DATE=6/12/2000
TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP
TITLE=AL-ASSAD'S DEATH CLOUDS MIDDLE EAST PEACE
PROSPECTS
NUMBER=6-11866
BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS
TELEPHONE=619-3335
INTERNET=YES
CONTENT=
INTRO: The death of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad
over the weekend, although not totally unexpected, has
further complicated efforts to achieve peace in the
Middle East. Many U-S newspapers feel Mr. Al-Assad's
designated successor, his ophthalmologist son Bashar,
will be forced to concentrate on consolidating power
within the country, before he can venture forth on
regional diplomacy.
That said, many U-S dailies are greeting the news with
the guarded hope that the new Syrian leader, educated
in the West, and part of the "Internet generation,"
will lead the country forward both economically,
politically, and, in a new direction toward his
Israeli and other neighbors.
We get reaction now from __________to the death of the
man known as The Lion of Damascus," in today's U-S
Opinion Roundup.
TEXT: One of the leading experts on Syria in the
United States is Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle
East Forum and the author of three books on the
country. He is much in demand to analyze what the
passing of President al-Assad means to Syria, and to
the region. Writing in the Sunday [6/11] Washington
Post, Mr. Pipes disputes the theory that President
Assad's death has "driven the final nail of the coffin
of peace efforts" between Israel and Syria.
TEXT: ... this analysis has it exactly wrong.
So long as Syria's President Assad was alive,
there was never a chance of a Syrian-Israeli
peace treaty; now that he is dead, it is newly
possible. ... The great constraint on Syrian
peacemaking is gone. Far from driving the
"final nail" into the peace process coffin, his
death pries the coffin open and allows the
corpse for the first time to come to life. That
said, things could also get worse. Just as
[President] Assad studiously avoided a peace
treaty with Israel, he also made sure there was
no all-out war. ... With [Mr.] Assad's 30-year
reign now over, that could change; rivalries
within the Syrian elite, for example, might lead
to war [in the Golan]. In other words, what was
a deeply static and predictable situation has
burst wide open. /// OPT /// ... If [Mr.] Assad
senior was unmoved by the promise of the Golan
Heights and substantial sums of money, these
benefits are likely to weigh much more heavily
in the decision-making of his successors. Thus
is a Syrian-Israeli deal more likely now than at
any time in the past. /// END OPT ///
TEXT: In another commentary in Monday's Wall Street
Journal, Mr. Pipes cautions that anyone trying to
understand internal Syrian affairs, needs to be aware
of the minority religious faith of both President
Assad and his son, Bashar. They are Alawites, a
small, secretive, Muslim-based faith that the
country's majority Sunni Muslims consider heretical.
That has always been a source of tension, and
accounted for a Muslim revolt in the city of Hama in
1982 which Mr. Assad put down, leaving about 20-
thousand dead. Turning to the general condition of the
country he leaves, Mr. Pipes says:
VOICE: [President] Assad leaves behind him a
country in roughly as terrible shape as when he
took it over in 1970. Yes, Syria benefited from
the stability he brought, but it was a desolate,
repressive stability that masked, and did not
solve, the deep tensions in Syrian society. As
in the former Yugoslavia, these could explode
after the long-time dictator's demise. ...
[President] Assad's rule, like that of every
totalitarian despot, must in the final analysis
be judged not just a failure but a tragic
failure that needlessly caused missions to
suffer.
TEXT: On the topic of successor, although it is
widely presumed that Mr. Assad's son Bashar, a London-
trained eye doctor, will assume the leader's role, an
editorial in the Washington Post says nothing is
certain right now.
VOICE: ... it is by no means clear that Bashar
Assad will be able to assume control over Syria.
Nor is clear that modernization domestically
would translate into a more reasonable foreign
policy. It may be, in fact, that the price of
his accession will be his continuation of the
hard-line policies that gave his father his
nationalist credibility. And even if Bashar
Assad were inclined more positively, he might
still lack the internal clout to take the
controversial steps that peace will require.
TEXT: Another cautious appraisal comes from Boston's
Christian Science Monitor.
VOICE: The passing of the "Lion of Damascus"
isn't likely to turn Syria into a sheep anytime
soon. Arab societies are just too conservative.
