Who's Next On The Bush Hit List... Iran Or Syria?

Syria Imposing Stronger Curbs on Opposition

Just months ago, under intense international pressure to ease its stranglehold on neighboring Lebanon, the Syrian government was talking about ending the ruling Baath Party's grip on Syrian power and paving the way for a multiparty system.

But things have moved in the opposite direction. Syrian officials are aggressively silencing domestic political opposition while accommodating religious conservatives to shore up support across the country.

Security forces have detained human rights workers and political leaders, and in some cases their family members as well. They have barred travel abroad for political conferences and shut down a human rights center financed by the European Union. And the government has delivered a stern message to the national news media demanding that they promote — not challenge — the official agenda.

The leadership's actions were described in interviews with top officials as well as dissidents and human rights activists. They reflect at least in part a growing sense of confidence because of shifts in the Middle East in recent months, especially the Hamas victory in Palestinian elections, political paralysis in Lebanon and the intense difficulties facing the United States in trying to stabilize Iraq and stymie Iran's drive toward nuclear power.

Syria is a reactionary and opportunistic regime. They do not act without assessing what dynamics of the region are in favor of the Syrian government, which is essentially controlled by a Baathist leadership. When Israel is strong, Syria backs down a bit. But these days, Israel is not the center of attention in the Middle East. Neither is Palestine. What has Syria's attention at the moment is how thin the US influence and US military has been spread. Since the stroke(s) suffered by the Israeli prime minister, Syria has been agitating things in the entire region. Many of the insurgents in Iraq are getting support through Syrian resources, albeit from sources the Syrian government can plausibly deny having any connections or direct influence.

The recent events involving Iran, and the new nuclear deals with India, have not escaped the attention of the biggest and baddest Syrian agitators. Money, resources and attention are not being paid to Hamas and other groups with power in Palestine because the US cannot put its entire focus on those issues or groups. Israel, as powerful as its military is, is distracted with reformulating its government. Even Lebanon is in a bit of flux due to some internal political struggles.

Syria is an opportunistic regime and it is recognizing that opportunity is at hand.

The detentions, the press crackdown, the restrictions on travel and the overall effort to crush dissent are also a response to a fragile domestic political climate and concern over a growing opposition movement abroad.

"I may not be keen on early morning arrests, but this regime was being threatened," Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Dardari, a Londoneducated technocrat charged with steering Syria's economic overhaul, said in an interview. "The survival of this regime and the stability of this country was threatened out loud and openly. There were invitations for foreign armies to come and invade Syria. So you could expect sometimes an overreaction, or a reaction, to something that is really happening."

This is the battle cry of all fascism in the Middle East... The claim that the regime is under some form of attack or threat is used as justification for all sorts of human rights violations... The Baathists are the Baathists... it does not matter whether the party rules in Iraq, Syria or elsewhere. The use of violence and infringement of rights under the color of law and order is a tool of choice for beating down dissidents and minorities.

On Tuesday, Amnesty International condemned the Syrian crackdown and called on Damascus to release "all of those arrested due to their beliefs." Human Rights Watch said it was sending a letter to the government protesting the arrests.

The Koran calls for two independent witnesses to a crime... These two organizations fulfill the Koranic principle and the criteria or sha'ria.

The government has also sought to fortify its position with a nod to a reality sweeping not just Syria, but the region: a surge in religious identification and a growing desire to empower religious political movements like Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. The latter group recently won 88 seats in the Egyptian Parliament in spite of government efforts to block its supporters from voting.

The Syrian government has gone further to accommodate religious conservatives than in the past, officials and religious scholars said.

It has appointed a sheik, as opposed to a secular Baathist, to head the Religious Affairs Ministry; allowed, for the first time, religious activities in the stadium at Damascus University; and permitted a speech emphasizing religious practices and identity to be given to a military audience. President Bashar al-Assad has increasingly inserted references to religious identity and culture into his speeches.

