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Syrian Leader to Face US Pressures Alone - London-Based Arabic Paper Says

Posted on: Saturday, 22 October 2005, 12:00 CDT

Text of article by Chief Editor Abd-al-Bari Atwan headlined "Most dangerous Syrian predicament", published by London-based newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi on 22 October

The Syrian regime is facing a predicament that is the most dangerous in its history. The charges in German Judge Detlev Mehlis's report on the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri indict the regime's symbols and accuse them directly. This requires a well-prepared strategic handling for confronting the steps and sanctions it might entail. To say merely that the report is politicized, as Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhlallah said, or assert that the United States is targeting Syria, as Syria's Security Council Envoy Faysal al-Miqdad reiterated, do not demonstrate a clear realization and a correct reading of the report but reflect confusion and probably a disparaging approach whose adoption has made the Syrian regime and people fall into this predicament.

There are only two choices before the Syrian regime concerning the Mehlis report:

The first is Saddam Husayn's choice, that of not cooperating as required with the United Nations and Judge Mehlis, which means not handing over the senior wanted officials whose names were mentioned. These are Mahir al-Asad, Asif Shawkat, Hasan Khalil, Bahjat Sulayman, Rustum Ghazalah, Faruq al-Shar'a, and Ahmad Jibril.

The second is Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi's choice, that of yielding to the international pressures - which are American - and handing over all the wanted persons, dismantling the nuclear and chemical programmes, cooperating fully with US bodies and politics, and changing the regime's policies and approaches 180 degrees.

The problem facing the Syrian regime is that Syria is not Libya and its leader Bashar al-Asad is not Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi. The country's geographic location at the heart of the Middle East is strategic with Iraq on its eastern border and Israel from the south. Moreover, the persons who need to be extradited are the pillars of the regime's main organs and not an ordinary intelligence officer like Al-Miqrahi, the defendant in the Lockerbie case.

Security in Syria is the regime's main backbone and the reason it has survived for more than 35 years. Giving up the leaders of the security apparatuses in this humiliating way could be the beginning of the end for the regime.

The US Administration is going to exploit the report to impose sanctions on Syria. It is stupid to imagine otherwise. The Syrian regime is on the list of change because it has not cooperated fully with the US plans in the region. Half cooperation is unacceptable and neutrality too has also stopped being a valid currency. The present US administration said it frankly to the Arab leaders: Remaining in power depends on implementing the American diktats in full. The first of these is getting involved in the war on terror, supporting the US occupation and all its consequences in Iraq, and dropping the Palestine cause and joint Arab action. Anyone who accepts this will be untouchable whatever human rights he violates and crimes he commits. Anyone who refuses will have the same fate as that of Saddam Husayn!

This does not mean that the Syrian regime's refusal to cooperate with the US forces in their occupation of Iraq and its continued adherence to the option of resistance in Palestine gave it the green light to violate human rights, absent the freedoms, and get embroiled, either directly or indirectly, in the crime of assassinating a prime minister of Rafiq al-Hariri's stature and position.

President Bashar al-Asad is going to find himself alone against the US pressures and all his friends and Arab leaders who were friends of his father will abandon him because these have accepted the American deal and given up what was left of national dignity for the sake of remaining in power. The most that the president of the biggest Arab country Egypt could offer him is what he offered Iraqi President Saddam Husayn, that is, advise him to cooperate with international legitimacy and its resolutions in full. The Egyptian president's advice to his Iraq counterpart brought the latter to the dock in a racist and farcical American tribunal. We do not know how his expected advice to President Bashar will fare, though we do not believe that the latter's end will be better than that of President Saddam, with a simple difference, namely, that he might be tried in The Hague or Geneva if Mehlis demands his extradition and questions him like the others.

The Mehlis report disclosed three principal phenomena that need to be pondered carefully:

The first phenomenon: The report did not mention at all Maj-Gen Ghazi Kan'an as being involved in Al-Hariri's assassination. This raises doubts about the issue of his suicide and gives some credibility to the reports that he opposed extending [Lebanese President Emile Lahhud's term in office] and that he was one of the US alternatives for the current regime, that is, the one to stage a palace coup similar to the coup of Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, and this hastened his end in that way.

The second phenomenon: No Arab leader has dignity or privacy. Mehlis's investigations revealed that all the telephone calls of Lebanese President Lahhud and his senior aides were recorded in full by some party in Washington or Tel Aviv.

The third phenomenon: The forcible introduction of the Palestinian factor in Al-Hariri's assassination case, either directly or indirectly, for the purpose of serving a future policy in Lebanon and Syria. It used Ahmad Abu-Adas to record the Jund al- Sham version and its adoption of the alleged suicidal assassination operation. The name of Ahmad Jibril, leader of the Popular Front- General Command, was included in the list of those involved.

The coming days will be the most difficult for Syria, both regime and people, and it is probably too late to give any advice, not only because the time is too late but also because those in control did not listen in the past and we do not believe they are going to listen to them now.

Cooperation with Mehlis and his demands will lead to the same results as those of non-cooperation because we know, following the experiences of Iraq and Libya, where these demands start and where they end: Total humiliation and loss of national and personal dignity. Some preferred to remain in power without dignity and others preferred the loss of power and a stay in a detention camp to shepherding the US administration's pigs.

Wagering on China and Russia to prevent sanctions in the Security Council might be a risk without guaranteed success. The Iraqi president gave Russia and its companies oil contracts worth 40bn dollars but it abandoned him at the critical moments while China preferred to abstain in the vote. The reason is very simple, namely, no one respects the Arabs anymore or trusts them. This is understandable and not surprising. The Arabs have become a zero or very regrettably below it in the international equations.

Source: BBC Monitoring Middle East

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