DATE=6/12/2000 TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP TITLE=AL-ASSAD'S DEATH CLOUDS MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROSPECTS NUMBER=6-11866 BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE DATELINE=WASHINGTON EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS TELEPHONE=619-3335 INTERNET=YES CONTENT= INTRO: The death of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad over the weekend, although not totally unexpected, has further complicated efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East. Many U-S newspapers feel Mr. Al-Assad's designated successor, his ophthalmologist son Bashar, will be forced to concentrate on consolidating power within the country, before he can venture forth on regional diplomacy. That said, many U-S dailies are greeting the news with the guarded hope that the new Syrian leader, educated in the West, and part of the "Internet generation," will lead the country forward both economically, politically, and, in a new direction toward his Israeli and other neighbors. We get reaction now from __________to the death of the man known as The Lion of Damascus," in today's U-S Opinion Roundup. TEXT: One of the leading experts on Syria in the United States is Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum and the author of three books on the country. He is much in demand to analyze what the passing of President al-Assad means to Syria, and to the region. Writing in the Sunday [6/11] Washington Post, Mr. Pipes disputes the theory that President Assad's death has "driven the final nail of the coffin of peace efforts" between Israel and Syria. TEXT: ... this analysis has it exactly wrong. So long as Syria's President Assad was alive, there was never a chance of a Syrian-Israeli peace treaty; now that he is dead, it is newly possible. ... The great constraint on Syrian peacemaking is gone. Far from driving the "final nail" into the peace process coffin, his death pries the coffin open and allows the corpse for the first time to come to life. That said, things could also get worse. Just as [President] Assad studiously avoided a peace treaty with Israel, he also made sure there was no all-out war. ... With [Mr.] Assad's 30-year reign now over, that could change; rivalries within the Syrian elite, for example, might lead to war [in the Golan]. In other words, what was a deeply static and predictable situation has burst wide open. /// OPT /// ... If [Mr.] Assad senior was unmoved by the promise of the Golan Heights and substantial sums of money, these benefits are likely to weigh much more heavily in the decision-making of his successors. Thus is a Syrian-Israeli deal more likely now than at any time in the past. /// END OPT /// TEXT: In another commentary in Monday's Wall Street Journal, Mr. Pipes cautions that anyone trying to understand internal Syrian affairs, needs to be aware of the minority religious faith of both President Assad and his son, Bashar. They are Alawites, a small, secretive, Muslim-based faith that the country's majority Sunni Muslims consider heretical. That has always been a source of tension, and accounted for a Muslim revolt in the city of Hama in 1982 which Mr. Assad put down, leaving about 20- thousand dead. Turning to the general condition of the country he leaves, Mr. Pipes says: VOICE: [President] Assad leaves behind him a country in roughly as terrible shape as when he took it over in 1970. Yes, Syria benefited from the stability he brought, but it was a desolate, repressive stability that masked, and did not solve, the deep tensions in Syrian society. As in the former Yugoslavia, these could explode after the long-time dictator's demise. ... [President] Assad's rule, like that of every totalitarian despot, must in the final analysis be judged not just a failure but a tragic failure that needlessly caused missions to suffer. TEXT: On the topic of successor, although it is widely presumed that Mr. Assad's son Bashar, a London- trained eye doctor, will assume the leader's role, an editorial in the Washington Post says nothing is certain right now. VOICE: ... it is by no means clear that Bashar Assad will be able to assume control over Syria. Nor is clear that modernization domestically would translate into a more reasonable foreign policy. It may be, in fact, that the price of his accession will be his continuation of the hard-line policies that gave his father his nationalist credibility. And even if Bashar Assad were inclined more positively, he might still lack the internal clout to take the controversial steps that peace will require. TEXT: Another cautious appraisal comes from Boston's Christian Science Monitor. VOICE: The passing of the "Lion of Damascus" isn't likely to turn Syria into a sheep anytime soon. Arab societies are just too conservative. Even fax machines were banned until recently under Hafez Assad's rule. Yet with an end to Mr. Assad's 30-year reign, Syria's