Terror pushes Syria to breaking point
Nicolas Rothwell, Middle East correspondent
01mar05

WITH anti-Syrian protesters massed in the heart of Beirut last night and the
US redoubling its insistence that Syrian troops pull out of Lebanon, the
regime in Damascus - which handed over Saddam Hussein's half-brother to
authorities in Iraq at the weekend - has begun making extraordinary
concessions under pressure.

As Israeli Government officials provided comprehensive briefings to foreign
diplomats yesterday, linking Syria to Friday's suicide bomb attack at a
crowded Tel Aviv nightclub that disrupted almost three months of peace
between Israelis and Palestinians, the picture of Syrian discomfort was
complete.
A military regime long used to coercing and threatening its enemies is now
in the frame, internationally condemned as a terror state, and under orders
to withdraw its soldiers from a key deployment in a neighbouring country.

Syria's critics have been most vocal in their response to the assassination
two weeks ago of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, an act tied to
Syrian intelligence but publicly lamented by Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad.

For the past year, the US and France, as co-sponsors of a UN Security
Council resolution, have been leading the international drive to force
Syria's 14,000 troops from Lebanon. The Syrian regime has repeatedly, if
vaguely, promised that it will comply.

US President George W.Bush singled out Syria in his State of the Union
address early this year and insisted that free elections in Lebanon,
scheduled for May, should be allowed to unfold without Syrian troops
present.

Syria's covert involvement in acts of spectacular violence against two of
its neighbours, Lebanon and Israel, has become the new centre of contention.

Against this backdrop, the Syrian bid to relieve US pressure by trading in
one of the former Iraqi dictator's key relations, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hasan
al-Tikriti, marks both the mounting anxiety in Damascus and the regime's
lack of options.

US hostility to Syria has been fuelled by the regime's well-cloaked backing
for the Iraqi insurgency; signs that this dam of anger was about to break
have come fast in recent days, as US warnings have paced intelligence
revelations.

Last week, several Syrian intelligence officers were paraded on Iraqi
television, confirming they had been involved in financing the rebellion
against the US-led occupation of the country.

Yet the decision to release Saddam's half-brother seems a staggeringly
maladroit bargaining move, since it instantly confirms that senior Iraqi
Baath regime officials have been under Syrian control for the past two
years, and that the insurgency is in part a Syrian-sponsored venture.

Designed to show a willingness to deal, the gesture will be regarded by US
officials as a token both of weakness and of complicity.

With the war on terror moving to a new front, Syria is now the front-line
state. Elections have been held or are due in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon --
the three areas where Syria is accused of cryptic political violence.

Abruptly, the future and even the survival of the Assad regime in Damascus,
long considered the most stable of the Arab dictatorships, looks in grave
doubt. Mr Assad's denials of involvement in acts ordered by his intelligence
chiefs suggest either duplicity or irrelevance.

Either way, after handing over one Iraqi insurgency chief, and so meeting
one key US demand, all the rest will have to follow to end the pressure
campaign.

As the protesters chant in Beirut and the Israelis prepare their dossiers
showing Syrian involvement in Palestinian terror, the mood has shifted.

The Syrians have placed a gun at their own head and will now be incessantly
urged to dismantle their terror apparatus, reform their state and pull their
armies off Lebanese soil.

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It won't be long, and Assad will be announcing that he recently discovered
that WMD's had been smuggled in from Iraq before the war without his
knowledge.