One Asad can be just as tough as another.

Syria's Foreign Policy Challenges U.S. Interests

This is the second of a two-part series marking the six months since Bashar al-Asad became president of Syria on July 17, 2000. Read Part I. 

Bashar has tried to demonstrate that one Asad can be just as tough as another.

His approach to Israel consists of three basic elements:

1) No yielding on the peace process Bashar is unbending on the basic requirement for peace he inherited from his father — Israeli withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 borders, leaving Syria a riparian on the Sea of Galilee.

Recovery of the Golan Heights, he says, "tops our national priorities."

As a neophyte president trying to impress the Baathist old guard, this is probably the last area in which he would show flexibility, even if he were so inclined. But, more than his father did in his final years, Bashar also has spoken of the need to fulfill Palestinian rights — statehood with a capital in Jerusalem and return of the refugees — as a condition for achieving comprehensive peace. Like his approach to Iraq, this stance is probably popular at home, particularly as the intifada rages.

Meanwhile, there is no known change in the status of radical Palestinian groups based in Damascus.

2) Support for Hizballah and the Lebanese claim to Shebaa Farms Syria not only endorsed an Arab League summit statement supporting Lebanon’s claim to Shebaa farms, but Syrian U.N. ambassador Mikha’il Wahbi also wrote in an October 24 letter, "Israel . . . has not completed the withdrawal from south Lebanon to the internationally recognized borders, including the Shebaa farms."

This stance, in effect, justifies ongoing Hizballah attacks on Israel, retaining for Syria a source of pressure on Israel, despite the "loss" of southern Lebanon. Syria has supported and has no doubt directed Lebanon’s refusal to deploy its troops to the border following the Israeli withdrawal.

3) Rhetorical fervor, including support for the intifada, reactivation of the Arab boycott, and the severing of all Arab ties with Israel

In his Arab summit speech, Bashar said Arab states should aim for the "peace of the strong" instead of the "peace of the weak," in an apparent call for the strengthening of Arab militaries.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
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