Damascus Faces 'Constructive Instability' As USA Says Syria Keeps Agents In Lebanon.

*** When Syria Moved To Lebanon In The Spring Of 1976, Many In Beirut Said It Will Never Leave This Country; Some Predicted In Sept. 2004, When Syria Got The Leb. Parliament To Amend The Constitution To Extend Lahoud's Term To Another 3 Years, That Lebanon Would Be Part Of Syria - Inherited By Assad From His Father In 2000

*** Lebanese PM Miqati Met With Assad On May 4 To Build A Healthier Link

*** Saudi Billionaire Prince Alwaleed Also Met Assad; He May Bid For PM Position, Being Grandson Of The Lebanese Independence PM, The Late Riad Al- Solh, From His Mother's Side

*** Syrian Salafis Threaten The Baathist Regime

BEIRUT - The Baathist regime of Damascus is facing a long cycle of pressure from the US aimed at changing the situation in Syria and boosting the democratic process in neighbouring Lebanon. As most Lebanese, the US has charged that Syria's recent withdrawal from Lebanon has been incomplete and that Syrian secret agents remain in the country in order to manipulate general elections due to begin on May 29.

American officials have indicated that the US will keep up pressure on Baathist Syria long after the withdrawal of its forces from Lebanon. The US officials have outlined a policy aimed at destabilising the regime led by President Bashar Al-Assad , who inherited the Syrian throne soon after his father died in June 2000.

Responding to the April 26 withdrawal, the Bush administration has insisted that Syria keep out of Lebanon's elections and allow the "disbanding and disarming" of all militia forces in Lebanon including Palestinian rejectionist group and Hizbollah.

For the moment, the US says, it has no plans to send its Ambassador Margaret Scobey back to Damascus. She was recalled after the Feb. 14 assassination in Beirut of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. The Syrian regime has been accused to being behind the murder. A US State Department spokesman on May 2 was quoted as saying Ms Scobey "will return to Damascus when we feel it's useful for her to return".

US officials have pointed out that Washington still has a long list of grievances against Damascus, which include the following:

1) its alleged development of chemical weapons and possibly bio-weapons - coupled with remaining suspicions that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) may have been secretly transferred to Syria; 2) its support for militant Palestinian groups; 3) its co-operation with Iran in acts of terrorism; 4) its failure to stop Iraqi insurgents using Syria as a base (see survey of Syria in fap5bSyriaIraqMay2-05); and 5) the shelter it gives to Iraq's former ruling Baathists (see survey of Iraq in this week's Diplomat in rim5bIraqGovtMay9-05).

Flynt Leverett, an official in the first Bush administration and author of 'Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial By Fire', said President George W. Bush was moving away from a policy of engagement which had never been properly formulated towards a strategy of "regime change".

More US officials were now inclined in that direction, accepting the theory that forcing Syria out of Lebanon would cause the regime to start to unravel, said Leverett - who now is an analyst at the Brookings Institution. While the US was not gearing up for military action, it believed regime change could be done through constructive destabilisation.

The Bush administration has put the democratisation of Syria and Iran out to tender - offering money to groups and individuals inside the Islamic republic and inside Syria - in what US officials describe as the start of long-term efforts to pay for opposition to the two regimes. A tender notice posted on the US State Department website is soliciting bids for grants totalling $3m in the case of Iran. There will be more money on offer for both the Iranian and Syrian opposition movements, including regime opponents based outside the two countries and acceptable to the US.

The Syrian Baathists owe much to Saddam's regime and helped its forces fight US troops in March/April 2003. On March 27, 2003, as US troops snaked through from Kuwait towards Baghdad and faced some Iraqi military traps, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq Al-Shara' said he hoped to see the Americans defeated in Iraq. Despite repeated warnings from Washington, Syria kept sending emergency military supplies to Saddam's forces. These included arms and equipment said to be supplied from Russia.

Syria used to get between 150,000-200,000 b/d of Iraqi crude oil through the Kirkuk-Banias pipeline which was reopened in late 2000 without the approval of the UN and against repeated protests by the US. Iraq was selling the crude for Syrian use at a discounted price of $15/barrel and Damascus was paying for this outside the UN framework. Advancing US forces cut off the pipeline as soon as they reached the Haditha pumping station in western Iraq on March 27, 2003. Saddam's regime collapsed on April 9 of that year.

Saddam's Baathist allies who managed to escape - as American forces advanced inside Baghdad - moved into Syria with a lot of money, mostly in US dollar banknotes, deposited in Syrian banks. They paid their way into an alliance with the old guard Baathists of Syria, including veteran military men who used to be top ranking officers in the armed forces and who still have much influence within the ruling Baath Party, the various intelligence networks, etc.

The crisis of Hariri's murder turned against Syria from Day One, Feb. 14, 2005. By then, Syria's oil output had fallen from 600,000 b/d in the 1990s to about 400,000 b/d, while domestic oil consumption had risen sharply forcing Damascus to import some fuels at high cost. Foreign exchange income from exports had fallen to $200m per month. Leaving Lebanon means the loss of $5 bn/year, according to a World Bank report. Of this, more than $2.2 bn/year used to be generated by Syrian labourers working in Lebanon and repatriating almost all their income to Syria.

