Posted by Jim Lindgren:
Is Assad Trying to De-Baathify Syria?--
The sometimes unreliable [1]Debka.com, which had the best inside
reporting on the Syrian pullout from Lebanon, is now [2]spinning a new
tale about developments in Syria:
Assad Launches Secret DeBaathification.
Syrian president Bashar Assad is trying to turn his back on the
fiasco of his exit from Lebanon and shore up his regime by a secret
crash reform program �- although one that is careful not to put the
presidency on the block.
Stage one took place in total hush Saturday, April 9. . . .
Assad wants his epic political and military revolution to be over
and done in three months, unlike the Baath revolutions in Iraq and
Syria which dragged on through the 1960s and 1970s.
This is a very tall order as well as a dangerous gamble,
considering that Assad is proposing to roll back four decades of
Syrian history by June and transform his Baath from a
Marxist-socialist ideological movement to a rejuvenated, pragmatic
ruling party.
Despite the heavy secrecy imposed on this radical program, a storm
of opposition will be hard to avoid. It could go as far as a bid
for his ouster.
He proposes to sever the reciprocal lifeline between army and party
and shut down the movement�s pan-Arab center, so withdrawing the
mother party�s support from the many Baath branches around the Arab
world, especially in Lebanon and Jordan. He even seeks to rewrite
the national constitution and introduce an open market economy.
But since he grasped Lebanon was a write-off, Assad is quoted by
DEBKA-Net-Weekly�s sources as dropping to confidants such remarks
as: �I don�t want to see foreign troops in Syria forcing us to
accept the sort of reforms imposed on Iraq. We can carry out those
reforms on our own.� This tone recalls Libyan ruler Muammar
Qaddafi�s vein in 2003 after he was reconciled to meeting the Bush
administration�s demands and ceding his nuclear option and weapons
of mass destruction programs.
. . .
D. Economy Committee
This panel was assigned to restructure the Syrian economy and
oversee its transition to a market economy.
3. A timeline was drawn up for the three critical stages of the
Syrian reform program:
April 9 � elections for Baath party branch councils. The plan is to
bring fresh blood to the branches to replaces veterans some of whom
have been in place 40 years.
April 26 � the newly-elected local branch councils will pick new
district bodies.
June � the national party convention will meet to approve the
reform program.
The next three months will therefore be crucial for Syria and its
ruler.
According to our Middle East sources, Assad�s plan to jettison the
old political structures and with them the old guard he inherited
from his father exposes him to a fight to the death from such
formidable figures as Abdullah al Ahmed, acting general secretary
of the Syrian Baath, who took over on Hafez Assad�s death and all
three vice presidents Zuheir Masharka, Khalim Haddam and Muhammed
Jaber Jabjush. They are all warning Assad that if he goes through
with his plan he will be riding for a fall and risk the eclipse of
the Assad dynasty in Syria.
Dissent is even broader and deeper among lower Baath echelons and
the military officers who treat local Baath branches as their
personal power bases.
If this indeed happens (and even if Debka's reporting is correct,
there is considerable uncertainty about the future in such a volatile
world), we can once again be treated to public statements in the press
that no one could have expected it--except that developments of this
general type were part of the Neocon strategy all along. Bringing even
a mixed market economy to Syria would be good for almost everyone,
except the Socialist ministers themselves.
References
1. http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1013
2. http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1013
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