July 15, 2003	Tuesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 14, 1424

DAMASCUS: The party with a stranglehold on power for decades suggests it will back out of politics. Schoolchildren, long uniformed as cadets in an army comprising the whole of Syrian society, are told to get new clothes.

Both changes hint that the shock of seeing Saddam Hussein give way to US occupation in neighbouring Iraq could speed what many hope is a break with Syria’s authoritarian legacy. But even optimists time the move with a calendar, not a stopwatch.

The dilemma of President Bashar al-Assad remains — how to ease the militarism of Syrian society and remake the socialist economy he inherited from his father and predecessor, without undermining his own authority and unleashing chaos?

“Was all this in the pipeline since the president took office and picked up speed because of Iraq?” asks Frank Hesske, head of the European Union delegation in Syria, of a decree by the ruling Ba’ath Party vowing not to meddle in politics.

“I would tend to say it was, but you still can’t expect the head of state here to accede openly to US demands. There remains this almost philosophical problem of managing change without the fear of instability, with zero margin for error, which is what the government feels is its situation.”

The decree, lauded in the state press ahead of publication last week, was the latest in a string of gestures widely read to mean Syria has taken to heart US rhetoric about forcing change in the region, one way or another.

After Baghdad fell and US hawks turned their attention to Syria — accusing it of supplying the dying Iraqi government with arms, sheltering fugitives and developing chemical weapons — the Education Ministry announced Syrian boys and girls would swap their military khaki shirts for blues and pinks.

More concretely, Damascus turned back or expelled Iraqis who crossed its border and steered clear of interfering with the occupation of Iraq, while making it plain that it did not want confrontation with Washington, diplomats say.

SYMBOLS: Even as Syria protested last month over the detention of Syrian border guards wounded in a US attack on a convoy thought to be carrying aides of Saddam, Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara stressed his wish for dialogue and “quiet diplomacy.”

Syria’s tone after the fall of Baghdad has not gone unnoticed among those in Syria who saw the younger Assad’s intentions for reform put to the test, with results that showed reform would be gradual and limited.

His pledge of “modernization” — understood to mean political and economic liberalization — after taking office in 2000 spawned political debate clubs whose participants dared to demand an end to martial rule and criticise official corruption.

Tolerated at first, the forums grew numerous and stridently critical of the Baath, until they were closed in 2001 and several leading participants tried and convicted on charges such as advocating insurrection and inciting sectarian strife.

They are back, on a smaller scale, with one recent meeting in a patrician Damascene home devoted to the question of what the US conquest of Baghdad could mean for Syrians who want less of their state, but none of Washington’s.

“It’s despotism that builds the foundation for all such defeats,” says one speaker, suggesting there was now an opportunity to advance the cause of political liberty.

“Either the security state is overcome, or the possibility of becoming American slaves becomes an eventuality.”

Others consider the hope of benefiting from pressure on Syria illusory. They take no heart from the recent official gestures, which they believe cannot be translated into the sort of democratic transformation that some in the US administration argued toppling Saddam Hussein would bring.

“It’s a sop to the United States, which doesn’t distinguish between something called the Iraqi Baath Party and the Syrian Baath Party,” said Haithem al-Maleh, a human rights lawyer who himself faces charges of illegal membership in a political organization and inciting sectarian strife.

“They want to show the United States that they are ready to adjust to and deal with their demands...So you have decisions like abolishing military uniforms in schools, which are meaningless; they are only symbols.”

FEAR OVER IRAQ, GLEE AT OCCUPIER’S WOES: Syria’s apparent willingness to accommodate, says one veteran dissident, is based on the assumption that symbolic concessions could preserve the government’s domestic control.

“The regime fears what happened in Iraq and wants to do what it can to prevent it. It’s ready to present anything to stay in power,” the dissident said.

But readiness to cede diplomatic ground may be deceptive.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell came after the war to Damascus to demand Syria expel militant Palestinian groups it considers “terrorist”. Several groups said they had voluntarily closed their offices, but Powell has blasted this as inadequate.

Diplomats argue that alarm at the war is tempered by cheer over US troubles in postwar Iraq and difficulty keeping Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on the “roadmap” to Israeli-Palestinian peace, both of which take heat off Damascus.

Syria may opt to bide its time, in hopes of ultimately having its weight in regional politics acknowledged, they say.

“I think they know that the world is not the same as before, but they feel it is not nearly as bad as they feared,” said one Western diplomat.

“They are taking heart from the problems in central Iraq, and doubt that Sharon will be brought in line with the roadmap. Their sense may be, ‘We are going to be needed again on both fronts’.”—Reuters