IRAQ - A Race With Syria's Ba'thist Dictatorship.

Along with facing a rise in the US casualty rate in Iraq, the Bush administration is engaged in a race for control over Syria with the Ba'thist regime of Bashar al-Assad , an Alawite dictatorship in Damascus, which the young president inherited from his dead father in mid-2000. The opportunity for Bush is the murder in Beirut on Feb. 14 of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, in which the Assad regime appears to be implicated.

The Assad regime is seen as one of the two main local powers behind the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq which, despite repeated American offensives, seems to keep growing and killing US troops. The other is Iran. It is striking that neither of the two regimes is Sunni or in peace with such Sunni militants as the Neo-Salafis. Both regimes have good reasons to see the US fail in Iraq. But it is not yet clear to what extent the Shi'ite theocracy in Iran wants the fall in the American influence in the Muslim world to reach through a defeat in and US withdrawal from Iraq (see Iraq-O in rim4bbIraqIranOct24-05).

It seems, however, that the "strategic alliance" between Assad and Iran is no longer as necessary to Tehran as Damascus regards it. The Assad regime continues to hope it can keep helping Iraq's Sunni and Ba'thist insurgents through the next 10 to 12 months until the US casualty rate in the neighbouring war zone has reached a point forcing Washington to order a US military withdrawal. If Washington continues to have a military presence in Iraq during and beyond US congressional mid-term electioneering in late 2006, then the chances of the Assads surviving the Hariri case could be nil.

UN Security Council foreign ministers on Oct. 31 unanimously agreed to measures which threaten the heart of the Assad regime, demanding that it detain any individuals suspected of plotting the murder of Hariri. An international investigation, extended until at least mid-December, determined earlier in October that the assassination could not have taken place without the approval of the top in the Syrian regime. Its draft report, later edited for public consumption, cited witness testimony suggesting both President Bashar's brother Maher al-Assad and brother-in-law Asef Shawkat could be implicated, although neither has been formally named as suspect.

The Oct. 31 Resolution 1636, adopted under the powerful chapter 7 provisions of the UN charter, warned that if Syria did not begin co-operating with the investigation, the Council could, if necessary, "consider further action". It noted that Syria had so far co-operated in "form but not in substance", and that several Syrian officials had tried to mislead the investigators. In order to win the support of Russia and others, the Franco-US text, backed by Britain, omitted a specific threat of economic sanctions under article 41 of the UN charter. Nevertheless, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned that failure to comply with UN demands would lead to "serious consequences from the international community".

Resolution 1636 gives Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor in charge of the UN probe, the power to name individual suspects subject to an international travel ban and asset freeze, although the measures would need the agreement of a Council committee. Resolution 1636 also grants him significant authority to pursue his investigation in Syria, including "full access to all documentary, testimonial and physical information and evidence" he deems relevant. (That has invited some comparison to Hans Blix and the UN weapons inspectors, who in 2002 were charged with investigating Iraq's alleged WMD programme. The UN secretariat has previously expressed discomfort at becoming a kind of Middle East investigation agency. At the insistence of Russia and others, a Council committee will now register any suspects, and approve any exceptions to the measures. An earlier draft threat of sanctions had prompted objections from Russia, China and Algeria, who warned against any abandonment of the presumption of innocence, and against extending the investigation to the political arena).

Syrians reacted with anxiety to Resolution 1636. "I don't think it matters if it mentioned sanctions or not", said political analyst Marwan Kabalan from Damascus University. "We are the focus of the Security Council and that is what counts".

The resolution set up a mechanism for applying future UN pressures on those charged with complicity in the Hariri killing until the case has been fully resolved. These pressures would not start automatically but would be considered by Security Council members as they became appropriate.

The killing of Hariri and 22 others was an act of international terrorism and a blatant Syrian intervention in the political life of a sovereign state. The Mehlis report makes it clear that all the available evidence points towards top-level Syrian involvement. The resolution echoes and endorses these themes.

Assad cannot afford bringing Hariri's murderers to justice if, as it is suggested in a publicised version of the Mahlis report, they include his brother and very powerful brother-in-law (see rim4bbIraqIranOct24-05). There could be war within the Assad family if and when President Bashar appears to be ready to hand the culprits to justice.

For the time being, however, Assad is stalling in various ways, hoping he can remain in power until the Bush administration becomes preoccupied by American mid-term elections. About 300 Syrians on Nov. 1 waved flags, pledged support for their ruler and insisted that Syria was innocent of the Hariri murder.

The Associated Press on Nov. 2 said the Syrian protest was organised by a private group called the Syrian Committee for Public Relations. But The AP said "it must have received state authorization as spontaneous demonstrations are extremely rare in tightly controlled Syria". The head of the organisers, Nizar Mayhoub, said the demonstration was intended to protest the pressure on Syria - which is at its heaviest in decades - as well as to demonstrate against what he called intervention in Syria's internal affairs.

Mayhoub, who said his committee had 500 members, stated that the protest venue was chosen because the square leads to many embassies and was not intended to target the US Embassy in particular. The square is near the US ambassador's residence. The US ambassador, Margaret Scobey, was recalled to Washington shortly after Hariri's assassination.

In Lebanon, President Emile Lahoud expressed hope the UN resolution would help uncover the details of Hariri's killing and provide "tangible evidence that specifies the identity of those who planned, executed and helped carry out the crime". Lahoud, a puppet of the Assads, said Lebanon would continue to co-operate fully with the UN commission.

Hariri's son, Sa'd, welcomed the resolution as "the world's gift" to his slain father and to the Lebanese, saying: "We call on everyone to think deeply about the meaning of this Security Council consensus and not to waste a chance to...ensure the international probe reaches the full truth and quick steps are taken against all culprits".

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said he would oppose the use of Iraqi territory as a launch pad for any US military strike on Syria. He told Asharq Al-Awsat: "I absolutely reject that Iraqi territory be used as a launch pad for any military strike against Syria or any other Arab country. But this is my personal opinion and my capabilities are limited in confronting America's might... I cannot impose my opinion on them".

President Bush in October said military action would be a last resort to deal with Syria, which Washington accuses repeatedly of allowing foreign fighters to cross the border into Iraq to kill US troops.

Talabani, who also heads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), had a longstanding alliance with the Assad regime which allowed him to operate from its territory against Saddam. He told Asharq Al-Awsat: "I will not say a word against Syria which I owe a lot to. If I have anything to say I will relay it directly to brother Bashar al-Assad".

Talabani dismissed suggestions that there were political forces wanting to prevent any Arab role in Iraq, saying: "All political forces in Iraq wanted an effective Arab role in order to help the country overcome its problems and differences". The Arab League is preparing a Cairo conference to bring about national accord among Iraq's various groups.