One year ago, things looked bad for
Damascus. The Syrian regime had been accused of
ordering the assassination of its onetime ally,
former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Two
United Nations resolutions had been passed against
Syria, forcing it to withdraw its troops from
Lebanon. In October the UN prosecutor Detlev
Mehlis issued two disturbing reports accusing
Syrian officials of Hariri's murder.
Syria's former intelligence chief in
Lebanon and then minister of interior, General
Ghazi Kenaan, committed suicide shortly after
being interrogated by Mehlis, taking many secrets
and untold stories with him to the grave. Ending
the year with a blast, former vice president Abdul
Halim Khaddam defected from the Syrian regime on
December 31, accusing it on Arab satellite
television of
direct involvement in the
Hariri affair. Many doubted that the regime would
safely pull through 2006.
Anyone who lives
in Syria, or observes Syrian politics, realizes
that the regime feels much more comfortable today
than it did one year ago. There are several
reasons for this new Syrian comfort zone.
To begin with, the situation in Iraq is
more chaotic than at any time since the invasion
and the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The
more trouble the Americans face in Iraq, the less
likely they are to apply more pressure on Syria.
After all, nobody would accept a new Middle East
adventure, neither the Arabs, nor the American
public, nor the international community. This is
especially true since the Islamists in Iraq are,
to say the least, not exactly losing the war with
the United States.
The Americans are
facing rising sectarian violence in Iraq, topped
off with a complete breakdown in security that is
leading to the death of 35 Iraqis per day. Recent
allegations of atrocities committed by marines at
Haditha further blacken the US image. President
George W Bush's approval ratings, which were at an
astronomically high 87% right after September 11,
2001, have dropped to 30% today according to
various polls because everybody can see that Iraq
is a mess and that Bush is responsible.
The Americans have realized that the
source of their troubles in Iraq are the Iranians
and the Iraqi people themselves, not Syria. The
Americans no longer blame Syria for allowing
insurgents to cross the border into Iraq, as they
were saying in 2003-05, nor do they accuse the
Syrian regime of harboring Saddam's former
henchmen in Damascus or his weapons of mass
destruction.
These accusations were loudly
made by Washington in 2003-05, and the fact that
they are no longer heard means that either Syria
is cooperating on maintaining security on its
605-kilometer border with Iraq or that the
Americans have realized that Syria was in fact
innocent, as President Bashar al-Assad has been
saying since 2003, and that the insurgents were
not coming from or being supported by Damascus.
The Syrians and the Americans both want
the same thing - a stable Iraq. In the past, it
was believed that Syrians were fanning the
conflict in Iraq, out of a conviction that the
more Iraq was ablaze, the more difficult it would
be to pressure Syria or justify any action against
Damascus. Today, the Syrians no longer need to fan
the conflict in Iraq. It exists with or without
the Syrians. Syria also feels comfortable because
the United States is too busy with Iranian
President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and his nuclear
program to worry about the Syrians.
Although it left Lebanon in April, 2006,
Syria still exerts a powerful influence over
Lebanese politics through such ardent Lebanese
allies as Hasan Nasrallah, the secretary general
of Hezbollah, and the powerful parliamentary
Speaker Nabih Berri, who heads the all-Shi'ite
Amal Movement. All issues currently being debated
in Lebanon at the National Dialogue Conference are
directly related to Syria and cannot be achieved
unless Damascus cooperates with the government in
Beirut, currently headed by anti-Syrian statesmen
from Hariri's parliamentary majority. Because
Syria is still related to all the pending issues
in Lebanon, it can continue to mess things up for
the anti-Syrian team in Lebanon.
The
issues related to Syria include the arming of
Hezbollah, the future of President Emile Lahhoud
(whose mandate was extended by the Syrians in
2004), demarcation of the Syrian-Lebanese border,
and the identity of the Sheba Farms that are
occupied by Israel. Although Syria lost some of
its strongest former allies in Lebanon, such as
Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and the Sunni Future
Bloc of Hariri, it still commands loyalty among
the country's Shi'ites (through Hezbollah and
Amal) and is currently supported by the Free
Patriotic Movement of its former arch-enemy
General Michel Aoun.
