Syrian authorities responsible for Hariri murder

PRESSURE ON SYRIA

The next shove into democracy?

By Scott MacMillan
a freelance writer who lives in Cairo
Published December 18, 2005


As the United Nations puts Syria back in the hot seat, pay close attention to what American leaders say on the subject of democracy in Syria. The administration has made far-reaching demands of Damascus, but until recently, it had stopped short of suggesting Syria become the Arab world's latest experiment in democracy.

Last month, President Bush demanded for the first time that Syria "stop exporting violence and start importing democracy." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice then spoke of "the Syrian people's aspirations for liberty, democracy and justice under the rule of law." These are subtle but significant shifts in the way Washington talks about Damascus: It seems we might want a democratic Syria after all.

Last week, UN special investigator Detlev Mehlis delivered his final report implicating high-level Damascus officials in the February assassination of former Lebanese leader Rafik Hariri. The same day, another anti-Syria voice in Lebanon, writer and editor Gibran Tueni, was killed by a car bomb.

The nuances of American rhetoric resonate powerfully on Syria's streets. I spent two weeks there in October, after the release of Mehlis' interim report. In conversations, it was clear that few Syrians, including those who opposed the regime and looked up to America, saw Bush as their liberator.

Make no mistake: Syrians are in denial about their government's likely role in the Hariri assassination. When the subject comes up, they respond almost reflexively: "The UN report is politically motivated. It is only an excuse to interfere in Syria's internal affairs."

Scratch beneath the surface and people will start to tell you what they really think. Many will speak disdainfully of Bashar Assad's dictatorship, and some will freely admit that government officials are probably guilty of the Hariri assassination. Eager for a sound bite, Western reporters often fail to get past the standard response.

I met a local business executive who initially gushed about the Syrian president. He spoke of Assad as reformer of a system mired in corrupt socialism and railed against American neoconservatives. After the better part of an hour, I pressed him on whether Assad's reforms would lead to free elections. He conceded that only outside pressure would push the government toward democracy.

`No loyalties, just Syria'

Later, I received an unexpected invitation to a demonstration by students at Damascus University. I had read many reports of angry demonstrations of Syrians defending their government against a perceived American smear campaign. Yet what I found surprised me: This was a pro-Syria demonstration, yet explicitly not a pro-regime one.

Nobody waved pictures of Assad, itself notable in a country where the president's portrait is ubiquitous. The national flag was the only emblem on display. "No loyalties, no slogans," one student told me. "Just Syria."

After much small talk, people began to speak openly.

"I think people in the government are probably guilty of the Hariri murder," said one young protester. "The biggest crimes of our government have been committed against the Syrian people. So why does America want to punish the people of Syria, rather than the government?"

The Assad gang has succeeded in making U.S. "interference" the main topic of conversation. The twist, of course, is that it was Syria's meddling in Lebanon that set off the current crisis. In coming months, U.S. leaders must refocus Syrians' attention on the Assad regime's thuggish rule.

The "realists" will point out that our beef with Damascus has nothing to do with democracy: The U.S. wants the Syrian government to stop allowing insurgents to cross the eastern border into Iraq, to end its support for Hezbollah and Palestinian militant groups and to quit interfering in Lebanese affairs.

In fact, these demands are unlikely to be met until democratic change comes to Damascus. Assad will not "do a Qaddafi"--the words of Syria expert Joshua Landis, who blogs at SyriaComment.com--and suddenly become the kind of dictator America likes, namely, Libya's Moammar Gadhafi.

Political opposition weak

Many will argue that the reluctance to push for a democratic revolution in Syria is an exercise in pragmatism. Right now there appears to be no viable alternative to Assad's dictatorship: Even opposition figures, such as the former political prisoner Riad al-Turk, admit that Syria's weakened and fragmented opposition is in no place to topple the regime via Kiev- and Beirut-style mass demonstrations.

It would be wise to read the words of another former political prisoner: In his 1978 essay, "The Power of the Powerless," Vaclav Havel, then a dissident Czech playwright, wrote of the totalitarian regime in which "all genuine problems and matters of critical importance are hidden beneath a thick crust of lies."

When that crust is broken in a single place, "the whole crust seems then to be made of a tissue on the point of tearing and disintegrating uncontrollably."

Right now, the weakest point in the Assad gang's crust of lies is its involvement in the Hariri assassination. If the worst of the accusations is shown to be true, Assad will appear as a liar before his own people.

If this happens, the crust will start to break and anger in Syria will turn away from the U.S. and toward the regime itself.

Israelis may prefer Syria as is

U.N. pressure keeps Assad in tough spot
- Matthew Kalman, Chronicle Foreign Service

Sunday, December 18, 2005




Jerusalem -- Israeli leaders may be saying publicly that Syria's murky role in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri could finally bring down the shaky regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Yet behind the scenes, these same Israelis admit they would rather have a weak but stable Syria for a neighbor than a shattered country that could turn into another Iraq.

A damning U.N. report released Monday said Syria continued to interfere with the investigation into Hariri's murder. On Tuesday, a popular journalist named Gibran Tueni also was assassinated -- apparently at Syria's hands.

The latest report bolsters the conclusions of one issued in late October by the U.N.'s chief investigator, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, tracing Hariri's murder to Assad's inner circle -- and focusing a spotlight on Syria's long-standing meddling in Lebanon.

