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The Domino Of Damascus

he events unfolding in Iraq following
the ouster of Saddam Hussein ought to
give Israel pause as it thinks whether it
would like to see a similar "regime
change" anytime soon in Syria.
Syrian President Bashar Assad is,
no doubt, as irresponsible, arrogant
and brash as Israeli national security
advisor Ephraim Halevy recently
described him.
Despite initial optimism when the
34-year-old London-trained oph-
thalmologist succeeded his father
Hafez three years ago, Bashar
Assad
Assad seems perfectly willing to
allow the extremists of Hamas and
Hezbollah to plot terror against
Israel. And he has clearly embraced senior Iraqi
officials who fled to Syria and on whom he may
be counting to form a continuing terrorist force
that would seek to destabilize whatever govern-
ment the Iraqis now choose, just as Hezbollah
does with the government in Lebanon.
But what Israel might like even less
would be Damascus under the leadership
of Islamic militants, which is where
Baghdad may be headed now that the
coalition forces have removed the control of the sec-
ular Ba'ath Party that was Hussein's source of power.
It's early yet, but Iraq's Shiite mullahs are
already inciting their followers to demand that the
new government be an Iranian-style theocracy —
that is, not quite the extremism of Afghanistan's
Taliban, but devoutly committed to extermination
of what they call "the Zionist entity."
Continuing the almost laughable preference of
many Arab cultures for a return to the 12th cen-
tury, their first prayers are for the departure of
the American troops, the forces who liberated
them from their persecution by Hussein and his
Sunni minority.
Sadly, the forces of Islamic fanaticism have time on
their side. As in Afghanistan, Iraq arid the West Bank
and Gaza, young Syrians have been raised on an
exclusive diet of hatred toward the United States and

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its presumed surrogate, Israel. They
are not likely to forget quickly those
lessons of intolerance, no matter
how misguided and senseless they
appear to us.
There are better alternatives to
seek for the present than the
removal of Assad. The Bush
administration, previously a bit
too cautious in terming Syria a
"rogue" nation rather than a ter-
rorist state, now seems to be tak-
ing sensible first steps. It has shut
down the oil pipeline from Iraq
that furnished both countries
with hard currency and has made
it clear that it will act militarily
to prevent Syrian-based Iraqis
from staging cross-border incur-
sions.
The U.S. Congress seems like-
wise ready to empower President
George W. Bush to cur-
tail the Syrian regime
with economic and
diplomatic sanctions.
The House of
Representatives has indicated it
may soon pass the Syria
Accountability Act, an Israeli-
backed measure authorizing steps
to isolate Damascus that was
shelved last year at the request of
the White House.
But the U.S. and Israel need to
be careful not to go too far. The
goal should be a slow process that prepares the
ground for democratic and capitalist structures
that ordinary Syrians will recognize as being
much in their interests. It need not take decades
to prove the socialist model of the Ba'athists does
not work, but we ought not to expect some sud-
den uprising of a popular will to get rid of the
tyrannical system that Hafez Assad put in place.
The alternative of toppling Assad's regime as

Dry Bones

EDIT ORIAL

Hussein's was overturned risks having it replaced
by an Islamic militancy that also lurks just below
the surface in Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab
states that currently recognize Israel's legitimacy.
The Southeast Asian dominoes didn't tumble
when Vietnam fell to Communist leadership, but
they too easily could in a region of half a billion
Arabs surrounding a Jewish state- of six million
citizens. ❑

Signals Of Hope

t is good to see some faint stirrings in
Jerusalem and Ramallah that suggest a pos-
sible reopening of meaningful
discussions after the awful 2 1 /2
years of Palestinian terrorist violence.
Under strong pressure from the
West and particularly Washington,
responsible Palestinian officials chose
a prime minister who could counter Yasser
Arafat's incompetence and corruption. On the
west side of the Green Line, Israeli Prime

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Minister Ariel Sharon offered a realistic willing-
ness to make painful concessions to achieve a sta-
ble peace, including dismantling
some West Bank settlements under
the right conditions.
Perhaps the fall of the Saddam
regime has awakened Arab leaders to
the consequences of a continued fail-
ure to deal with the realities of their region.
For half a century, they have used the Israeli-
Palestinian dispute to stir their own citizens to

EDIT ORIAL

anger against Israel and the United States.
Resolving some of the Palestinian issues would
end that process and force them to concentrate
instead on making a better life for their citizens.
The fall of the Hussein regime in Baghdad may
create useful momentum for progress. We need to
be prepared for the Palestinians missing a chance
for a much better future — as they have so often
in the past under Arafat — while hoping that the
cataclysm in Iraq at last awakens them to a his-
toric opportunity. ❑

4/25
2003

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