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
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