http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?area=/insight/insight__international/
<http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?area=/insight/insight__international/&;
articleid=199136> &articleid=199136
Assad far from out of the game
Simon Tisdall | London
08 March 2005 07:59
Struggling: Bashar al-Assad. (Photograph: AP)
The sons of famous men often struggle to make their mark. And Syria's
President, Bashar al-Assad, is struggling more than most as he contemplates
the loss of Lebanon and his country's increasing international isolation.
While his father, Hafez al-Assad, dominated Lebanon after first intervening
in 1976 with United States connivance, Syria's 14 000 troops and
intelligence and security forces now face a humiliating retreat under
diplomatic and popular fire.
While Assad Snr joined the US in evicting his old enemy, Saddam Hussein,
from Kuwait in 1991, Syria's relations with the US have deteriorated to the
point that his son now publicly frets about a US attack.
And while Assad's father came tantalisingly close to negotiating an Israeli
withdrawal from the Golan Heights in 2000, Syria now finds itself excluded
from a reviving Middle East peace process, as its absence from this week's
London conference on Palestine demonstrated.
Assad's multiple external difficulties have raised questions about whether
he is wholly in charge at home. But Rime Allaf of the Royal Institute of
International Affairs said it would be foolish to underestimate the Syrian
leader, despite his miscalculations. It would also be a mistake to think
Assad had run out of cards to play in Lebanon or elsewhere, she suggested.
"The endgame for the US and Israel is the isolation of Syria ... But I don't
think the US will try to force regime change."
With the mass protests that led to Monday's resignation of Lebanon's
pro-Syrian government showing signs of abating, Assad may be hoping that the
crisis has peaked. Like his father, the renowned "Sphinx of Damascus", he is
likely to resort to Syria's trademark waiting game.
Lebanon remains of key importance to Syria and its interests there will not
be casually surrendered. They are financial, commercial and political. They
relate to its security and regional leverage through the Hizbullah-Iran
axis. And they are concerned, above all, with preventing a separate peace
between Lebanon and Israel.
Assad knows that the rare unity of purpose shown by the non-Shia Muslim
Lebanese factions in recent days may not survive jostling over a new
government, especially if divisions are encouraged from within. Syria's
ally, President Emile Lahoud, remains in place. And some calmer Lebanese
voices are already warning against the country's unwitting manipulation in a
broader, regional power game.
Beneath exhilarating talk of a "cedar revolution" lies Lebanon's old fear of
a return to civil war, especially if a precipitate Syrian troop departure
left a power vacuum for rival militias to fill.
All these factors give Assad a chance to play for time. And although he has
already agreed to a troop withdrawal, discussions about a timetable and the
wider implications for Lebanese self-rule under the 1989 Taif Accord could
yet be prolonged, whatever the US, France or Britain may say.
Despite its "people power" rhetoric, the US also has careful calculations to
make as the Lebanon crisis unfolds. Syria's post-9/11 intelligence-sharing
in the "war on terror" against al-Qaeda is valued in Washington. Although it
suspects Damascus of double-dealing over Iraq, the US also knows an overtly
hostile Syria could make matters much worse for its occupation forces.
While Assad has never appeared weaker and may be forced into further
concessions, he is far from out of the game. And when US President George W
Bush finally leaves the White House, it is entirely possible that Assad will
still be in Damascus to wave goodbye. - C Guardian Newspapers 2005
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