Syria’s Assad Holds Fewer Cards

Is it the chicken or the egg? This question puzzles many when it comes to analyzing the ramifications of Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon. Is Hezbollah a puppet on a string controlled by Syrian President Hafez Assad, or is the Shiite fundamentalist movement an independent, Lebanese-oriented group? The answer may determine whether Israelis and Arabs are heading into a new war or making another step toward reconciliation. One thing is clear: It’s easy to identify the winners and losers of the much expected, yet surprising Israeli pullout.

Hezbollah, which seeks the establishment of an Islamic republic in Lebanon in the Iranian mold, won big. The movement, started in the early 1980s by radical Muslim clerics, aims to redress Lebanon’s social and economic injustices. It embarked on a war of attrition with Israel, using hit-and-run tactics against Israeli soldiers in Lebanon and civilian communities in northern Israel. Then, two weeks ago, Hezbollah’s 2,500 guerrillas forced the mighty Israeli military machine to withdraw to the last inch of Lebanese soil. Now, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, is a household name and a hero whose reputation and prestige have spread across the entire Arab world.

The next winner is Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his left-of-center coalition government. Against the odds and contrary to the advice of his military chiefs, which predicted a blood bath if Israel unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon, Barak set a July 2000 deadline for the pullout and completed it eight weeks early.

A small loser is Yasser Arafat. The Palestinian leader, struggling to gain more territory for his future state, to be declared in September 2000, is now mocked and blamed for not imitating Hezbollah and using similar violent tactics against Israel.

The big loser is Assad. For 27 years, the Syrian president has been loath to risk his socially, economically and militarily weak regime in a direct confrontation with Israel. As a result, he has fastidiously complied with all agreements keeping the peace on the Syrian-Israeli border. But, occasionally, when it suited his purposes, Assad encouraged, supported and unleashed Hezbollah to keep Israel militarily occupied.

Assad’s message and game have been clear and simple. If Israel wanted tranquillity and peaceful relations along its Lebanese border, it would have to sign a peace treaty with Syria, which, because of its military force, controls and runs the Lebanese show. For Assad to sign, Israel would have to emulate the Egyptian model of “land for peace.” Thus, Assad has demanded the return of the Golan Heights he lost to Israel in the 1967 war.

Israeli governments have struggled with Assad’s demands. The Labor-led cabinets of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in 1994-95, and of Barak agreed to take on the risk and pain of dismantling Israeli settlements and handing over the Golan Heights in return for various security arrangements, including demilitarization of the evacuated area and early-warning stations manned by international peacekeepers, and the establishment of full diplomatic and trade relations between the two countries.

Last winter, it seemed that everything and everyone, including President Bill Clinton, was ready for the historic moment: a summit between Assad and Barak on the White House lawn. But Assad backed out at the last moment and added an unprecedented demand: legal and agreed-upon access to the northern shores of the Lake of Galilee, Israel’s main water supply.

Why did Assad do this? Some experts believe that he is not really interested in achieving peace with Israel. Rather, he is focused on securing a smooth transfer of power to his son, Bashir. The Syrian president also fears how the byproducts of peace might affect Syria’s domestic stability: Peace and open borders will expose his isolated state to Western influences and thereby diminish his power.

Barak refused to succumb to what he regarded as Assad’s “capricious behavior.” The Israeli prime minister then pulled the rug out from under Assad’s feet by ordering the withdrawal from Lebanon, thus depriving the Syrian president of his “whip” against Israel.

Israel’s chief of military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Malka, warned last week that, sooner or later, Syria would “show who calls the shots” in Lebanon. He meant to say that Syria would try to persuade Hezbollah to resume its military operations by attacking Israeli positions in northern Israel. Damascus still controls and can mobilize to its cause some small Palestinian groups, such as Ahmed Jibril’s organization, the Abu Nidal group and other opponents of Arafat. But these organizations are ghosts. They have no support among Palestinians, either in Lebanon or outside the country, few capabilities and pose no significant challenge to Israel.

Hezbollah is Syria’s last hope. There is no doubt that, ideologically and rhetorically, this Lebanese Shiite movement is committed to continue its fight against Israel and does not need to be encouraged by Assad. Hezbollah does not recognize the right of Israel to exist. On numerous occasions, Nasrallah has promised to “liberate Jerusalem and the whole of Palestine from its Israeli occupiers.” And despite its “victory” in southern Lebanon, the movement refuses to dismantle its military wing and hand over its weapons to authorities. The Lebanese government, which is controlled by Syria, has neither the will nor the power to disarm Hezbollah, which is the last illegal armed militia in the country.

Hezbollah, however, is more complex. It has shown its pragmatism in the past. It is, after all, a Lebanese movement whose interests are in Lebanon. It desires to make inroads into Lebanon’s mainstream, not alienate it.

Israeli leaders and generals have warned that if Hezbollah resumes its military operations against Israel, they would forcefully retaliate. Indeed, it’s an open secret in Israel that military planners have already prepared a long list of targets in Lebanon, including most electric power stations, water pumps, roads, bridges and food warehouses. But Israeli strategic planners will not settle for simply returning Lebanon to the middle ages. They will hold Syria responsible as well for any effort to sabotage the new status quo. This means Israel will also target Syria’s military installations in Lebanon and in Syria proper.

Such an escalation means only one thing: a war between Israel and Syria. But a new round of hostilities is not in the interests of anyone. Neither Hezbollah, Assad nor Israel wish for that war. *