DATE=6/13/2000 TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP TITLE=MORE REACTION TO ASSAD'S DEATH NUMBER=6-11869 BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE DATELINE=WASHINGTON EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS TELEPHONE=619-3335 INTERNET=YES CONTENT= INTRO: The death of Syria's Hafez al-Assad continues to draw editorial comment in the United States. We get a sampling now from ___________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup. TEXT: In Syria, the people have given an emotional farewell to their late president, Hafez al-Assad. Following a daylong state funeral in Damascus, his body was taken to the burial site in his home village in the hills above the coastal town of Latakia. In this country, newspapers continue to assess the consequences of his death, and the future of Syria, under his presumed successor, his eldest son, Bashar al-Assad. /// OPT /// The consensus is that the younger Assad will take months to consolidate his power before he may venture forth into diplomatic and peace related talks with his neighbor Israel. Many dailies hope he will be significantly less intransigent than his father who is seen by many editorial writers as the last stubborn obstacle to a Mid Eastern peace. But there are skeptics who feel his hands may be tired by internal factors. Several papers are mentioning the deaths of three other Middle Eastern leaders, and how the generational change may bode well for the region. Bashar Assad's presidency of a computer club in Damascus, in a nation that bars unauthorized short-wave radios, fax machines, and, until recently, cellular telephones, is also mentioned. And more than a few raised the danger that President Assad's younger brother, Rifaat Assad, who led a failed 1983 coup against President Assad, waits in the wings to challenge the son for control of the government. /// END OPT /// We begin our sampling with the premier business daily, the Wall Street Journal: VOICE: This is one of the rare cases where it can unequivocally be said of the dead that we are better off without him. And there is no better evidence that [President] Assad never did make the "strategic decision for peace" than the unprecedented rain of Katyushas [Katyusha rockets, the artillery "weapon of choice of the guerrillas in Lebanon] that Assad's Hezbollah proxies unleashed on northern Israel in the weeks leading up to Israel's hasty pullout from Southern Lebanon last month. /// OPT /// ... With [Mr.] Assad now dead Washington might benefit from a new debate on how the [Clinton administration] has performed in dealing with the world's thugs. But then the U-S is not the only state that would do well to have a fresh debate on foreign policy. No less a personage that President Jacques Chirac will represent France at the funeral of the monster of Damascus. Is there no limit to the willingness of Western leaders to consign a tyrant's crimes to the memory hole? /// END OPT /// TEXT: In Florida, the Miami Herald says: VOICE: Today, Syria buries an old leader and invests its future in an untested, new leader - - the young son of that old lion. We only hope that Bashar Assad has enough of the iron that sustained his father to govern, but none of the brutality that mars the elder's legacy. Hopes for lasting peace in the Mideast may rest on that combination. TEXT: Taking a more sanguine view of the man sometimes referred to as "the Lion of Damascus," the Sacramento [California] Bee theorizes: VOICE: Hafez Assad ... appeared finally to have accepted the need to make peace with Israel. But his rocklike refusal to compromise over an inch of territory assured that peace -- and Syria's transformation from a repressive, backward state into a modern, freer one -- would now come, if it does, under a new leader. TEXT: Southern California's San Diego Union-Tribune combines both the death of Mr. Assad and the world's other major foreign policy event of the week in a single commentary. VOICE: Those who think Syria's leader designate, Bashar al-Assad, is more likely to make peace with Israel than his father, Hafez, should be sobered by the lesson of North Korea's Kim Jong Il. Six years after his father, Kim Il sung, died, Kim Jong Il only this week meets with his South Korean counterpart, Kim Dae-jung ... Backward dictatorships move at their own speed, striving first to consolidate power before risking new directions in foreign policy. Syria, being less backward and dictatorial than North Korea, should not have to wait as long. TEXT: In Baltimore, The Sun is more hopeful than most, urging: "Israel and the United States" to "push negotiations this week seeking a final peace accord between Israel and the Palestinian Authority" because ... "progress between Israeli and the Palestinians would provide helpful pressure on Syria." TEXT: The Boston Globe compares President Assad to "a python slowly devouring Lebanon," and recounts his strategy, of which, the paper says, Machiavelli would have been envious. VOICE: [President] Assad spent 15 years stoking war and eliminating opponents in Lebanon until the day when he could impose a "pax Syrianna" on that nation. The same Arab states that joined with Washington to drive Saddam out of Kuwait gave [Mr.] Assad license ... to wrap the cloak of his police state over the Lebanese. And, in 1990, when George Bush sent his secretary of state, James Baker, to Damascus to implore [President] Assad to dispatch 19-thousand token Syrian troops to Saudi Arabia to show that Desert Shield and Desert Storm were not Western imperialist plots against the Arabs, [Mr.] Assad's price ... was an American green light to send Syrian tanks and artillery to ... Lebanon, to wipe out the ... forces under General Michel Aoun - - the final resistance to Syrian domination of Lebanon. TEXT: In Texas, The Dallas Morning News looks over the challenges Bashar faces in assuming power, including: "Some military officers may be disloyal to him. Furthermore, his succession is being challenged by his father's brother, Rifaat, who has been in exile ... since 1986. Rifaat plays hardball. He led the 1982 crackdown on the rebellious city of Hama, in which human rights groups suspect that ten-thousand civilians were killed." The paper concludes on a hopeful note: "... May Bashar prove to be an enlightened ruler." /// OPT /// TEXT: In Ohio, The [Akron] Beacon Journal writes: VOICE: Hafez Assad cunningly and brutally cultivated power. What did he do with it? He didn't achieve peace. [He] rejected peace. TEXT: The Seattle Times, noting that a new generation is taking over in the Middle East, says of the dead leader: VOICE: [He] died consumed by a grudge against Israel as personal as they come. He was defense minister when Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. [Mr.] Assad's pride was as much an impediment as his fierce Arab nationalism. His burial today will allow the two countries to discuss the strategic plateau without the personal rancor that doomed all previous efforts. TEXT: Today's Orlando [Florida] Sentinel says Mr. Assad's death adds "more uncertainty" to the "already- uncertain Middle East." However The Denver [Colorado] Post is more positive, suggesting: VOICE: It's tempting to say ... the death ... is a setback to the ... peace process. While that is probably true in the short run, it's doubtful that any future Syrian leader could ultimately prove more obdurate in his opposition to peace than [President] Assad ... /// END OPT /// TEXT: With that comment, we conclude this sampling of comments on the death of Syrian President Hafez al- Assad. NEB/ANG/KL 13-Jun-2000 15:42 PM EDT (13-Jun-2000 1942 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .
