Arab nations add to pressure on Syrian regime

Syria’s neighbors have turned decisively against President Bashar Assad, launching a diplomatic campaign against his crackdown on the country’s pro-democracy movement that analysts say could have a major effect on important pillars of Assad’s support.

Even as Syrian armed forces pushed Monday against several opposition strongholds, international action against the government mushroomed. The diplomatic pressure marked a significant change from the largely cautious international response for most of the last five months.

Western countries so far have led efforts to pressure Assad to stop the violent crackdown on protesters, including issuing a U.N. Security Council statement last week condemning the offensive. Over the weekend, the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council, a body of six wealthy Arabian Peninsula kingdoms, also denounced the violence. And on Monday, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors.

In addition, Turkey, once a steadfast ally, is preparing to take a harder approach. Turkish reports said Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu would arrive in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Tuesday to deliver an ultimatum.

The two nations “will sit down and talk for one last time,” the Turkish daily Hurriyet quoted an unidentified Foreign Ministry official as saying. “The talks will show whether the ties will be cut loose or not, or if a new [Turkish] policy is to be outlined on Syria. That’s the last meeting.”

The Obama administration praised the increased diplomatic pressure. Mark Toner, a State Department spokesman, said Washington was heartened by the response from the Saudis, the Persian Gulf states and the Arab League, but said that more was needed.

There were signs that Washington was looking to Turkey to use its influence. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Davutoglu on Sunday and a senior U.S. diplomat, Fred Hof, visited Ankara, the Turkish capital.

Although the United States and European Union have imposed sanctions on individuals and pressed Assad to make reforms, they have stopped short of saying he should step down. Western policymakers are concerned about instability in a country with a potent sectarian mix that borders Israel and Lebanon and is allied with Iran.

Though Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi has so far proved able to withstand the end of diplomatic recognition, an armed rebellion, NATO airstrikes and defection of many loyalists, Syria may be different. Unlike Libya, it has little oil revenue to fund its patronage networks and it has in the past proved susceptible to pressure.

“Historically, concerted multilateral pressure and sanctions have the greatest impact on the Assad regime’s calculations,” said Andrew Tabler, a Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former longtime resident of Damascus. “The former forced Assad to pull his forces out of Lebanon in February 2005. And we know that sanctions impact the regime, given its terrible economic situation and the regime’s worsening finances.”

The evidence that Assad is susceptible to sanctions, he said, is that it has pressed the United States to lift them if Syria negotiates a peace treaty with Israel.

Top echelons of the Syrian government appear to perceive the protest movement as an existential threat, but important pillars of Assad’s support may be vulnerable to outside pressure, analysts said.

Pressure “may not matter to the very top,” said Robert Malley, Middle East and North Africa director for the International Crisis Group, a conflict resolution and advocacy group funded by Western governments and charities. “But it may matter to the people who are right beneath them. It may matter to those who have to decide to stick to the decision makers at the core of the regime, or whether they sense the tide is turning domestically and internationally.”

Among those constituencies are the prosperous Sunni Muslim and Christian merchant class in Damascus and Aleppo, traders with ties to neighboring Turkey and even members of Assad’s minority Alawite community, a small Shiite sect, whose members lead the country’s secret police.

“Members of the security forces may themselves be concerned that the violence is pointless and exposes the whole Alawite community to the wrath of the population,” which is overwhelmingly Sunni, Malley said.

Assad’s timing and targets appear to have forced Persian Gulf countries, which also are predominantly Sunni, to act. Gulf monarchies were cool to the so-called Arab Spring uprisings, which inspired the protesters in Syria. Saudi Arabia dispatched troops to quell demonstrations in neighboring Bahrain.

But Assad’s decision to conduct major offensives in largely Sunni enclaves during the holy month of Ramadan appears to have turned the gulf countries against him. His July 31 move against the city of Hama evoked memories of a massacre of civilians in the city by forces loyal to his father in 1982.

“It was the fact that the regime has crossed a threshold in the quantity and quality of the violence it was willing to use, especially with regard to a Hama,” Malley said. “It’s very hard for them to stand by silently to see members of the Sunni community killed the way they were killed.”

The assault launched Sunday on Dair Alzour, a far eastern tribal region bordering Iraq and with deep cultural connections to the Arabian Peninsula, made matters worse.

According to a recent International Crisis Group report on Syria, Dair Alzour airport offers daily flights to Kuwait City but only weekly flights to Damascus.

“The tribes in eastern Syria have extensive contacts in Saudi,” Tabler said. “Many of them have Saudi and [United Arab Emirates] nationality.”

Assad has resisted pressure to curtail the offensive. On Monday he fired Defense Minister Ali Habib, a moderate figure many activists had held out as a possible transition figure, and replaced him with army chief of staff Daoud Rajha.

Residents of the northwestern town of Maarat Numaan, the scene of persistent antigovernment protests, said soldiers and tanks moved into the main square. Security forces launched fresh assaults on Dair Alzour and Hama.

“At 6:00 a.m. tanks moved into Museum Square. We heard gunfire all around,” said a 30-year-old laborer, who identified himself only by his first name, Wissam. “At first we didn’t know where it was coming from until we saw security personnel move into the neighborhoods and assume positions.”

In Dair Alzour, residents said security forces were focusing on the districts of Hawika and Joura, where a group of soldiers was rumored to have defected to the opposition.

“Now those areas are completely isolated by tanks,” said Abdullah Furati, a resident reached by telephone. “We hear explosions all around now. Snipers have taken positions around the areas.”

In Hama, a resident said two young men were publicly executed Sunday on the streets, including a member of the Bunni clan, a prominent Syrian family known for its opposition sympathies.

“They’ve killed people in cold blood before, but never a public show like this,” said a 31-year-old activist who gave his name as Abu Zeid. “They were shot at the wall of a mosque and then their bodies were taken away.”

He said security forces were trying to round up antigovernment activists, and had come to his house the previous night when he wasn’t there.

“They put a gun to the stomach of my 8-year-old boy and took my brother instead of me,” he said. “We are so afraid for him. We are trying to get him out.”

daragahi@latimes.com

Special correspondent Roula Hajjar in Beirut and Times staff writer Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.