When all else is not going well in the Middle East, paint a religious face on the politics and there will be clerics that embrace the grab for power... and they will claim that it is "ensha'allah"... the Will of God. When the regime has God on its side, who can oppose them? Certainly not the Great Satan... It is too busy to notice.

Most striking was the government's recent decision to reverse itself one month after trying to limit activities taking place in mosques. The Religious Affairs Ministry effectively ordered mosques closed for all activities but prayers, but a few weeks later the decision was deemed a greater threat to a government controlled by the Alawites, a minority religious sect, than the potential for political organizing among the majority Sunni Muslims.

"Before, religion for the regime was like a ball of fire, " said Abdul Qader al-Kittani, a professor of Islamic studies at Fattah Islamic University here. "Now they deal with it like it could be a ball of light."

He added: "Two factors pushed the regime toward this direction. The first is the beat of the street. The second is external pressures on the regime."

External pressures from where? The international community is too busy to pressure the Syrian government back toward a reasonable secular rule, the rest of the Middle East is too busy with its own issues of dissidence and rebellious groups, and the external influences are actually coming from within Syria, fueled by groups from Iran and Egypt, and urged on by ultra-conservative Islamic fundamentalists from everywhere in the region. Professor al-Kittani is, like most Arabic academics, only looking at those factors they see as supporting their particular view. Middle Eastern academics as a whole do not get training in looking at all facets of an issue. The Middle Eastern mindset seems to be "pick a side and support it until it becomes fashionable to support another side... then justify the switch in position with a religiously acceptable explanation."

Damascus has a very different feel from that of a few months ago, when investigators for the United Nations Security Council issued a report suggesting that the Syrian state — not just individuals — was behind the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, in February 2005 and that the authorities here had defied the United Nations Security Council by refusing to cooperate with its investigation.

Typical Middle Eastern indignation tactics. Blow smoke, pretend indignation, accuse others of not being in touch with the situation, accuse westerners of being unable to understand Arab, Muslim or Middle Eastern issues, and hide behind a wall of distraction to keep the truth at arms length... plausible deniability and saving face...

The new investigator heading the inquiry, Serge Brammertz of Belgium, has kept a far lower profile and taken a less confrontational approach than his predecessor, Detlev Mehlis of Germany. Syrian officials have responded by agreeing to allow President Assad to be interviewed.

A process that plays right into the Syrian government's hand and way of thinking. We see this same approach used by Iran, and it was also used by Saddam Hussein when he was in charge of Iraq.

With the pressure off, the arrests have been stacking up since January, according to local human rights groups and individuals who say they were picked up by the authorities.

In Damascus, Ammar Qurabi, the former spokesman for the Arab Organization for Human Rights-Syria, was held for four days after returning from political conferences in Washington and Paris. In Aleppo, Samir Nashar, a businessman and opposition leader, was detained for three days after returning from attending political conferences abroad.

These arrests are intended to send a message to internal disidents to back off... to give the government some room... the question now becomes why are they creating this distraction? What are they up to? Within a few weeks, we will see something major coming from Syria that will affect others in the Middle East. It, too, will be a massage.

The goal was to deliver a message, some of those arrested said: the government will not tolerate any contact between internal opposition figures and a growing opposition movement abroad that is being encouraged by former Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam, who recently forged an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, which is outlawed here.

"This time they wanted to relay a message or a warning: the Muslim Brotherhood, Khaddam and street protests are prohibited," said Hussein al-Odat, an opposition leader in Damascus who said he was detained last week by security forces for two hours. "They said, 'It is clear, and we will not be merciful.' "

This sounds plausible, but the Baathists are prone to having multiple agendas and multiple distractions. So the question remains... What is next?

The question on our end is whether or not Bush and his gang will find an excuse to make more expenditures in the region, increase our troop strength in the region, or entangle itself into more of the regional theocratic politics without really understanding what is occurring. Will our next invasion be Syria or Iran?