Twilight for Assad?
Syria's strongman is in trouble, but Washington may not like the alternatives
It has been a long time since a Syrian leader has looked as vulnerable as Bashar Assad appears today. Already under pressure from Washington for failing to clamp down hard enough on insurgents moving in and out of Iraq, Assad is also reeling from a moribund economy and the fallout from caving in to international pressure to withdraw Syrian military forces from Lebanon earlier this year. President Bush last week blasted Syria and Iran as "allies of convenience" for terrorists. "They deserve no patience from the victims of terror," he said in a speech on the war on terrorism. Even Syria's key allies in the Arab world, like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have been distancing themselves from Damascus recently.
Most threatening to Assad, however, is the pending United Nations investigative report on the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, due by October 25, which threatens to implicate his government--and perhaps even Assad himself--in the plot. In particular, investigators have found one person "they regard as a stellar witness" who has implicated at least one senior Syrian official, says a European diplomat.
Making changes. You can almost taste the anticipation in Washington. Officially, the Bush administration's policy is to seek a "change of behavior" in Syria, but privately many officials are hoping the report might prompt a change of regime. Still, beneath the froth, there is some concern that the U.N. report might not go high enough to threaten Assad, leaving him firmly in power. Even worse, if the report does somehow trigger Assad's ouster, it might only produce an even more hard-line successor--or result in a power struggle leading to chaos.
Five years ago, when longtime dictator Hafez Assad died, there was some hope in western capitals that his son would prove to be a more moderate reformer. French President Jacques Chirac risked real political capital in reaching out to Bashar. But the 40-year-old British-educated ophthalmologist has largely been a disappointment in Washington and Europe--and also at home in Syria. If anything, he has been weaker than expected, dependent on--and often at the mercy of--his brutal security services. "It's a thug-ocracy," says a U.S. official. "The best way to understand them is to watch The Sopranos. "
So perhaps it was natural for U.S. officials to get excited after Syria was forced to withdraw its military forces from neighboring Lebanon, ending three decades of occupation. The news got even better when the U.N. Security Council agreed to appoint a tough German prosecutor, Detlev Mehlis, to investigate who was behind the truck bomb that killed Hariri in February. Mehlis took his probe to Lebanon, where he interviewed security officials and examined the bombing site, as well as Syria. Lebanon is already holding four pro-Syrian generals in connection with the assassination. "We haven't seen this sort of thing in the Arab world before," says one western diplomat.
Mehlis's two visits to Damascus fueled speculation that he might be able to trace the plot to Syria. He is believed to have spoken with several defectors from Syrian intelligence agencies. All this has left U.S. officials hoping that Mehlis, known for his dogged independence, will go after Assad. "How long has it been since we had a foreign leader implicated in an assassination?" asks one State Department official. "It's a throwback to the '70s and '80s."
advertisement
