Feeling comfortable in Damascus
By Sami Moubayed
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. |
