Despite a UN probe into his possible role in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and a public challenge to his rule by a prominent Syrian politician in exile, Syrian President Bashar Assad appears likely to endure for the foreseeable future, say experts.

Hamas’ recent victory in Palestinian elections was just the latest in a series of events that appears to have strengthened his position. The fact that Hamas’ chairman, Khaled Meshal, is based in Damascus reminds the world that Assad remains an important regional player. Even before the election results were announced, things appeared to be going Assad’s way. Despite efforts by US Vice-President Dick Cheney to press Saudi Arabia and Egypt into a harder line against Damascus, opposition to moves that might lead to Syria’s destabilisation remains high.

Indeed, the growing prospects for Assad’s weathering the storm are due as much to fears by his neighbours, particularly Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey, about what might replace him, as to his own manoeuvring in Lebanon and Syria in the tumultuous months that followed Hariri’s assassination nearly a year ago. Even Israel has started insisting that it refers a relatively weakened, but pragmatic, Assad in Damascus to any likely alternative.

Hamas’ victory in the Palestinian territories also supplies sceptics in both the Arab world and Europe with new evidence that President Bush’s zeal for democratising the Middle East is bringing to power extremist forces that are hostile to the West and to Israel.

The uproar over Hariri’s assassination, as well as US and French-led actions by the Security Council, resulted in the withdrawal of the 30,000 Syrian troops who remained in Lebanon after its civil war in the mid-1970s. Despite their absence, as well as an aggressive UN investigation whose prosecutor has asked to depose Assad himself, Damascus and its Lebanese allies, notably Hezbollah, remain both formidable and feared. While Hariri, who, as the leader of the parliamentary majority in Lebanon, reportedly asked Bush to provide the military personnel and equipment to oversee the rebuilding of Lebanon’s security forces and army, sat silent through the photo-op, Bush himself pledged that he was committed to working for a Lebanon free of foreign influence, free of Syrian intimidation, and free to chart its own course.

But how Bush can achieve that result is much less clear. Washington has imposed far-reaching economic and other sanctions against the regime. However, it has had less success in persuading its allies in the European Union to follow suit, or to designate Hezbollah, Damascus’ chief Lebanese client, as a terrorist movement. Former Syrian Vice-President Abdel-Halim Khaddam had accused Assad of ordering the elder Hariri’s killing and called for the regime’s ouster. Khaddam’s denunciations of Assad, which were depicted as the most serious challenge to the Syrian president, should be seen as more of a post-script to a lengthy power struggle between Assad’s circle and the old guard that ended in Assad’s victory at the Ba’ath party congress last June.

Despite the fact that US lacks the power to overthrow Assad and that none of its regional allies support regime change in Syria, the administration still refuses to engage Assad on possible cooperation in Iraq. — IPS