Syrians Fearful Of Becoming Next Iraq

"It sounds sick to say it aloud, but Syrians would rather die of hunger than from civil war or conflict. They want reform, but if reform means Iraq, count them out," said Marwan Kabalan, a political scientist with the Centre for Strategic Studies at Damascus University. "It is a sad situation, but the fact is they feel like spectators with absolutely no say in the matter. Syrians today are so passive, so submissive, so completely depoliticized, all they can bring themselves to hope for is stability. So they will back a regime they don't like no matter what happens." Diplomats in Damascus describe an emotional rollercoaster ride in the nine months since Hariri was killed, with both the Assad regime and its citizens driven from one nervous peak to the next. Each political climax, from Syria's withdrawal of troops from Lebanon to the preliminary UN findings on Hariri, which brought suspicions dangerously close to Assad's ruling junta, raised wild speculation that the regime could collapse upon itself. But in the two months since lead UN investigator Detlev Mehlis delivered findings that brought suspicion upon a range of Syrian intelligence leaders, up to and including Assad's brother Maher and brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, Damascus has effectively "circled the wagons to preserve itself," in the words of one political insider. "Damascus sees the Bush administration driving everything. And the regime has been very effective in working to drag things out," said a Western diplomatic source in Damascus. "The game they are playing is to see who can last longer, them or (George W.) Bush? They're betting they've got the longer life span, and once a new American president comes along they'll be okay." But the missing ingredient, analysts say, was Syrian popular support. Assad tackled the issue head-on last month in what many describe as the most important speech of his life, pressing enough emotional buttons to rally his reluctant people onside for possible UN sanctions. http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1134344412610&call_pageid=968332188854

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