The
future of the Middle East peace process hung in the balance
yesterday following the death of President Assad. Only last week
the Syrian track - stalled since January - appeared to be on the
point of revival. But now, in the words of a US state department
official, everything is "up in the air" again. Talcott
Sealy, a former US ambassador to Damascus, put it more strongly,
describing Assad's death as a menace to the peace process.
"It's really a setback," he said.
Although the president's
35-year-old son, Bashar, is regarded as modern and
forward-looking, without his father's political and historical
baggage, he may not have much room to manoeuvre - at least within
the tight timetable set by the Americans and Israelis for the
peace process.
Bashar is popular with
younger Syrians but as yet he has no legitimacy. The hasty
amendment of the constitution - just hours after his father's
death - to reduce the qualifying age for the presidency from 40 to
34 and allow Bashar's nomination, shows how precarious his
succession is.
If all goes according to
plan, parliament will nominate him as the only candidate for the
presidency on June 25. The people will then be asked to approve
his appointment in a referendum, to be held within 90 days. Until
his position is confirmed, it is unlikely that Bashar - or anyone
else in Syria - will be able to make serious moves in the peace
process. That in itself may well frustrate Washington's goal of
striking a deal before the US presidential election.
The negotiations with
Israel stalled over a few yards of land at the foot of the Golan
Heights - occupied by Israel in 1967 - 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 proposed
unofficially which might satisfy both parties, but Israel has been
reluctant to consider them without a signal from Damascus that
such a deal would bring "warm peace" between the two
countries - something that Hafez Assad was probably incapable of
delivering.
This view was echoed by
the Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat, who said yesterday
that it would be hard for any successor in Syria to be flexible in
future peace talks with Israel because of Assad's uncompromising
legacy.
"President Assad's
legacy was that a full peace with Israel meant full withdrawal of
Israel to the 1967 borders. I don't think anyone in Syria will
come and accept anything less than this," Mr Erekat said in
an interview.
"And therefore
Israel has to realise that to make peace means it has to withdraw
to the June 1967 borders on both the Syrian and Palestinian
tracks," he said.
Bashar might be more
amenable, but whether he is prepared to adopt a different approach
will depend largely on how secure he feels back home.
The Israeli government
argues that it will have difficulty selling a withdrawal from
Golan to the public, but this would become easier 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 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. "I am not Anwar Sadat and it
is not my ambition to become Yasser Arafat," he was quoted as
telling President Clinton last March. The Syrians also suspected
that they were being stampeded into a compromise by the US-Israeli
timetable merely to help salvage President Clinton's reputation.
There are two alternative
scenarios of how Bashar's succession might affect the present
stalemate. One is that he will need more time to consolidate his
power and that he will try to avoid any decisions that, in the
eyes of the Syrian establishment, his father would have disagreed
with. If that turns out to be the case, the Syrian track may
remain on hold for a year or two.
The other scenario is
that with his more open character, he may feel that the time has
come to solve the problem that dogged his father's presidency for
so many years. He would, however, have to secure favourable terms
with the Israelis or his domestic position would be undermined.
There is also the
question of Syria's Siamese twin: Lebanon, where Bashar's initial
weakness will increase pressure from Israel, and perhaps more
subtly from the Lebanese, to withdraw Syrian troops. Israel has
been taunting Syria on this point ever since it withdrew its own
troops from southern Lebanon last month. The Syrians are also
unpopular with Lebanese citizens, many of whom would like to see
the back of them but are reluctant to say so in public.
Syria can, however, claim
to be a stabilising influence in Lebanon - pointing out that it
helped to prevent the predicted turmoil following the Israeli
withdrawal. President Assad generally judged the Lebanese
situation shrewdly. Whether Bashar will be able to handle Lebanon
so skilfully may depend on whether he is diverted by challenges at
home. |