The Lebanese general,
who spent more than 10 years in exile for refusing
to work with the Syrians in Lebanon, is currently
allied to Hezbollah, Syria's strongest ally in
Lebanon. Aoun refuses to be anti-Syrian, saying
that the Syrians are out and the sources of
Lebanon's problems are some politicians inside
Lebanon, a reference to Saad al-Hariri and Walid
Jumblatt.
This, of course, is not out of
love for the Syrians - and the Syrians know it -
but from a desire to oppose everything related to
the Hariri bloc. So although it is no longer
physically and militarily present in Lebanon,
Syria still commands strong influence in Lebanese
politics. This means that its regional role and
Lebanon influence was not completely destroyed, as
many so wished, after the assassination of Hariri.
The victory of Hamas in Palestine
temporarily serves Syria's interests. For many
years, the Damascus-based Hamas had been a burden
for Syria, and after September 11, the United
States repeatedly asked Syria to expel Hamas,
accusing it of being a terrorist organization.
Syria stood firm by its Palestinian ally, and
suddenly Hamas was transformed, in the January
2006 election, from a political burden to a
political asset.
Damascus' influence in
Palestine, which had been reduced when Mahmud
Abbas assumed the Palestinian presidency in
January 2005, has been restored because of its
excellent relations with Hamas. Syria can now play
the mediator and go-between once again in internal
Palestinian politics and regain some of its
shattered influence in Arab affairs. Hamas listens
to the Syrians. Although it sometimes leans on
Egypt for support, it still trusts the Syrians as
the only true Arab nationalists committed to the
Palestinian cause. With such a reputation, Syria
can go far in playing Palestinian politics.
Moreover, the victory of Hamas, although a
political ally, gave the Syrians ammunition to use
against public opinion - and the Americans who are
calling for regime change - on free elections in
Syria. The unspoken Syrian argument is: look what
will happen if the people get their say. Parties
that preach political Islam will be voted into
office. You have al-Da'wa Party and the United
Iraqi Alliance (UIA) in Iraq. You have the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt, and Hamas in Palestine.
Beware. It's either us or the Islamists in Syria.
The Hariri investigations The
Syrians believe that the new Belgian prosecutor in
the Hariri affair, Serge Brammertz, authored a
technical report that steered clear of politics
back in March, unlike the case of his predecessor
Detlev Mehlis. The German prosecutor had presented
two highly dramatic reports, in October and
December last year, sending shock waves throughout
Syria and Lebanon and accounting for most of
Syria's discomfort in 2005.
Among other
things, Mehlis had explicitly said that the
decision to kill Hariri had been made in Damascus,
at the Presidential Palace and the Meridian Hotel.
The Mitsubishi van that carried the explosives,
Mehlis said, was seen in the summer resort of
Zabadani near Damascus being loaded with
explosives in the presence of Ahmad Abu Addas, a
man who appeared on a pre-recorded tape hours
after the murder claiming responsibility for
Hariri's assassination. Abu Addas, Mehlis had
said, was forced to record his testimony at
gunpoint, threatened by Syrian intelligence chief
Assef Shawkat.
He had also devoted a part
of his report to documenting an allegedly stormy
meeting between President Assad and Rafik Hariri,
held in Damascus in August 2004. Those who
supported the story that Assad had threatened
Hariri were depicted by Mehlis as having said the
truth, and those who questioned it (including
Farouk al-Shara and Walid al-Moualim) were
portrayed as liars.
All of these details,
which added high drama to the Hariri affair, do
not show up in the Brammertz Report. In a shock to
all those who contributed to the findings of
Mehlis, Brammertz says that "a decision has been
taken to discontinue some of the previous lines of
inquiry".
The fact that Brammertz makes no
reference to all of these incidents means that
they have been discontinued, because of lack of
evidence, by the commission. Brammertz
concentrated on Syria, however, and its
cooperation with the commission. He failed to
mention the political context of the Hariri
murder, and does not name a single Syrian official
as either witness or suspect. A counter-argument
surfacing from those who wanted the report to
incriminate Syria is that while it is true that
Brammertz did not implicate Syrian officials,
Brammertz also did not deny their involvement,
leaving room for further speculation and
investigations.
