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Syrian Reforms Gain Momentum In Wake of War
U.S. Pressure Forces Change In Foreign, Domestic Policy

By Alan Sipress
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 12, 2003; Page A01

DAMASCUS, Syria -- For more than 20 years, Syrian boys and girls have worn military-style school uniforms, olive green with stripes on their epaulets to signify their grade and caps to match.

So parents were surprised by a pair of brief articles in the state-run press two weeks ago reporting that these required outfits would be eliminated come fall. Instead, elementary school students will wear blue uniforms similar to those in some U.S. parochial schools, including vests over light-blue shirts for boys and rose blouses for girls. High school students will don gray uniforms over light-blue shirts and rose blouses.

Though no public explanation for the change was offered, Syrians close to the country's leadership said it is part of an effort to reverse the long tradition of militarism in their society and one in a series of reforms gaining momentum after the U.S. ouster of President Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq.

With tens of thousands of U.S. troops positioned just to the east and U.S. officials warning Syria it could be the next object of American ire, Syrians acknowledge they are feeling vulnerable. These regional developments -- nothing less than an "earthquake," according to Khalaf M. Jarad, editor of the state-run Tishrin newspaper -- have prompted Syria to alter its foreign policy to accommodate U.S. demands, while rethinking its domestic affairs.

"When your neighbor shaves, you start to wet your cheeks," said Nabil Jabi, a political strategist in Damascus, citing an Arabic proverb. "It means you must study the new situation in your neighborhood."

For up to a year, U.S. officials had been quietly urging Syria to interdict Arab fighters and military supplies crossing the border into Iraq, including night-vision goggles and vehicles for transporting battle tanks, according to Western officials. Now, Syria has sealed the border. Syria has handed over to U.S.-led forces at least two top Iraqi figures who had been fleeing, including former intelligence official Faruq Hijazi, while turning back others at the border, according to diplomats. The Syrian government has also toned down its severely anti-American rhetoric of earlier this spring; signaled it will not meddle in Iraq's internal affairs as the United States seeks to build a new government in Baghdad; and said it will not undermine U.S. efforts to restart the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

But the changes in domestic policy may ultimately prove to be of even greater consequence.

During the past two weeks, the Syrian government has licensed its first three private banks, considered an essential step in modernizing the state-dominated economy, while approving two new private universities and four private radio stations. Officials are now reviewing the possibility of removing military training from the curriculum of schools and universities and eliminating a requirement that all students join youth groups affiliated with Syria's ruling Baath Party, according to sources close to the leadership.

While discussions about reforming the Baath Party have been underway for at least three years, they have taken on a much greater urgency since the collapse of Iraq's Baath Party government, said Syrians close to the leadership.

"If now people feel a more pressing need to do that, so much the better," said Buthaina Shaaban, spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry. "I think it's normal to be affected by external events and to use it for your own benefit, to reform your reality."

Among the issues now being debated more vigorously by Baathists is whether the position of prime minister should be limited to party members. Shaaban said the upheaval in Iraq had strengthened Syrian President Bashar Assad's case for opening the post to non-party members.

Syria has one of the most opaque governments in the world, making it difficult even for seasoned observers to determine how seriously Assad and his top advisers are reassessing their policies. Nor is it clear whether the latest changes in domestic and foreign policies will ultimately prove more than piecemeal or cosmetic.

After Assad took power three years ago upon the death of his autocratic father, Hafez Assad, he promised ambitious administrative and economic reforms, including the licensing of private banks. But many of these changes ran into opposition from entrenched interests in the cabinet, security forces and the Baath Party, and have yet to be carried out. The latest promise of reform could meet the same fate.

"Dr. Bashar is going to use this golden opportunity," said Riad I. Barazi, a political writer well connected to the leadership. "We are in a dilemma and we need a way out of the American pressure. He is going to use this stick against the old guard . . . to tell the old guard to go away. The dramatic changes that have taken place in Iraq have accelerated this process."

Tough statements last month from President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell warning Syria not to undercut U.S. military efforts in Iraq rattled many in Damascus. Syrian officials had expected the U.S. campaign in Iraq to last longer and exact far greater casualties, leaving the United States with little appetite for further confrontations in the region, analysts said. "We cannot ignore the fact that the United States is on our doorstep not as a stabilizing power but a threatening power," said Nabil Sukkar, an economic consultant and former World Bank official.