Even fax machines were banned until recently
under Hafez Assad's rule. Yet with an end to
Mr. Assad's 30-year reign, Syria's pivotal role
as a Middle East peace spoiler may now come to
an end. ... The defender of pan-Arab
nationalism preferred, in the end, not to seal a
peace that would allow Israel to dominate the
region. ... That task is left to his oldest
(surviving) son, Bashar ... who wants to bring
the Internet Age to a country where power still
flows father to son - and with bullets, not
ballots.
TEXT: When he learned of the death of President
Assad, President Clinton said: "We had our
differences, but I always respected him." USA Today,
the national daily published in a Washington suburb,
finds that comment surprising.
VOICE: [President] Assad was an implacable
enemy of both Israel and democracy. He
suppressed dissent, locked up the free press,
closed Syria to outside influences and was
always quick to denounce peace treaties as
sellouts by Arab nations to Israel. His role as
peacemaker was more crass strategy than genuine
yearning. Only with the 1991 collapse of the
Soviet Union, long a Syrian benefactor, did
Syria see the need to start talking peace. And
it was only talk. Any time an actual peace deal
seemed within reach, [Mr.] Assad ladled on new
demands ensuring defeat.
//// OPT ///
TEXT: A leading proponent of the school of thought
that an Israeli - Syrian peace must be put on hold for
some time, is The St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
VOICE: When Syrian President Hafez al-Assad
died ... the prospects of a formal peace with
Israel may have died with him - - at least for
now. Syria's new leader, Mr. Assad's 34-year-
old son Bashar, is likely to be too busy
consolidating his position to undertake dramatic
initiatives. In the long term, however, Bashar
Assad, part of a new generation of Western-
educated Arab leaders, may be able to grasp the
peace ... his father ultimately spurned.
TEXT: The Chicago Tribune is somewhat more hopeful,
suggesting:
VOICE: His passing creates new possibilities
for progress in peace, assuming ... Syria can
weather new fears of instability. [President]
Assad ... was the final holdout in peace talks
with Israel, coming to the table well after
other Arab leaders. Even though he had made the
strategic decision to pursue talks ... his
obstinate nature precluded any final agreement.
/// END OPT ///
TEXT: Mr. Al-Assad "has been a fixture of Syrian
politics and diplomacy for so long" says Monday's New
York Times, "... it is hard to imagine the Middle East
without him." However the paper is also hopeful of
positive change in the not too distant future.
VOICE: No negotiating breakthrough is likely
soon. But if Bashar al-Assad consolidates
control, he might be able to make the deal his
father could not. Reestablishing the precise
June 1967 [Israeli-Syrian] border had become a
personal obsession for Hafez al-Assad. His son
may have other priorities, like carefully
opening up safety valves in Syria's Leninist
policed state and guiding its backward and
isolated economy into the Internet age.
TEXT: Still in New York, The Daily News says the
death has:
VOICE: ... thrown a giant question mark over
the Middle East, with the Syrian track of the
peace process no doubt to be put on hold, while
factions inside this last of the front-line
states at war with Israel rush to fill the power
vacuum.
TEXT: In a more sharply worded comment, The New York
Post writes, under the editorial headline: No Tears
for Hafez Assad:
VOICE: To listen to President Clinton talking
about the tremendous `respect" he had for Syrian
President Hafez Assad ... one might have thought
that the Mahatma Gandhi of the Middle East had
passed on. Make no mistake: Hafez Assad was a
murderous despot whose cruelty stood out even in
a region known for such oppressive rulers. What
ever his new-found willingness to take part in
negotiations with Israel, he came to the table
with blood on his hands - - most of it
belonging to his own people. ... So weep no
tears for Hafez Assad. He brought a measure of
political stability to Syria - - but at a
terrible, bloody price.
/// OPT ///
TEXT: Lastly, from The Los Angeles Times, the paper
sees the prospect of both doubts and opportunities for
the region.
VOICE: The death ... brings new uncertainties
along with new opportunities to the country he
ruled for nearly 30 years and to the region
where his influence vastly exceeded the military
and economic resources at his command. The
uncertainties stem from the threat to stability
that arises when any autocrat dies. ...
[However] [Mr.] Assad's death offers Syria a
chance to reorient his policies, not just to
make peace with Israel but to revive its
stagnant and corruption-riddled economy, ease
decades of repression and end its political
isolation.
/// END OPT ///
TEXT: With that comment, we conclude this sampling of
editorial comment on the death last Saturday of Syrian
President Hafez al-Assad.
NEB/ANG/PW
12-Jun-2000 13:10 PM EDT (12-Jun-2000 1710 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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