Lebanon Is 'Part Of Greater Syria', Damascus Insists.

High-ranking mediators from France and other EU states have been perplexed by the way the 'Alawite/Ba'thist regime of Bashar al-Assad keeps responding negatively to their demands, as well as the requests by top officials from Arab states which are part of the US-led alliance, that Syria allow the Lebanese elect a new president without pre-conditions dictated by Damascus and Tehran. It is still difficult for them all to believe that the Damascus regime - greatly weakened since 2003 - is really insisting that Lebanon remains part of "Greater Syria". They cannot understand the mentality of Assad and his key aides: that demands for Syria to stop interfering in Lebanese affairs is an insult. As one Ba'thist among Assad's aides recently put it to an Arab visitor: "Making such demands is worse than asking us not to act on matters concerning Damascus, Aleppo or Homs. Beirut or Tripoli are no different from any of our cities".

Having inherited a dictatorship from his father, Gen. Hafez al-Assad who died in June 2000, President Assad depends on Israel for his survival. He knows that, despite all pressures from Bush, no US president can change the Syrian regime without Israeli approval. Especially after seeing the chaos and rise of Neo-Salafi and Shi'ite terrorism in the wake of the downfall of Saddam's Sunni/Ba'thist dictatorship in Iraq in 2003, no leader of Israel can afford to see Assad's regime fall. This Syrian confidence was bequeathed by Gen. Hafez, whose US-brokered Golan deal with Israel in 1974 has until now proved to be more viable than the peace treaties signed between the Jewish state and each of Egypt and Jordan. This has allowed the Assads to play spoiler roles in various parts of the Middle East with impunity since then. Through such a role Assad still regards Lebanon as part of Greater Syria.

Commenting on Assad's spoiler roles in his White House news conference on Dec. 20, President Bush said his "patience with President Assad ran out a long time ago", accusing him of blocking the election of a new president in Lebanon, backing Hizbullah and Hamas and sending suicide bombers to Iraq. Explaining the way the Assads think, former US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy, who was the US ambassador to Syria during the events of 1974 (Golan) and 1976 (Syrian invasion of Lebanon), on Dec. 21 said on al-Hurra he was once told by a top Soviet official: "[The Syrian regime] would accept doing whatever the Soviets asked, except advice; they'll never accept advice from anyone". Murphy confirmed he had lately been engaged in a dialogue with the Syrian regime but was not optimistic that Assad would stop interfering with Lebanese, Palestinian or Iraqi affairs. Now Assad has given Russia's Navy base facilities in Tartus in the hope of reviving a strategic alliance between Damascus and Moscow. A Russian aircraft carrier is among units calling at Tartus.

The Assad regime is accused to being behind the slaying of Lebanese VIPs, including the massive Feb. 14, 2005, bombing which killed former PM Rafiq Hariri and 22 others in Beirut. The Hariri killing sparked a series of Lebanese mass protests, including the March 14, 2005, rally of about 1.5m called the "Cedar Revolution", which caused Assad to withdraw Syrian forces from Lebanon in April 2005 - after 29 years of occupation and total control.

Addressing a forum at Georgetown University earlier this month, the Syrian Ambassador to the US 'Imad Moustapha said: "[The Bush administration] was really obsessed with making wars. Then we heard that it's not only that they are not interested in brokering peace talks, they were proactively opposing any attempts to make peace talks between Syria and Israel". So, he said, when Syria was invited to the Nov. 27 peace meeting of Annapolis, Damascus was "stunned". In 2003, the Assad regime became a member of Bush's much-maligned "axis of evil". The assassination of Hariri ended Arab and EU support for Syria, and the US withdrew its ambassador from Damascus. But soon after Annapolis, the US increased its pressure on Syria.

The latest Lebanese VIP victim, Maj Gen Francois al-Hajj, drove past a car packed with 35 kilos of TNT on Dec. 12 which exploded, killing him and three of his colleagues. Hajj's killing marked the first act of political violence in Lebanon since the end of President Emile Lahoud's term at mid-night on Nov. 23 and the country's ensuing political impasse over his succession. Hajj, who led the Lebanese military operation against the Neo-Salafi group Fatah al-Islam (FaI) in the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, was a prime candidate to replace former army chief Gen. Michel Suleiman, who is a compromise candidate to replace Lahoud. Parliament's failure to elect someone for the position vacated by Lahoud has thrown Lebanon into its worst political crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. To become president, Suleiman has to step down from the army and the constitution had to be amended to allow a recently retired public servant to take the post. The FaI is allegedly a creation of Syria's military intelligence which is headed by Assad's brother-in-law Assef Shawkat.

In Lebanon's confessional political system, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the PM a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of the parliament a Shi'ite Muslim. As many analysts have suggested, the US has been trying to lure Syria away from the Iran-led axis and back into the Arab fold, presumably willing to end the regime's international isolation. Syria is Iran's closest Arab ally. The two states have had warm relations since 1980 when Syria sided with Iran against Ba'thist Iraq during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

Muhammad Bazzi of the US Council on Foreign Relations, recently wrote in the opinion pages of the Christian Science Monitor: "Ultimately, the US can get more out of Assad in exchange for the Golan than it can by isolating him. If there are serious negotiations, Washington can demand that Assad stop interfering in Lebanon and Iraq, carry out domestic reforms, and drop Syrian support for Hamas and other Palestinian groups that reject peace with Israel". Walid Jumblatt, the current head of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party and the most prominent leader of the Druze community, is one of the most outspoken anti-Syria politicians and a pillar the March 14 Coalition of parties led by Sa'd Hariri, son of the elder Hariri. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, PM Siniora on Dec. 12 requested "technical assistance" from the International Investigation Commission, the same body probing the assassination of Hariri, in looking into the killing of Gen. Hajj.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mu'allem on Dec. 20 blamed the US for the Lebanese impasse, accusing it of blocking Syrian efforts to end the deadlock. But in an interview with al-Hayat daily of Dec. 21 he disclosed that Syrian pre-conditions to the election of Gen. Suleiman were identical to those of the Hizbullah-led opposition, on who should and should not be the PM, listing the number of ministers each group was to have, and defining the persons to occupy the posts of Army commander and security chiefs - all boiling down to having the powers to veto any decision by the next Lebanese president, government and parliament. Chief among Syria's aims is to block the UN tribunal in the killing of Hariri and the other Lebanese VIPs. Mu'allem's statements followed visits to Lebanon by US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch on Dec. 15-16 and Dec. 18-19, when he accused the Hizbullah-led opposition of obstructing the vote for Suleiman.

Mu'allem said Welch's comments "confirm that America does not support consensus and instead wants there to be a victor and vanquished in Lebanon". Mu'allem dismissed Welch's accusations that Syria was the one blocking the presidential election. Welch said: "This is nonsense, he knows exactly who is blocking the election".