Syria gets hands-off treatment

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This article was published 26/04/2011 (5374 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TEL AVIV — The unrest in Syria that claimed more than 300 lives in the past five weeks has produced an interesting phenomenon on the regional and international scenes.

Unlike the regime changes in Tunisia and Egypt, and the active American and European role in the effort to oust Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, the conduct of all actors in the Syrian Saga is much more cautious.

In a speech on Friday, for example, U.S. President Barack Obama called for domestic reforms but not “regime change” in Damascus. Officials in Jerusalem, Ankara and Tehran also remain silent, with only Iran going one step further — it banned any public mention of the events in Syria.

Since the 1982 First Lebanon War, the confrontation with Israel allowed Iran to vent its regional influence through its Hezbollah surrogate in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

This has become impossible now. On orders from Tehran, Hezbollah and Hamas are maintaining a total silence about the events in Damascus. Iran also is not trying to “scare” the West with fabricated announcements about “large scale” military manoeuvres with “new combat techniques” or development of new weapons systems.

This cautious Iranian approach is easy to explain: Iran has a lot to lose from regime change in Damascus. Its dream of a permanent naval base in the Mediterranean would be shattered and its influence on Hamas and Hezbollah would be weakened.

The moderate American attitude towards events in Syria is also justified. After consultations with London, Paris, Berlin, Ankara and Jerusalem, Obama decided to intensify the pressure on Assad for domestic reforms and not for “regime change.”

It is argued that Assad understands that the mass killings of Muslim protesters in Hama 30 years ago is simply impossible today. Despite the state’s curbs and Iranian assistance, new generations of Syrians are able to use the social networks — Facebook, YouTube and Twitter — to transmit footage of demonstrations and mass killings.

The Western caution is based on a combination of political realism and practical calculations.

Mass demonstrations, although expanding by the day, are still far from dislodging Assad. The relatively broad middle class in Damascus did not join the demonstrations.

Assad knows that he has to reach out to this group in order to prevent the confrontation from spiralling out of control. Assad’s main base of support, beside the relatives who control the army and the intelligence, is the small Allawite minority that counts for less than 10 per cent of the population, and even smaller but influential group of middle class Sunnis, who amassed fortunes during the Assads regimes and therefore have a vital interest in preserving the status-quo.

Within his own government, Assad is balancing between Vice-President Faruq al-Shara’a, who is pro-Iranian, and foreign minister Waleed Muallem, who is pro-American.

Needless to say, that in addition to the general Western considerations, Israel has its own interest in keeping Assad in power, for now at least.

Assad is a known quantity. Since the 1967 Six Day War — except or a short period of the 1973 Yom Kippur War — Syria honoured its ceasefire agreements with Israel and did not intervene in both Israeli wars in Lebanon. The Assads had no objections to negotiate peace with Israel — once with Yitzhak Rabin under the auspices of the U.S. and once with Ehud Olmert through Turkey.

Bashar Assad also remained silent when Israel destroyed his nuclear plant in Deir el-Zor, northeast of Damascus, which was built with Iranian money and North Korean technologies.

Nevertheless, because of his current preoccupation with domestic unrest, Assad is unlikely to resume peace talks with Israel in the near future.

On the other hand, Israel was constantly alarmed by Assad’s alliance with Iran and his co-operation in smuggling arms, money and instructors to Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Despite these conflicting considerations, Israel decided to go with the U.S. and the Europeans. Israel agrees that Assad cannot feel secure in a region electrified by the swift changes in Tunis and Cairo. It understands that Assad should be given more time to modernize a socialist-style economy, where unemployment is still very high.

Under the pressures of the demonstrators and the West, Assad announced the scrapping of the emergency rules that were in effect since the Baath revolution in March 1963. Facing the gravest challenges to his 11-year rule, Assad also promised civil reforms and economic handouts. The West decided to “wait and see.”

Samuel Segev is the Winnipeg Free Press correspondent in the Middle East.