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. — Â