Twilight for Assad?
Syria's strongman is in trouble, but Washington may not like the alternatives
Mehlis is currently ensconced in Vienna, where the physical security and distance from Lebanese and Syrian political pressure are presumably conducive to producing a final document. U.S. News has learned that Mehlis asked the U.S. government for satellite imagery of several specific sites in Lebanon on specific days and that U.S. officials furnished him with the corresponding commercial satellite photos.
There are indications that Mehlis may ask for a delay, perhaps until December, to nail down his findings. Some U.N. watchers, however, still doubt that he will be able to bring the blame to Assad's doorstep. That could be tough for Washington to accept. "Unless you have an outcome with this report that really pins it to Bashar, I think Bashar really does have some options to get beyond this," says Flynt Leverett, a former Bush White House expert on Syria.
A reinvigorated Assad might feel even more immune from the Bush administration's exhortations to crack down on Hezbollah or the traffic of insurgents between Syria and Iraq. Syria already claims that it has been working to stop insurgents from entering Iraq by building an earthen border barrier in some places and arresting some 2,000 jihadists. So far, Washington has been unimpressed, frustrating Damascus. "The Syrians say that no matter what we do, it's not going to satisfy the U.S.," says Murhaf Jouejati, the Syrian-born director of Middle East studies at George Washington University.
At the same time, it is not clear how much more the Syrian regime can do. For one thing, it is hard for Assad, a secular leader and part of Syria's minority Alawite sect, to launch a crackdown on the religious Sunni majority. In addition, U.S. military officials are starting to conclude that the Syrian government may have weakened so much that it is no longer able to restrict who passes through the Damascus airport. "They may be incapable of controlling" the flow of visitors, says one U.S. military official, including insurgents in transit to Iraq.
On edge. If the Mehlis report implicates Assad or his top aides, it could threaten his rule. He is already under intense international pressure, including from inside the Arab world, to turn over any high-level officials who are named, a move that would enrage the security forces.
Assad's departure would cause entirely different problems for Washington. For one thing, there really are no good alternatives. "The regime has been very effective at eliminating the bulk of the political class," says Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian writer who is a visiting fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy in Washington. "The opposition is equally as intellectually bankrupt as the regime and cut off from what is happening on the streets."
There is also a strong likelihood that whoever might replace Assad would be distinctly worse. "If the regime starts to implode, I think the alternative to this regime is a political order that is heavily Islamist and even more anti-American," says Leverett. "I personally don't see what American interests are advanced by that outcome." U.S. officials have been scouting out the Syrian opposition, meeting with some of the more prominent figures, and so far have not been finding much. "There really isn't any opposition," says one U.S. diplomat. In one sign of caution, some U.S. officials are consulting with foreign counterparts about the potential negative consequences of an Assad fall.
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