Ehud Ya'ari

A Different Spring

It is difficult to mistake the intentions of the ad-hoc American-French-British alliance formed to bring about the ousting of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad. The steamroller effect of the pressures exerted on him through the Security Council is pushing him slowly but surely toward breaking point. This is how the picture is being read in the Arab world, which has avoided rallying to the Syrian president's cause, and the same is true in Damascus itself. Bashar al-Asad is perceived as politically condemned, a dead president walking, whose remaining time in office is loudly ticking away. The challenge, it seems, is how to ease Asad out of power without causing Syria to collapse into a swirl of instability, and how to do away with the ruling Baath Party without inviting terror organizations to fill the vacuum, as happened in Iraq. Or in other words, how to depose the Asad family and its clients without having the army, at least part of the security services and the government administration cease to function. In the past two weeks, there have been growing signs that Asad is beginning to lose his grip on Syria. Several heavy-duty businessmen connected to him, and chief among them his cousin Rami Makhluf, have left the country. Makhluf, whose father was the commander of the personal guard of the late Asad senior, has moved his headquarters to Dubai. Others have gone to Paris. There is a quiet wave of Syrian lira withdrawals from the banks, and the Syrian Central Bank is flooding ever greater sums into the market in order to prevent the local currency going into freefall. Opposition figures, and most prominent among them the veteran Communist leader Riad Turk, are calling publicly, inside Syria, for Asad's "resignation." Harsh criticism of Asad is being aired within the Alawite minority that has been ruling for 40 years, particularly among the clan of Gen. Ghazi Kana'an, the interior minister who recently "committed suicide." Many Alawites are convinced that Kana'an was poisoned because he tried to distance himself from his rivals, heads of other security branches who were involved in the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Army commanders, and most notably Chief of Staff Ali Habib, are doing their best to remain in the shadows and are not joining in the demonstrations of support that Asad is organizing for himself. The lively Internet chat among Syria's intellectual elite talks openly and bluntly of preparations for a post-Bashar era. There are other signals as well. From his Spanish exile, Asad's estranged uncle Rif'at Asad, a former vice president, is running a noisy campaign to return to Syria, this time as president, on a platform of democratic reform. Rif'at's recent visit to Saudi Arabia during the Muslim fast month of Ramadan shows that he has the ear of the royal court there. His satellite TV station, ANN, is spreading rumors about a rift between the president and his brother-in-law, Gen. Asef Shawkat, head of military intelligence and a prime suspect in the Hariri murder. In Lebanon, there are reports of Asad loyalists in the Christian camp defecting and seeking the patronage of the Maronite Church. Activists of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood are putting out feelers for a dialogue with Washington, Paris and London. And one opposition activist, Nabil Fayad, was even ready to defend his recent meetings with Israelis, including cabinet minister Meir Shitreet and former Shin Bet head Avi Dichter, on Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV. All these separate notes make up a cacophonous background music that gives a sense of the political climate in Syria, but they do not provide enough of a chorus to point to the formation of an alternative force. As soon as a coherent tune emerges, Asad's seat will begin to shake, even if he is still on it. It will constitute the swansong of the Asad dynasty. The next moment of truth will probably come on December 15, when the extension granted to Detlev Mehlis, the special investigator appointed by the U.N. to probe Hariri's murder, runs out. His new report will only make things worse for Asad. The chances are growing that one of those Syrians under investigation will open his mouth to save his own skin. There is no shortage of candidates. In the meantime Asad will try to pretend to cooperate with the investigation. In reality he will be doing his best to hold it up and cover tracks. However, the piles of evidence that Mehlis already has, not least the records of the constant cellphone conversations between the lookouts following Hariri's convoy and their handlers, will make it difficult for the Syrians to wriggle out this time. Therefore, it is assumed that the haze might clear toward the spring of 2006. The next "Damascus Spring" should look different from the one that Asad promised when he first came to power, and that he never delivered. The various players within the regime and outside of it will have to decide whether to tie their fate to his, or to explore other avenues. And they will have to take these decisions against the backdrop of the possible removal of admiral Emil Lahoud, the Lebanese president and faithful prot?g? of Asad. At this stage, the Maronite Patriarch Butrus Nasrallah Sfeir is delaying his ouster. He fears a precedent of a Christian president being routed by the heads of other sects, namely the Sunni Saad Hariri (son of Rafiq) and Walid Junblatt on behalf of the Druse. The patriarch is defending Lahoud with the cooperation of Hizballah for now, but that partnership cannot last long. The moment there is agreement on an alternative Christian candidate, Lahoud will have to go in disgrace and pray that legal steps will not be taken against him for involvement in Hariri's murder. Thus the battle for power in Damascus may begin in Beirut, and Asad's fate might be sealed, in the final analysis, in the Lebanese presidential palace of Ba'abda. Once Lahoud is out, it will be his patron's turn next.
The Jerusalem Report, November 28, 2005 issue