The famous "Syrian Mafia" - top Syrian military and intelligence figures in association with their Lebanese counterparts and some Lebanese business clans - used to pump more than $2 bn/year from Lebanon into Syria. "Syrian Mafia" members used to get regular income from the lucrative Casino du Liban, Lebanon's ports, airports, the cement industry, etc.

Combined with the loss of all this and its image as a leader in the Arab world, Syria under the Baathist regime has by implication also lost a strong bargaining position over the Golan Heights, a highly strategic and water-rich territory which has been occupied by Israel and which was annexed by the Jewish state in the early 1980s. The US can put the Assad regime in a more vulnerable position simply by letting Israel keep the Golan Heights.

However, the risk of unintended consequences is very high in both Lebanon and Syria. Leverett has warned that, if the regime in Damascus collapsed and, for the moment, there were signs the withdrawal had made it stronger, then the ensuing chaos could lead to a heavily Islamist replacement in Syria. The Salafis in Syria are active again.

Professor Yahya Sadowski, of the American University of Beirut, says US policy could be described as "constructive instability", with the Bush administration believing in general that democracy could emerge out of turmoil. Sadowski adds: "The Americans will make what trouble they can for the Syrians, presuming that this will at least reduce Syria's ability to make trouble for anyone else". Sadowski says: "If, at some future date, this should trigger political changes in Syria, [US Defence Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld will remind us all that 'democracy is messy'".

US diplomats in Damascus, however, insist that American pressure is only aimed at change of behaviour, not regime. But they say Assad still cannot accept that there is no give and take, and that he has no choice but to deliver.

No Lebanon Guardianship: After the Syrian withdrawal, the Lebanese were not seeking guardianship from anybody, Druze leader Walid Junblatt said on May 1. "We don't want anybody's guardianship", Junblatt, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party and leftist alliance, told Gulf News.

However, an Arab channel on May 1 said there were some Syrian troops in two villages in the Beqa' Valley near the border. "I have no idea about this", said Junblatt, who was one of the most vocal Lebanese to call for an end to the Syrian presence in Lebanon. Junblatt said: "a UN team has been sent to verify whether Syria had withdrawn all its troops and intelligence agents", in line with Security Council Resolution 1559. The team, headed by Brig. Gen. Elhadji Mouhamadou Kandji of Senegal, met Syrian officials in Damascus and received maps of the bases Syria had abandoned in Lebanon and an account of the pullout. The team visited the vacated locations in Lebanon.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on May 4 expressed concern after the team verifying the Syrian withdrawal was denied access to a pro-Syria Palestinian base at a town in Lebanon's Beqa' Valley. The UN team was heading towards a position which had been held for two decades by the Palestinian Front for Liberation of Palestine-General Command of Ahmad Jebril. There were reports that Syrian intelligence agents had moved into the camp and remained there after the Syrian withdrawal. A statement from Annan's office said: "The Secretary-General deplores this incident. He expects the government of Lebanon to ensure the safety of the verification mission".

Miqati In Damascus: Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Miqati on May 4 met President Assad in Damascus in the first attempt to build a healthier relationship between the two states. Miqati, who took over two weeks earlier and was charged with preparing for elections this month, said all issues of concern to Lebanon, including future diplomatic ties and allegations over Lebanese prisoners in Syrian jails, were on the agenda at the meeting. Many of the almost 1m Syrian workers in Lebanon had fled and travel between the two neighbours had slowed. Some Syrian businessmen had withdrawn deposits from Lebanese banks. But in an interview with the Financial Times published on May 4, Miqati said both states had an interest in reviving the relationship, pointing out that Syria was a transit route for much of Lebanon's exports to the rest of the Arab world. "No one is against the relationship but everyone is for a balanced relationship", he said. A businessman and former public works minister, Miqati is known as a friend of Assad, but his appointment to lead the transition to free elections won backing from Lebanon's anti-Syria opposition. Miqati already has implemented most of the opposition's demands. Demands include a commitment that the first phase of the elections be held on May 29, as required by the constitution, and the removal of pro-Syria heads of security services. Miqati said these services were being restructured to co-operate fully with a UN team which was soon to begin probing the Hariri assassination.

Miqati was confident that Syria would no longer interfere in Lebanon. The Lebanese opposition, however, remains sceptical, saying the real test of Damascus' intentions will be in the conduct of this month's elections.

Miqati had said before leaving Beirut that he would seek to use his friendship with Assad to Lebanon's benefit, stressing: "I believe it's in the interest of Lebanon to have good relations with Syria. If I can use my friendship with Syria to benefit my country, I would not hesitate a second. If it contradicts with the interest of my country, the interest of my country comes first. I'm not blindly pro-Syrian".

Lebanese opposition MPs are demanding that Syria open an embassy in Beirut - a move recently urged by the UN. MPs have also complained that economic agreements signed in the past between Lebanon, a small and free market, and Syria, a larger but state-controlled economy, have been skewed in favour of Damascus.

Miqati said most of the protocols and treaties were never implemented and that he had asked every ministry to study them before another meeting with Syrian officials in mid-May which would focus on economic issues. He doubted that any Syrian intelligence officers remained in Lebanon, as some Western diplomats in Beirut and many Lebanese politicians have charged. He said: "We are trying to check. But the Syrians, I believe, took the most difficult decision to leave Lebanon, so they won't leave behind any doubt".