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No easy way out for Assad

Posted on: Tuesday, 1 November 2005, 08:27 CST

By Nadim Ladki

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad knows what he must do to avoid a potentially disastrous showdown with the United Nations -- move against powerful members of his inner circle, analysts said on Tuesday.

But any such sacrifice could spell trouble at home, where Assad has never dominated Syria's political, military and security apparatus as his late father Hafez al-Assad did.

Options are narrowing for the young Syrian leader after the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution demanding Damascus cooperate with a U.N. investigation into the February 14 killing of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

Full cooperation would probably require Syria to detain and question Assad's brother and brother-in-law, and maybe eventually hand them over to face international justice.

"This is a big test for Assad," Murhaf Jouejati, a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, told Reuters.

An unedited version of the October 20 report by chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis named Assad's brother Maher and brother-in-law Assef Shawkat as suspects in Hariri's killing.

The official version deleted their names, though Shawkat was mentioned in connection with a cover-up attempt.

"Does Assad want to give up major pillars of support for his regime and abide by the Mehlis investigation? Or stick by his family and face the wrath of the U.N.?" Jouejati asked.

Maher al-Assad commands a key military unit, while Shawkat is military intelligence chief, the top security post in Syria.

Assad may prove unwilling or unable to move against them, analysts and diplomats say, putting him on a collision course with the United Nations over the resolution adopted on Monday and opening the door for further action, including sanctions.

Yet Patrick Seale, British biographer of Assad's father, believes the Syrian leader could turn crisis into opportunity.

"For the first time since he came to power in 2000, he has a unique chance to impose his authority on rival power centers and emerge as the real ruler of Syria," Seale wrote in Beirut's English-language newspaper Daily Star.

STARK CHOICE

"The choice before Assad is clear: either continue to claim that Syria is innocent of the murder of Hariri ... or recognize that mistakes have been made and carry out a purge of the top security officials."

Seale said the first option would condemn the Syrian government to international isolation and tough sanctions.

"A destabilised Syria would then be vulnerable to attempts at 'regime change' by its enemies," he said.

Abandoning his top aides would win Assad support at home and abroad, but to ride out the storm he would need to display "unusual qualities of courage and political acumen," Seale said.

Assad, who has public opinion largely behind him on Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian issue, could also act decisively to broaden political support by embarking on long-delayed reforms.

"What Assad could do, and he is probably moving in that direction, is to make concessions to society, to emerging civil rights and civil society organizations to open up the system more, to have increased political participation," Jouejati said.

"He is in far more trouble than he has ever been. It may be his last chance to shore up domestic opinion."

In one effort at damage control, the president has ordered a judicial committee to be set up to probe Syrians suspected of involvement in Hariri's killing -- as Mehlis had suggested.

Assad is also seeking Arab support, but Arab diplomats said he had so far failed to get the full backing of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which were both outraged by Hariri's assassination.

U.S. officials have in the past urged Assad to take the "Gaddafi option," referring to the Libyan leader who assuaged U.S. wrath by abandoning of his unconventional arms programs and paying compensation to victims of terrorist attacks.

Jouejati said Washington might not let Assad off the hook no matter what, given its array of accusations that Damascus is still meddling in Lebanon, allowing insurgents to cross its borders into Iraq and supporting militant Palestinian factions.

"Wherever the Americans can poke fingers into the Syrian eye, they will," he said, although he added that Washington had not yet decided to push for "regime change" in Damascus.

But Lebanon's anti-Syrian Druze leader Walid Jumblatt warned that Assad and Syria's Baathist party rule could face the same fate as Iraq's former Baathist dictator Saddam Hussein.

"If he acts like Saddam did, yes, we are heading to a situation similar to what happened in Iraq," Jumblatt said.

"But if he acts to preserve Syria's national unity and interest before the brother-in-law, a brother or anybody, he can save Syria," he told Al-Arabiya television on Sunday.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Lyon in London)

Source: REUTERS

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