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The
death of President Assad - long predicted but sudden at the end -
could scarcely have come at a more critical moment for Syria and
for the Middle East peace process.
As his health failed, Assad had begun to prepare the succession
for his 35-year-old son, Bashar, but the process is far from
complete. Bashar is a qualified optician but an inexperienced
politician. He has never held an official party or government
post, though he has recently taken charge of several important
policy briefs, including Lebanon, development of the internet, and
combating corruption.
A crucial conference of the ruling Ba’ath party, scheduled
for June 17, had been expected to result in his promotion to a
senior position in the party and possibly to the vice-presidency -
formally anointing him as the chosen successor.
Bashar’s involvement in the campaign against corruption was
no doubt intended to raise his public profile and win popularity
among the public, but it was also a useful means to start
establishing his own power base by clearing out some of the old
guard.
Two recent casualties of the campaign were Mahmoud Zubi, a
former prime minister who ostensibly shot himself last month while
awaiting trial on corruption charges, and Salim Yasin, a former
deputy prime minister, whose family assets have been frozen by the
state.
Although the transition process had gathered pace over the last
few months, parallel with the increasingly frequent reports of the
president’s failing health - he was said to have leukaemia, plus
heart and kidney problems - there was still a lot to be done
before Bashar and his father could feel confident of a smooth
succession.
Until 1994, Bashar - partly British-educated - had been quietly
pursuing his own career in the knowledge that his elder brother,
Basil, was being groomed for power. But Basil’s death on the
road to Damascus airport (he was fond of fast cars) changed all
that.
During the last few years Bashar, who is still unmarried, has
been trying to master the art of statesmanship as quickly as
possible. Politicians visiting Syria recently have been ushered
into Bashar’s ultra-modern western-style offices on the
outskirts of Damascus where he welcomes them without the usual
Arab entourage of advisers and secret police.
He is thought to have a sophisticated grasp of the political
situation in the Middle East and to have a serious commitment to
continuing the peace process.
The British Foreign Minister Peter Hain, one of the last
western politicians to meet Bashar before his father’s death,
described him yesterday as ëworldly-wise, open to ideas and very
impressive.’
He added: ëHe has the capability and the vision to allow Syria
to make a historic leap forward to becoming a modern Arab nation.
I believe he is absolutely committed to the peace process.
Building on the courageous steps his father took, he’s the sort
of person who could break the ice with Israel and cut a deal.’
Despite his inexperience, Bashar may take some encouragement
from the way two other new Arab leaders of the same generation -
King Mohammed in Morocco and King Abdullah in Jordan - have
quickly established themselves as popular rulers. In fact, Bashar’s
position is not unlike that of Abdullah who was unexpectedly
declared Crown Prince only days before King Hussein’s death.
In common with the kings of Morocco and Jordan, Bashar is
unpretentious, western-educated, modern and forward-looking -
which should endear him to the younger generation of Syrians who
are impatient for change.
Peter Hain said yesterday: ëIf he succeeds he will put Syria
in the same position of modern Arab leadership as Jordan under
King Abdullah and Morocco under King Mohammed. ë
There are, however, a few problems - not least the Syrian
constitution which, as it stands, prevents him from succeeding
legitimately to power.
Legally, if the president dies, the vice-president should take
over temporarily. The constitution is unclear about which
vice-president it is referring to, since Syria currently has two,
but Bashar was not one of them at the time of his father’s
death.
The procedure for choosing a new president is that parliament
should propose a single candidate whose name will be put to a
referendum within 90 days.
Again, legally, Bashar cannot be nominated because the
constitution says that the president must be at least 40 years old
and Bashar is only 35. This rule, found in several other Arab
countries, is probably a throw-back to the custom of regarding a
man as a sheikh on attaining the age of 40.
None of this is necessarily an insuperable obstacle: Middle
Eastern countries have proved adept, over the years, at flexing
the rules to meet the necessities of the moment. There is no doubt
that President Assad intended his son to succeed, but the argument
for accepting the old man’s wishes would be stronger in a
monarchy than in a republic.
Syria, however, is one of several Arab republics where
long-serving presidents have been grooming their sons as if they
were monarchs.
The most likely challenge to Bashar’s succession comes from
another member of the Assad family: Rifaat, the the late president’s
younger brother. Fiercely ambitious, he and his supporters have
always believed he should succeed to the presidency.
