Bashar's Syria: The Regime and its Strategic Worldview Shmuel Bar ...

412 S. Bartoken withdrawal while maintaining its intelligence presence in Beirut and its actual militarypresence in the Bek’aa valley. The crisis, however, played out differently: Bashar caved into international pressure in a manner that, in the eyes of many Syrians of the old guard, didnot become the son of his father. Furthermore, he did not make a serious attempt throughnegotiations with the West to extract a reward for his compliance with its demands. Hisdecision making seemed focused totally on the current stage of the crisis without an attemptto draw up a long-range strategy.Bashar’s behavior in the unfolding of the Lebanese crisis can be partially explained bythe decline of the influence of the old guard on Bashar’s policy. Had they maintained vestigesof influence, it stands to reason that the habits of thirty years of control over Lebanon wouldhave died much more slowly. The importance of the Lebanese arena for Syria was ingrainedin that generation and it seems doubtful that they would have acquiesced to what was, intheir eyes, a policy that endangered Syria’s vital interests. This impression is borne outby the unusual openness of senior Syrian officials when speaking about the circumstancessurrounding the “suicide” of Ghazi Kana’an. He and other officers who had been intimatelyinvolved in Syria’s Lebanon policymaking over the years are said to have been deeplydistressed by the withdrawal and the abandonment of Syrian interests in the neighboringcountry and to have voiced that distress in elite circles.The suicide (or murder) of Ghazi Kana’an was clearly linked to the al-Hariri affair.According to what seems to be a reliable account, the day before his “suicide” he showedno sign of personal distress that could bring him to such an act. He was, however, deeplyconcerned about the management of the Lebanese crisis and the willingness of the regimeto abandon the officers who had been involved in the Lebanese arena. The various versionscirculating since the incident are: (1) Kana’an knew that he was to be named by the Mehlisreport and “saved” the regime by taking his own life, nobly providing the regime with ascapegoat; (2) Kana’an knew that he was to be named and that the president intended toabandon him, and saw no resort besides suicide that would prevent him from being handedover to international justice; or (3) Kana’an had opposed the assassination of al-Hariri, withwhom he had business connections, and was liable to have incriminated senior members ofthe regime (Asaf Shawkat or Bahjat Suleiman). In order to prevent such a development hewas murdered and the murder was presented as a suicide.The al-Hariri assassination and its fallout was a watershed for Syria’s involvement inLebanon—and potentially for the survival of the Syrian regime. Even if the regime weathersthe current crisis, it will have to face a new paradigm for relations with Lebanon—relationswith a sovereign, not a vassal, state, which enjoys guarantees from a coalition of Westerncountries. Ironically, Syria’s weakened position in Lebanon has left it more dependent on,and hence more constrained to support and less able to control, its Lebanese proxies, whofind themselves “upgraded” now to allies. This was well demonstrated during the Israeli–Hezbollah hostilities of summer 2006. Under these circumstances, the possibility still existsthat Hezbollah, for its own reasons or because of prodding by Iran, may perform acts ofprovocation against Israel that ultimately would drag Syria into the conflict.IraqThe Ba’th party of Iraq had been the nemesis of the Asad regime for decades. The animositybetween the two regimes had been a significant factor in Syria’s support for Iran during theIraq–Iran war of the 1980s and its support for the Coalition in the wake of the Iraqi invasionof Kuwait in August 1990. Bashar al-Asad reversed his father’s policy soon after he cameto power and began a policy of rapprochement with Baghdad.