pivotal role as a Middle East peace spoiler may now come to an end. ... The defender of pan-Arab nationalism preferred, in the end, not to seal a peace that would allow Israel to dominate the region. ... That task is left to his oldest (surviving) son, Bashar ... who wants to bring the Internet Age to a country where power still flows father to son - and with bullets, not ballots. TEXT: When he learned of the death of President Assad, President Clinton said: "We had our differences, but I always respected him." USA Today, the national daily published in a Washington suburb, finds that comment surprising. VOICE: [President] Assad was an implacable enemy of both Israel and democracy. He suppressed dissent, locked up the free press, closed Syria to outside influences and was always quick to denounce peace treaties as sellouts by Arab nations to Israel. His role as peacemaker was more crass strategy than genuine yearning. Only with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, long a Syrian benefactor, did Syria see the need to start talking peace. And it was only talk. Any time an actual peace deal seemed within reach, [Mr.] Assad ladled on new demands ensuring defeat. //// OPT /// TEXT: A leading proponent of the school of thought that an Israeli - Syrian peace must be put on hold for some time, is The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. VOICE: When Syrian President Hafez al-Assad died ... the prospects of a formal peace with Israel may have died with him - - at least for now. Syria's new leader, Mr. Assad's 34-year- old son Bashar, is likely to be too busy consolidating his position to undertake dramatic initiatives. In the long term, however, Bashar Assad, part of a new generation of Western- educated Arab leaders, may be able to grasp the peace ... his father ultimately spurned. TEXT: The Chicago Tribune is somewhat more hopeful, suggesting: VOICE: His passing creates new possibilities for progress in peace, assuming ... Syria can weather new fears of instability. [President] Assad ... was the final holdout in peace talks with Israel, coming to the table well after other Arab leaders. Even though he had made the strategic decision to pursue talks ... his obstinate nature precluded any final agreement. /// END OPT /// TEXT: Mr. Al-Assad "has been a fixture of Syrian politics and diplomacy for so long" says Monday's New York Times, "... it is hard to imagine the Middle East without him." However the paper is also hopeful of positive change in the not too distant future. VOICE: No negotiating breakthrough is likely soon. But if Bashar al-Assad consolidates control, he might be able to make the deal his father could not. Reestablishing the precise June 1967 [Israeli-Syrian] border had become a personal obsession for Hafez al-Assad. His son may have other priorities, like carefully opening up safety valves in Syria's Leninist policed state and guiding its backward and isolated economy into the Internet age. TEXT: Still in New York, The Daily News says the death has: VOICE: ... thrown a giant question mark over the Middle East, with the Syrian track of the peace process no doubt to be put on hold, while factions inside this last of the front-line states at war with Israel rush to fill the power vacuum. TEXT: In a more sharply worded comment, The New York Post writes, under the editorial headline: No Tears for Hafez Assad: VOICE: To listen to President Clinton talking about the tremendous `respect" he had for Syrian President Hafez Assad ... one might have thought that the Mahatma Gandhi of the Middle East had passed on. Make no mistake: Hafez Assad was a murderous despot whose cruelty stood out even in a region known for such oppressive rulers. What ever his new-found willingness to take part in negotiations with Israel, he came to the table with blood on his hands - - most of it belonging to his own people. ... So weep no tears for Hafez Assad. He brought a measure of political stability to Syria - - but at a terrible, bloody price. /// OPT /// TEXT: Lastly, from The Los Angeles Times, the paper sees the prospect of both doubts and opportunities for the region. VOICE: The death ... brings new uncertainties along with new opportunities to the country he ruled for nearly 30 years and to the region where his influence vastly exceeded the military and economic resources at his command. The uncertainties stem from the threat to stability that arises when any autocrat dies. ... [However] [Mr.] Assad's death offers Syria a chance to reorient his policies, not just to make peace with Israel but to revive its stagnant and corruption-riddled economy, ease decades of repression and end its political isolation. /// END OPT /// TEXT: With that comment, we conclude this sampling of editorial comment on the death last Saturday of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad. NEB/ANG/PW 12-Jun-2000 13:10 PM EDT (12-Jun-2000 1710 UTC) NNNN Source: Voice of America .