He was stripped of his official title of vice-president in
February 1998 as President Assad’s health went into serious
decline. A wise move perhaps, as Rifaat had attempted a coup in
1984 when the president fell ill.
In September of last year clashes were reported between
followers of Rifaat and the army. As many as 1,000 rebels were
rounded up. A month later troops raided Rifaat’s stronghold in
the coastal city of Lataqiya in the north of the country. At the
time Rifaat appeared on a London Arabic TV station condemning the
massacre, which led to the loss of over 100 of his supporters.
This was as nothing, however, compared to the atrocities
committed by Rifaat when he was a loyal servant of the regime. In
February 1982 he was responsible for the most shameful incident in
recent Syrian history.
Over a period of four weeks troops under his command bombarded
the town of Hama in the west of the country, a stronghold for the
Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. A third of the town, whose beautiful
medieval waterwheels are celebrated on the Syrian fifty pound
note, was left as rubble. For 27 days Hama was closed to
journalists is Rifaat systematically murdered an estimated 40,000
men, women and children. Thousands fled the town and many have
never been traced by their family.
Aside from internal politics, the other big question is how
Assad’s death will affect the Middle East peace process - and
the answer will depend, to a large extent, on how quickly Bashar
can secure his position on the home front.
With 35,000 troops in Lebanon, Syria continues to exercise
hegemony over its smaller neighbour and it is said that nothing of
any consequence happens in Lebanon without Syrian approval.
Following the Israeli pull-out from southern Lebanon last month,
Israel has been trying to drive a wedge between Damascus and
Beirut, first over the issue of the Shebaa Farms (claimed by
Lebanon, still occupied by the Israelis, but which Israel says
belong to Syria), and more recently by calling for Syrian troops
to follow the Israeli example Ö and leave.
The Syrians are not particularly popular with Lebanese
citizens, many of whom would like to see the back of them but are
reluctant to say so in public.
President Assad generally judged the Lebanese situation
shrewdly. Recently his troops have been keeping a low profile
there: some of the men in uniform are reported to have been
replaced by less obtrusive men in jeans - the secret police.
Whether Bashar will be able to handle Lebanon as skilfully as
his father did remains to be seen. Syria’s presence in Lebanon
is a potentially a bargaining chip in the peace process which
Bashar will probably wish to retain if he can - though he might
have to take a different course if threatened by challenges back
home.
But the main issue is the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel
during the 1967 war. Recovering them totally had become an article
of faith for President Assad: a commitment repeated so many times
that he could not countenance compromise without risking political
ignominy in the eyes of his supporters.
The negotiations with Israel have been stalled for months over
a few yards of land at the foot of the Golan Heights on the shores
of Lake Galilee, with Syria insisting on access to the lake,
though not the use of its waters.
Various fudges have been suggested unofficially which might
satisfy both parties, but Israel was reluctant to consider them
without a signal from Damascus that such a deal would bring ìwarm
peaceî between the two countries - something that Hafez Assad was
probably incapable of delivering.
One difficulty that Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister,
faces internally in discussing a withdrawal from the Golan is the
lack of public enthusiasm for it - unlike the withdrawal from
Lebanon where the conflict with Hizbullah and the resulting
Israeli deaths had become unpopular.
It might be easier to sell the idea to Israelis if Syria were
to make a dramatic ice-breaking gesture - something like the
historic visit that the late Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, paid
to Israel.
But Syria under Assad, along with many other Arabs, regarded
Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem as a mistake and argued that
successful negotiations should end with handshakes, not start with
them. Why, they asked, should Syria help Barak to solve his
domestic public relations problems?
There was also a widely-held suspicion of the US-Israeli
timetable for the peace process - seeking an agreement by the
autumn - which led some to believe that Syria was being stampeded
into a compromise merely in order to help salvage President
Clinton’s reputation.
There are two alternative scenarios of how Bashar’s
succession might impact on this stalemate.
One is that he will need more time to consolidate his power and
that will, for a while at least, be living in the shadow of his
father, unable to make decisions that, in the eyes of the Syrian
establishment, his father would have disagreed with. If that turns
out to be the case, hopes of reviving negotiations may have to
remain on hold for a year or two.
The other scenario is that with his more open character, and
without his father’s historical baggage, he may feel that a
fresh approach is possible. The Israelis, too, sensing that Bashar’s
succession is a hopeful development and that they may have to deal
with him for many years to come, might adopt a more co-operative
approach to the negotiations - though an over-friendly atmosphere
could easily undermine what political support he has at home.
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