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June 16, 2000/13 Sivan I 5760, Vol. 52, No.41
Danger and opportunityEditorialOn Bashar al-Assad's first day on the job, he buried his father.The funeral of Syrian President Hafez al Assad on June 13 signaled the end of an era, and the beginning of what may be a better one, for the backwater Arab nation. As Syrians mourned the passing of the autocratic Assad, the only president many have ever known, they effected the transition of power from father to son. The contrast is striking. Assad, an old guard Arab nationalist whose mission was fueled by a grandiose vision of pan-Arabism and fired by fervent anti-Zionism, stubbornly resisted change. Even as Egypt and Jordan eventually made peace with Israel, Assad clung to the humiliation of Syria's defeat at the hands of the Israelis in 1967. He did not let go of his hatred, even as it became clear to many observers that Syria's future was being marginalized by self-imposed isolation, even as it could have been enhanced by making peace with the Jewish state. A deal to return the vast Golan Heights to Syria in exchange for rigorous security guarantees reportedly fell apart when Assad demanded 200 more yards of disputed territory. Such was Assad's intransigence. Whether Bashar, a 34-year-old Western-educated ophthalmologist with a penchant for computers, suffers from the same myopia - or has a worldview of more expansive proportion - remains to be seen. It bodes well that King Abdullah of Jordan, another young, Western-educated Arab leader who ascended to power after his father's death last year, has been a frequent visitor to Damascus. And initial contact between Bashar and U.S. officials indicates an openness to talk. In a country with a crumbling economic infrastructure and endemic social ills, will Bashar be able to avert a crisis in leadership and assert his authority? Crisis is made up of both danger and opportunity, the Chinese say. The coming weeks will test the ancient wisdom as Assad's son attempts to navigate the dangerous political terrain and lead Syria to a new era of favorable opportunity. |