The United States, which is pushing for United Nations sanctions against Syria, says Assad is helping the Iraqi insurgency. On Thursday, the Security Council voted to extend the investigation into Hariri's murder for six more months, postponing a decision on sanctions.

"I think there needs to be change in Syria," Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres said last month on Israel Radio. "If it's true that the government there is involved in the murder, this will shake up the rule of the Assads."

Peres said it was "neither natural nor acceptable" for a family representing a small minority to rule Syria with such "brutality."

Israel contends that Damascus willingly offers haven to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other radical Palestinian groups, that it channels weapons used against Israel to the Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon, and that it undermines Middle East peace efforts at every turn -- charges that Syria has denied.

"Syria is harboring terror, supporting terror and financing terror," Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz charged during a recent visit to London. "All the centers of terror are based in Damascus. There is a flow of money coming from Syria to the terror organizations in the West Bank. Syria supports Hezbollah by allowing them to use Lebanese soil as a platform for attacks against us. It is also clear that the Syrians are allowing the movement of terror groups into Iraq, and these organizations are attacking U.S. and British forces."

Yet some Israelis say the U.N. reports and the light they shine on Syria's internal operations could be used to international advantage.

"Before imposing sanctions, there is an opportunity to ask the Syrians to cooperate fully with the international community by getting rid of the terrorist headquarters in Damascus and cutting all contact with the Hezbollah," said Danny Yatom, former head of the Mossad intelligence agency and now a Labor member of Israel's parliament. "(Assad) might decide to do that and survive, instead of taking the risk of refusing to cooperate with the demands of the U.N. and the international community."

Yatom warned that Security Council action on sanctions "might destabilize the regime."

"He is not as strong as his father; he is relatively weak," Yatom said in an interview. "Even before this report, the regime was not stable."

Bashar Assad inherited his post from his father Hafez Assad, who died in 2000 after a three-decade reign in which he ruthlessly repressed all domestic dissent. The younger Assad's rule, like his father's, is based around a tiny ruling clique drawn almost exclusively from relatives and members of his minority Alawite sect. Both father and son controlled Lebanon through surrogate politicians and a military occupation until protests following the Hariri killing forced Syrian troops to draw back across the border.

Eyal Zisser of the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University said that short of an Iraq-style military invasion by the United States, there was little hope of forcing Assad from office -- and, ironically, that served Israel's interests in the foreseeable future.

"Israel's interests would not be served by Syria becoming the new Iraq," said Zisser. "Most Israelis would prefer Bashar to stay in power. He is a weak but effective ruler. As long as he is under pressure from the U.S. and now the U.N., he will be on the defensive and can cause little trouble for Israel."

Like Israel, the United States would rather see Bashar Assad reform his country rather than be forced out.

"I think one of the things that Syria has learned is that noncompliance with international demands will lead to isolation," President Bush told Al-Arabiya television network in an interview after the October U.N. report was released. "Nobody wants there to be a confrontation. On the other hand, there must be serious pressure applied."

The uncertainty about Syria's short-term future also affects the dispute between Israel and Syria over the Golan Heights, which Israel has occupied since the Six Day War in 1967. Previous Israeli governments have held quiet negotiations with Syria over the return of the strategic mountain range, which dominates northern Israel and is less than one hour's drive from Damascus.

The Golan Heights remain underdeveloped and sparsely populated, with only 15,000 Jewish settlers and about the same number of Syrian Druze on the Israeli side of the cease-fire line.

In early 2000, then-President Bill Clinton hosted the only open negotiations between Israel and Syria, but Hafez Assad rejected the Israeli proposals made by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Within a year, the elder Assad was dead, the Palestinian intifada had erupted, and Barak had been replaced as prime minister by Ariel Sharon. The Golan issue went into the deepfreeze.

Israel "is not interested in returning the Golan Heights to Syria -- domestically, it would be political suicide and they would be offering Bashar a gift he clearly does not deserve," said Zisser. "For their part, the U.S. has no interest in engaging in talks with Assad because it would enable him to avoid U.S. pressure on other issues, including his support for terrorism."

As the Security Council debates the question of sanctions, the members must bear in mind that Syria's economy is in a terrible state and sanctions could cripple the country -- perhaps setting off internal unrest. Unemployment is running above 20 percent, according to a recent U.N. Development Program report, and more than 30 percent of Syria's 18 million citizens are living in poverty.

Some two-thirds of the country's exports are accounted for by its fast-dwindling oil production, which has slumped by 20 percent in the past decade. The freezing of commerce with the European Union, Syria's largest trading partner, would stop development in its tracks, and U.N. sanctions would also cut off vital EU loans to the Syrian government.

"If they only freeze assets of people mentioned in the report, Syria will not be affected," said Nabil Sukkar, managing director of the Syrian Consulting Bureau for Development and Investment. "But if they freeze government assets, then it will be disastrous."

Perhaps for that reason, Rafik Hariri's son Saad told a press conference in London after the first U.N. report was released that he opposed sanctions that would affect the Syrian people, arguing that only those involved in his father's killing should be punished.

Israel also would prefer it if Syria were not plunged into chaos.

"The Israeli-Syrian arena is very quiet and has been for years," said Zisser. "Why would Israel want to replace it with an Iraqi-style scenario?"