SIGNS OF REFORM?
DAMASCUS, Syria — Syrian President Bashar Assad dismisses U.S. sanctions against his nation as uncalled for and unsupported by evidence.
And he appears to be frighteningly well-equipped to offer the world a new image of police state head as a charming, cosmopolitan reformer.
In a wide-ranging 90-minute interview Thursday with a group of American editors, Assad did what Western diplomats expected, denying all charges of supporting terrorists or plotting to obtain weapons of mass destruction.
On failing to stop extremists from crossing the Syrian border into Iraq, Assad says no nation can completely close its borders and cites the United States-Mexico border as an example. Moreover, he says the United States has failed to produce a single name for Syria to investigate as proof of the allegation, despite repeated requests. His lack-of-evidence charge carries much weight in the Middle East, which is still seething about the lack of evidence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.
On U.S. concerns about his efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction, he says his nation doesn't even have a nuclear power plant yet, much less nuclear weapons.
He says some common ingredients available anywhere could become weapons, suggesting a drop could be put in a drinking glass easily, pointing to a glass beside him. (Later, several editors admitted this image led them to briefly reconsider the glasses of fruit juice distributed early in the interview.)
The United States also cited Syria's control of Lebanon and its hospitality to Hamas and Islamic Jihad as reasons for the sanctions. Assad said Syria has reduced its troop strength in Lebanon and is home only to spokesmen for exiled anti-Israel terrorists, not true leaders. No doubt, this parsing of association won't sway anyone who abhors the groups' suicide bombing tactics against Israel.
When pressed to discuss suicide bombers, Assad deferred to stories of Palestinians devastated by Israeli violence, who turn to death themselves from a lack of hope.
The sanctions limiting trade and potentially freezing bank accounts were characterized as more of a wrist-slap than crippling. And Assad's brush-off of them wasn't an anomaly in the Middle East.
Critics of the United States portray the sanctions as an attempt by the Bush administration to deflect attention from the Iraq prison abuse scandal and the war's unsettled outcome.
Several experts worry the sanctions could give Assad another justification to keep repressive emergency powers in place, counter to democracy calls.
Assad, who took control after his father died in 2000, is a 39-year old, British-educated ophthalmologist who once led a computer society. He's as contemporary as his lavish, marble-floored presidential palace on a hilltop overlooking bustling Damascus. Even though the Syrian economy struggles, unemployment is high and underemployment is rampant, the capitol looks lively and the old marketplace is packed with shoppers and diners who offer only welcoming remarks to Americans.
The only hint Assad offers of Syria's repressive regime is to say that in the past there have been excesses. Slowly though, he argues, Syria is changing, but he insists the change will come on Syria's timetable, not America's. He points to the first private banks, private schools and a coming private radio station as evidence of a Middle East nation preparing to change.
Yet human rights activists who have suffered through torture in Syrian prisons for decades say the changes are too slow in law, elections and press matters. But even they don't believe U.S. sanctions will help force modernization or any improvements.
Riad al-Turk, one of the longest-serving political prisoners in Syria, served 17 years in isolation while Assad's father ran the regime for three decades. Al-Turk's last arrest in 2001 followed a speech promoting change from dictatorship to freedom. He credits pressure from the European Union for his November 2002 release.
But hints of some advances are evident even in his last prison experience, which he described as a five-star jail compared with his earlier incarceration.
Despite his experiences, he thinks the American model is the wrong path, preferring an international approach from the United Nations to fight oppressive regimes.
For many in the Middle East, the photos of prisoner abuse in Iraq have undermined U.S. credibility. Assad joined the critics: “Is this the democracy of Abu Ghraib prison?”
Assad went further to say for the people of Iraq the current conditions are worse than under Saddam Hussein.
Many academics say the anger of the Middle East is directed toward the policies of the Bush administration, not the American people. But abuse by American soldiers risks spreading that anger beyond the administration. “American credibility was harmed not just by the photos but by the war itself,” Assad said.
Certainly Assad's state-controlled press would lead its readers to this conclusion. A recent headline asserted “World-backed Arabs versus US-Israel alliance.”
While the United States attempts to mitigate the damage of prisoner abuse, Assad is opening himself up to the Western world in unprecedented ways. The interview with American editors, on a trip organized by the International Reporting Project at Johns Hopkins University, was his first group meeting, a surprising on-the-record session when he sometimes spoke in English.
Earlier last week Assad met with a contingent of Brooklyn Jews who left Syria in the 1930s and had never been back. The monster they expected rolled out the red carpet treatment.
Beneath the charges and countercharges, however, Syria and the United States expect to keep talking, working together when possible to counter extremists that both sides fear. “We don't know how the sanctions will affect us,” Assad said.
“But it's not going to stop reform in Syria.”
If that's true, the world and Syrians will welcome that advance.
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