness Testifies with Perjury into Assassination of Hariri

The witness Ibrahim Michel Jarjoura said he was forced to offer a false and fabricated testimony against Syria at the international investigation committee into the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik al-Hariri because he was under threats and pressures to do so.

Jarjoura told Lebanese satellite NEW TV channel in an interview overnight that some Lebanese figures, particularly Deputy and Minister Marwan Hamada, forced him, in return to some promises, to retell the fabricated story to the international probe and the Lebanese Attorney Said Mirza as well as Bahiya Hariri, sister of the slain Hariri. SANA

The U.S. Treasury Department just ordered U.S. banks to block any assets found in the U.S. belonging to Assef Shawkat. Americans are also barred from doing business with him. The department alleged that Shawkat has played a role in furthering Syria’s “support for terrorism and interference in the sovereignty of Lebanon”. (Thanks Ehsani)

Khaddam makes fresh accusations to Saudi-based newspaper Al Watan:

The former Syrian vice-president Abdul Halim Khaddam said that some groups in Syria seized the money of the sons of the former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (Uday and Qusay) after the Syrian authorities returned them back to Iraq.

Khaddam revealed that the sons of the former Iraqi president fled to Syria with their money and stayed there for one month until the Syrian authorities forced them to go back to Iraq without their money. Meanwhile, Khaddam denied the news, which claimed that he owns a fortune of about $2.1 billion, and accused the relatives of the Syrian president of corruption, specially Ramy Makhlouf, a close relative of the Syrian president who used to ask for 30 per cent from Gulf investors in return for any project in Syria.

Oxford Business Group just released this interesting article about the Arab Gas Pipeline:
Syria: Straight is the Gate
18 January 2006

Syria’s troubled relations with its western neighbour Lebanon have recently stood in contrast to its links with northern neighbour Turkey.

Events this month have driven home the point too, as a number of new link ups between Damascus and Ankara were announced. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, new steps are underway in an ambitious cross border energy project that could be set to bloom after the recent gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine.

Yet links between Damascus and Ankara have not all been on a positive note. While ordinarily encouraging cross border traffic, January has also seen Syria engaged in some frantic efforts to prevent one particular import from the north: bird flu.

By January 17, an outbreak of the virus in Turkey had killed four, with a fifth death suspected to have also been the result of the contagion. Some half million birds have so far been destroyed in Turkey’s efforts to contain and eliminate the virus, but despite this, the World Health Organisation and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation recommended neighbouring countries also take precautions.

Syria h