Boy Assad and his Struggle

Bashar Assad is very scared; scared that his retreat from Lebanon will be seen as a show of weakness in the eyes of Syrian citizens and other Arabs throughout the mideast. He also fears that the Baath party that is populated by the Alawite clan may be revealed as a house of cards that could topple with one push, such as that of Saddam's ill-fated thugocracy.

The Lebanon Daily Star has an excellent report:

As the leftovers of Syria's order in Lebanon struggle to salvage some power by manipulating and delaying an election that, if it were fair, would surely obliterate most of them, one wonders whether their sponsors in Damascus are long for this world. More importantly, how is Syria's fate perceived in Washington, where it may well be written in the coming months?

The mood in the Bush administration is that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad is not viable, perhaps even in the medium term, and that talk of gradual "reform" along the lines of what Assad and his acolytes have been trying to peddle abroad in the past four years is ridiculous in the current context. Worse for Assad, there seems little American fear that once he leaves or is made to leave office, Syria would be dominated by Islamists.

The Syrian regime has tried to heighten that fear, but has also helped undermine the effort by making conciliatory gestures toward the Muslim Brotherhood of late, including returning property confiscated from its members in the area of Hama in the early 1980s (during a massacre perpetrated by his father-ed.), at the height of the anti-Baathist insurgency. That has smacked of weakness, both with the Brotherhood and in the United States, as did the release two weeks ago of 312 Kurdish prisoners. Everywhere, it seems, Assad is throwing off ballast, but he may soon get rid of too much, including vital pillars of his power.

Of all the post Iraqi election democratic happenings, the sustained quest for freedom in Lebanon is the most fascinating.