Even before the U.S.-led war in Iraq, Syria had shown unprecedented cooperation with American intelligence officials in the campaign against al Qaeda. Syrian interrogation of Mohammed Haydar Zammar, a key figure in the Sept. 11, 2001, plot, provided U.S. investigators with details about the attack and plans for more possible al Qaeda operations, according to German and Arab sources.

In addition, Syria played a crucial role in the unraveling of an al Qaeda group in Canada that was planning to attack major government institutions in Canada and the United States, according to a source in Damascus. The source said U.S. investigators learned about the plot in late 2001 only after Syrian security officers arrested and interrogated an al Qaeda suspect upon his arrival in Syria; he had already passed through two European airports.

A Syrian tip also helped thwart a planned al Qaeda attack last year against U.S. military forces in the Persian Gulf region, the source said. Western officials said the target had been the U.S. Naval facility in Bahrain, home to the Navy's 5th Fleet.

In the three weeks since senior U.S. officials threatened retaliation against Syria, the government in Damascus has sharply changed direction. In addition to sealing the border, the rhetoric has shifted abruptly. Senior Syrian officials and the state-run press have stopped condemning the United States for "aggression" against Iraq and urging popular resistance. They now label the military campaign as a "war."

In a recent meeting with Assad, Powell said his top concern was the activity of Palestinian militant groups in Syria, including the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, Western officials said. The United States stepped up pressure on Damascus this winter to close down these groups. Though Syrian officials say these groups use their Damascus offices only for contact with the international media, U.S. intelligence shows that activists in Syria have also been involved with planning and financing some militant activities, Western and Arab diplomats said.

These groups have lowered their profile in recent weeks, refusing requests for interviews with news media. At the Hamas office, a staff member said this week that two senior figures, Khaled Meshaal and Mousa Abu Marzouk, had left for Lebanon.

Powell was also looking for the Syrian government to refrain from undermining the new Israeli-Palestinian initiative, known as the "road map." Syria had long presented itself as a standard bearer of Palestinian and wider Arab interests. Shaaban, however, said this week: "It's not our affair. We feel it's up to the Palestinians to decide their future." Syrian officials said their top priority is negotiating the return of the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in the 1967 war.

U.S. officials are also concerned that the Syrian government could have significant influence on Iraq's internal affairs, including the action of Iraqi tribal leaders in the north and Kurdish opposition groups. Syria also has ties with Mishaan Jabouri, the newly elected mayor of Mosul who spent about two decades in Damascus, where he was a major businessman and controlled much of the trade between the two countries, according to Western and Arab diplomats.

So far, Western officials said, Syria has shown no sign of trying to undermine U.S. efforts to build new institutions in Iraq. Syrians close to their country's leadership said the government is eager to play a constructive role so that it can restore vital economic ties with Iraq.

The war has cost Syria at least $2 billion a year, in part by severing an oil pipeline linking northern Iraq with the Syrian coast. Buying at least 150,000 barrels a day from Iraq at sharply discounted prices, Syria was able to make between $1 billion and $1.5 billion annually by boosting its own oil exports at world prices, officials and economists said. Syria has also lost about $1 billion in annual trade.

Syrians are increasingly saying that the disaster Hussein brought on his country underscores the need for a representative government in Damascus that will not invite a similar calamity.

"Whatever policy they make, whatever stance they take, people's lives and livelihoods will be affected. Seeing what happened in Iraq, it's not a joke anymore," said a university professor.

Reformers within the Syrian government are tapping into these sentiments, a development reflected in a number of new petitions calling for democratic change, and using U.S. pressure as leverage, according to several sources close to the leadership. These same Syrians warn, however, that outright confrontation between Washington and Damascus could freeze the effort.

"It really depends how the United States carries its policy toward Syria over the next year or so," said Sukkar, the economic consultant. "When you are threatened by outside force, you tend to close up rather than open up. Confrontation definitely strengthens the hands of the hard-liners."

© 2003 The Washington Post Company