Syria neighbours fear future without Assad family

Bashar al-Assad

BEIRUT, (Reuters) – From Israel to Iran, Syria’s  neighbours are starting to contemplate the possibility of a  future without the Assad family as Lords of Damascus, and,  whether friends or foes, some don’t like what they see.

Hafez al-Assad

Indeed, some are in denial about what they are witnessing.

Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’ite movement widely seen as an  Iranian proxy in the Middle East, purports to believe the  government of President Bashar al-Assad is putting down an  insurrection by armed gangs of Salafi or Sunni Muslim fanatics.

In its report of the Syrian army’s assault on the southern  city of Deraa, epicentre of the revolt which began last month,  Al Manar, Hezbollah’s television, stuck to the official version  that the army responded to citizens’ pleas to put an end to  “killings and terrorising operations by extremist groups”.

Hezbollah greeted with glee uprisings that overthrew  dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt and championed the rights of  Bahraini protesters against Saudi military intervention to quash  Shi’ite demonstrations.

But it is distinctly unenthusiastic about the risk of losing  the support of a Syrian government which is not only its main  protector but the conduit for arms supplies from Iran.

Tehran, which regards Syria as a close ally in a mainly  Sunni-dominated region suspicious of non-Arab Shi’ite Iran, has  called the revolt in Syria “a Zionist plot”.

Yet Israel too seems deeply uneasy about any change in the  status quo.

Although they are still formally at war, Syria under the  current president and his late father, Hafez al-Assad, has  maintained a stable border with the Jewish state since 1973 even  though Israel still occupies the Golan Heights.

FEAR OF
ISLAMISTS

Israel’s fear — voiced more openly by commentators plugged  in to its security establishment than by politicians — is that  a successful uprising might replace firm Baath party rule with a  more radical government, or one less able or willing to keep  radical forces on a leash.

Although Assad sponsors Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon and  Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, he has  played a cautious hand.

Behind the strident Arabist rhetoric and ties with Tehran he  has kept the option of peace with Israel in play and sought  acceptance by Western powers.

“The implications are enormous and totally unpredictable,”  said Lebanon-based Middle East analyst Rami Khouri.

“What makes Syria distinctive is that the regime and the  system have close structural links with every conflict or player  in the region: Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Lebanon, Israel, America,  Iraq, Turkey. In all these (cases) there is a Syrian link.”

Demonstrations have spread across the country and grown in  intensity, he said, and protesters who began calling for reform  of the system were now demanding “the overthrow of the regime”.

At the back of many minds is the experience of Iraq, plunged  into years of chaos and sectarian savagery after the US-led  invasion in 2003 and removal of Saddam Hussein.

“Everybody in the region is concerned about the  destabilisation of Syria, even those who don’t like Assad,  because there is one thing he brings to the region: a certain  kind of predictability and stability,” Khouri said.

Bashar al-Assad

“He maintained the truce along the Syrian-Israeli border,  people know how his government behaves. Nobody knows what will  happen afterwards.”

Alex Fishman, a military affairs journalist for Israel’s  best-selling daily Yedioth Ahronoth, summed up Israeli  apprehension after the Syrian army stormed into Deraa.

“However odd it may sound, the Israeli establishment has a  certain sentiment for the Assad family. They kept their promises  throughout the years and even talked about an arrangement with  Israel on their terms,” he wrote.

“It’s hard to part with a comfortable old slipper, but the  top members of the political and security establishment believe  that the Syrian regime, in its current format, will change  within weeks or months,” Fishman said.

He added: “The sole interest guiding Israel’s conduct is: if  what is happening in Syria will ultimately weaken the  Damascus-Iran-Hezbollah axis — we’ll come out ahead.”

LIKE FATHER
LIKE SON

For Hezbollah and Iran, losing Assad would certainly be a  big blow.

“If it (Syria) splits into mini-satellite states that will  be bad news for everybody,” Khouri said, suggesting that as in  Iraq this might provide an opening for al Qaeda militants.

Across the border in Lebanon, arena of a sectarian civil war  in 1975-90 that sucked in regional and world powers and left  Syria in control for 29 years, people are also worried.

Any prospect of a new sharpening of tensions between Sunnis  and Shi’ites, Arabs and Kurds, or Christians and Muslims, all  simmering across the region after being brought to the boil by  Iraq, produces shudders.

“I don’t think any wise man is not worried about what  happens in Syria because it is a neighbour,” said Talal Salman,  editor of Beirut’s daily as-Safir.

“Any earthquake in Syria will shake Lebanon with its fragile  make-up. Syria’s stability is in our interest.”

For now, Assad has decided to follow in the footsteps of his  father and resort to military force, not reform, to put down the  protests at a cost
so far of more than 400 lives, according to  human rights groups.