Lebanon Crisis Puts Assad Back in the Limelight

The joke here is that the world leaders streaming in to see Syrian President Hafez Assad these days have to take a number. Americans, Russians, French, Italians, Iranians--all of them have come seeking favors or help from Assad.

On Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto dropped by, making up for a state visit that had been delayed because of American and Russian officials’ pilgrimages here Saturday.

Also on Tuesday, Secretary of State Warren Christopher flew in from Jerusalem after Assad let it be known that he could see the Americans, but only from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. After the secretary arrived, Assad sent word that he was too busy. Christopher returned to Jerusalem, saying he will come again today.

Suddenly, the Syrian president has made Damascus center stage in the Middle East again.

What does Assad get out of this? What price will he exact for providing help in restoring peace to southern Lebanon? The answer, analysts say, is that the Syrian president is using the ongoing Lebanon crisis to send out a series of messages and to bolster his negotiating strategy in the overall Middle East peace process.

First, they say, Assad is showing that he has again become the most important leader in the Arab world.

Last month, it appeared that the Syrian president was on the sidelines. Assad stayed home while 13 other Arab leaders appeared with President Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres at the “Summit of the Peacemakers” anti-terrorism conference in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt. Officially, Syria is still at war with Israel.

“The process was moving forward, and he was being left behind,” said David Kimche, president of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations. “From that point of view, the pilgrimage everyone is making to Damascus is the most important thing for Assad. For him, it is most important to show that he is the kingpin--not [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak, not [Jordan’s] King Hussein, not [PLO Chairman Yasser] Arafat.”

“They [Assad and other Syrian officials] like to think that they are the true defenders of Arab rights,” said one American official here.

On Tuesday, as on several other occasions over the past week, Syrian newspapers carried front-page accounts of Assad’s meetings the previous day with Christopher, Russian Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov and French Foreign Minister Herve de Charette.

Secondly, experts say, Assad is using Lebanon and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, or Party of God, militia there to put pressure on Israel in its negotiations with Syria over the return of the Golan Heights, the land that Syria lost to Israel in the 1967 Middle East War.

One U.S. official with considerable experience in the Middle East said it has been important for Assad to show that he still controls Lebanon, “especially since he no longer controls the Palestinian issue.”

He said Assad wants to restart negotiations with Israel, “but he is not going to let Israel and the U.S. determine the pace. . . . Assad has got everyone coming to him.”

The prevailing view among Israeli political analysts is that Assad is on top in this poker game with steel nerves and time to kill.

“Assad, the most skilled gambler in the Middle East,” Maariv newspaper’s Hemi Shalev calls him. “He knows how to play, to bluff the opponent and to keep a stiff poker face. Assad also has patience.”

Yet Assad’s interests in Lebanon extend beyond his own ego and the Golan Heights. Analysts point out that Syria has economic stakes there as well.

If Lebanon were to fall apart again and renewed factional fighting were to come near Syria’s border, the disintegration would hurt Syria in the pocketbook. There are about 1 million Syrians working in Lebanon. “He can’t afford to have it go to the dogs,” Kimche said.

Finally, Assad is eager to let the United States know that it cannot achieve its objectives in the Middle East without him.

Christopher--defending his dealings with Assad, whose country is on the State Department’s list of nations sponsoring terrorism--said this week that “Syria is a very important, vital, crucial player” in bringing peace to Lebanon, where Syria has 35,000 troops.

Although American policymakers have found themselves obliged to deal with Assad on many occasions over the past two decades, they are particularly reliant on the Syrian president now, as they attempt to negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Hezbollah is controlled, funded, armed and trained by Iran. But the United States has no diplomatic relations with Tehran and has repeatedly accused it of undermining peace in the Middle East. Thus, the way to get to Hezbollah is through Syria, which can control the flow of arms and other supplies to the guerrillas.

Assad’s refusal to see Christopher on Tuesday appeared to be a startling rebuke to the secretary of state. U.S. officials said later that they were told the Syrian president had been up late the previous night and was particularly tired because of the many meetings he had had with visiting foreign ministers.

But twice in the previous three days, Assad kept Christopher waiting. The secretary of state was obliged to stand by while Assad met with Russia’s Primakov.

“The Syrians made a decision [not to meet with Christopher],” State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns told reporters afterward. “They basically informed us that the president had made a decision. . . .

“They [Syrian officials] decided it wasn’t in their interest to have a short-term meeting [Tuesday night]. We had to accept that. . . . Obviously, it’s a disappointment.”

As if to underscore the secretary’s continuing frustrations in the Middle East, Christopher had planned to make a surprise visit to Beirut on Tuesday night en route from Syria to Israel but canceled the stop when North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Defense Department officials said they felt the trip would be too dangerous.

Analysts say the past few weeks’ events demonstrate Assad’s continuing ability to change tactics and allies in ways that serve his interests. For the moment, Hezbollah is a bargaining chip for him in negotiations with Israel, and he is unlikely to tie the hands of the militia as it does battle with the Israelis.

But Assad has no use for Hezbollah beyond that--and, in fact, the devoutly secular leader opposes their fundamentalism.

“The day after we sign [a peace agreement with Lebanon], Syrian troops will, with tremendous relish, finish off Hezbollah,” Kimche predicted.

Mann reported from Damascus and Miller from Jerusalem.