Syria’s embattled dictator, Bashar al-Assad, looks set for a continued confrontation with anti-government protesters after he reneged on a pledge to lift a state of emergency that was put in place in 1963. Instead, he appealed this week to Syrians for national unity in the face of violence which he says is instigated by “foreign” parties carrying out an Israeli agenda.
That appeal seems likely to fall on deaf ears. Assad, 45 – who has ruled Syria since the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, in 2000 – accepted his cabinet’s resignation on Tuesday after two weeks of unrest in which at least 60 people were killed. However, the inner workings of a cabinet where power is concentrated in Assad’s hands are meaningless to most Syrians, and pro-democracy activists have called for the “free people of Syria” to stage sit-ins across the country on Friday.
For now, Assad, a British-trained ophthalmologist, may not be that worried. Tens of thousands took to the streets in his support this week, though the demonstrations looked staged. World leaders meeting in London diverged slightly from the text (and legality) of UN Resolution 1973 to pledge to continue to bomb Muammar al-Gaddafi’s forces in the Libyan civil war, but let Assad off the hook, at least for the time being.
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Assad will have drawn encouragement from statements by the US State Department spokesman, Mark Toner, acknowledging that the Syrian leader had “claimed the mantle of reform” (he was referring to financial reforms, though the US was still waiting for him to deliver on the political front), and from Nick Clegg, who on a visit to Mexico said “it is not now the role of the international community to try and intervene directly in every country”. Perhaps not, but that doesn’t mean that whatever happens in Syria can’t have a profound effect on the entire region. At the root of the protests, which were fanned by the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia and which began in the southern city of Deraa, is the Sunni Muslim majority’s aim to put an end to 50 years of minority Shia Alawite rule. Though granted some concessions by Assad in recent years, the Sunni opposition is intent on settling old scores with the regime, which had thousands killed in the 1980s when Assad’s father Hafez was in power. However, the armed forces, too, are under Alawite control. The Syrian security machine is well-oiled and could preserve the status quo for months or even years, but Bashar Assad has always been a more conciliatory leader than his father – hence the West’s patience so far. The concern in Western capitals is that should the Alawite regime fall, it could plunge the Middle East into sectarian fighting on a scale not seen since the Lebanese civil war of the 1980s. Though it is not clear what kind of regime would replace Assad’s if he fell, his departure would sever Damascus’s close link with Tehran and weaken Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza in their confrontation with Israel. This does not mean, however, that peace would instantly reign in the region. Iran would be averse to losing an ally which has been useful as a buffer to US and Israeli influence, and might find other means of backing its allies. Turkey, which in recent years has forged close ties with Damascus as it tries to extend its influence in the Arab world, might also take a dim view of any change in Damascus. Then there is Israel. Assad offered to resume peace talks with Israel, but with the condition that it withdraw from the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied in the 1967 Six Day War. However, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu rejected the offer, and he is even less likely to hand the Heights back now, when the perception is that Assad’s regime has been weakened by an internal uprising and could eventually collapse. In fact, Netanyahu may even be tempted to embark on another adventure, when the world is focused on the Libyan civil war, and attack Lebanon and Gaza yet again to dispose of Hezbollah and Hamas. What would the West, not to mention Iran, do then?Donate to us: support independent, intelligent, in-depth Scottish journalism from just 3p a day
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