Brammertz will issue his
first full report on June 15. Speculation is
running high in some international papers and the
Lebanese press that the report will directly
incriminate Syria. Brammertz, after all, relies in
this report on the testimony of former vice
president Khaddam, who repeats accusations against
the Damascus regime regarding the Hariri murder.
Those advocating a tough report argue that
Brammertz issued a balanced report in March to win
Syrian confidence and get the Syrians to cooperate
with the UN commission. This cooperation was
needed, they argue, to foil any post-report Syrian
accusations that Brammertz was a politicized judge
who was being manipulated by the Lebanese and the
Americans. These accusations, however, remain
wishful thinking by those in Beirut, Washington
and the Syrian opposition who want to see a guilty
Syria. There is no evidence of or even leaks on
what the Brammertz Report will say on June 15.
Amid all this comfort came a loud
declaration, signed by Syrian and Lebanese
intellectuals, calling for a mending of
Syrian-Lebanese relations, blaming Syria for
misconduct in Lebanon and calling for a
normalization of relations between Damascus and
Beirut, with proper and full diplomatic exchanges.
The declaration touched a raw nerve in the
Syrian capital, especially since it coincided with
a new UN resolution calling on Syria to open an
embassy in Lebanon. Authorities in Syria blamed
the declaration and its creators for influencing
the UN resolution against Syria. They arrested
several of the declaration's authors and
supporters, including the human-rights activist
and lawyer Anwar al-Bunni and the moderate writer
and activist Michel Kilo.
Many are saying
that these arrests reflect official Syria's
confusion and weakness. Setting aside emotions,
however, one should not overestimate the impact of
Kilo's and Bunni's arrests. The authorities' move
was wrong and should not have been done. But it
has been done in the past, and the regime knows
that apart from public outcry, and strong-worded
condemnations by the Americans and Europeans
(which is in fact what happened), nobody is able
or willing to punish Damascus for the arrests.
Syria still has the option of sending them
to jail or releasing them after a brief detention
by special presidential pardon, perhaps on
November 16, the day commemorating 36 years of the
"correction movement" that brought president Hafez
al-Assad to power in 1970. Would they be silenced?
Of course not, but they would tone down their
criticism, realizing that they have to play
politics by the rules of the Syrian regime.
Authorities also arrested two
parliamentarians, Riyad Sayf and Maamoun al-Homsi,
while they still had parliamentary immunity in
2001, along with the veteran communist Riyad
al-Turk. What happened? Nothing. Turk was released
by the government shortly afterward, and Sayf and
Homsi spent five years behind bars. They were only
released, despite repeated requests by Syrian
activists and the European Union, shortly before
their prison terms ended in 2005.
Economics professor Aref Dalilah was also
arrested in 2001 and sentenced to 10 years in
jail. He remains in custody. What happened?
Nothing. Over the past year, several activists,
most recently Aleppo-based Samir al-Nashshar, were
also arrested and then released. What happened?
Nothing. Bush personally called for the release of
Kamal Labwani, an activist who visited the United
States to meet with US officials and was arrested
on his return to Syria. He is still in jail.
The Syrian regime is stronger and more
entrenched than most people realize. It knows that
democratic freedoms were never on the US agenda
for Syria, so long as Damascus cooperates on
regional issues related to Lebanon, the
Arab-Israeli conflict, and Iraq. The regime was
expected to fall during the clash with the Muslim
Brotherhood in 1982. It survived. It was expected
to fall in 1984 during a planned coup by Rifaat
al-Asad. It survived. It was expected to collapse
when Hafez al-Assad died in 2000. It survived. It
was expected to fall after the war on Iraq in 2003
and after the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005.
Again, it has survived.
True, matters have
changed dramatically since the 1980s, but the
Ba'athists have outlived 16 Israeli prime
ministers and eight US presidents going back to
John F Kennedy. There is no reason to believe that
they will not survive George W Bush.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian
political analyst.
(Copyright 2006
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
contact us about sales, syndication and republishing
.)
