Lebanon protests show Syrian policy in flux

By Miral Fahmy

BEIRUT (Reuters): President Bashar al-Assad seems keen to ease Syria's stranglehold over Lebanon, where a spate of anti-Syrian protests shows that he is giving his neighbor a bit more political slack, analysts said on Thursday.

Late President Hafez al-Assad, who engineered the controversial ties that have bound Syria and Lebanon for 24 years, would not have tolerated the anti-Syrian rallies and statements that have echoed across Lebanon this week.

Allowing Lebanon's once-powerful Christian community to vent pent-up frustration suggests that the younger Assad, who took office after his father died in June, wants to revise relations dominated by the strong Syrian military presence.

Analysts said Syria's relatively unintrusive role in recent parliamentary elections, won by opposition figures some of whom called for a more balanced relationship with Damascus, proved Assad's desire to give Lebanon more elbow room.

"The recent political developments can be partially explained as a sign of Syrian tolerance," said Kamal Shehadi, an independent political analyst. "It shows that the Syrians have decided to give in to Lebanese wishes. In the past, such movements would have been given 'friendly' advice to cool down but these things are not happening any more."

In his inaugural speech in July, Bashar said he wanted a more equitable relationship with Lebanon, a theme that has been picked up by Syrian officials.

"It is natural for the relationship between Syria and Lebanon to develop with time," Fayez al-Sayegh, head of Syria's official television and radio, told Reuters in Damascus.

"An understanding by both Syria and Lebanon of the nature of their relations will pave the way for more comprehensive ties."

Syria intervened in Lebanon less than a year after civil war erupted in 1975. It sent in peacekeepers who have stayed on even after Israel ended its 22-year occupation of a southern border strip in May. Syria still has up to 35,000 troops in Lebanon.

Ironically, Lebanon's Christians were the first to ask Syria for help during the war. But as the conflict wore on, some militias allied themselves to Damascus's arch-foe Israel in a power ploy ultimately foiled by Hafez al-Assad.

The 1989 Taif accord that ended the fighting allowed Syria to tighten its grip on Lebanon. Since then, Damascus has vetted presidents and governments to the chagrin of many Lebanese and Christian leaders such as Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir.

Analysts said some of the anti-Syrian rhetoric was coming from marginalized Christian movements, such as the banned Lebanese Forces militia created by Bashir Gemayel, an Israeli ally who was assassinated in 1982 soon after becoming president.

Supporters of Gemayel and the LF, the biggest Christian militia during the war, demanded that Syria withdraw its troops during protests that were monitored by the Lebanese army.

"The resurgence of these parties can be interpreted as a message of openness that the leadership in Syria is sending to the Christian community that has been hostile towards it since Taif," wrote Rosanna Abou Monsef in An-Nahar newspaper.

Some analysts linked Assad's desire to change his father's policy towards Beirut to the Israeli troop withdrawal.

Thabet Salem, a Syrian political analyst and writer, said Assad was aware that the Israeli pullout had diminished the justification for keeping the Syrian army in Lebanon.

"Syria supported the resistance fighting the Israelis in south Lebanon but now the situation has changed. It is costly to keep such a large number of troops in Lebanon," he said.

"Syria also wants to give an impression to the world that it becoming progressive and that it is serious about peace. A pullout from Lebanon would appear to be a signal towards that."

Salem said Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, an election victor who has good ties with Syria, had sensed the changing mood in Damascus and begun urging a troop pullout, a return of exiled anti-Syrian Christian leaders and dialogue among Lebanese.

"If Syria disapproved of what Jumblatt was preaching, it would have kept him quiet," Salem explained.

Other analysts took a cynical view of Assad's intentions, saying Syria sought to keep Lebanon weak by reigniting sectarian strife by means of tacitly encouraging the Christians.

Senior Muslim clerics and the cabinet on Wednesday blasted a statement by Maronite archbishops urging Syria to withdraw from Lebanon, prompting fears that pre-war tensions had re-emerged.

"A Lebanon gripped by sectarian fears and feelings is a Lebanon that needs the so-called calming influence of Syria," a Lebanese writer said. "This way, Damascus remains in control."