In the Lion's Den

by Andrew Tabler

  Over several glasses of Lebanese wine and oriental salads, all of us speculated about what would happen and what the final text of the report might say. In an interview the previous week, Joshua had expressed what we were all thinking. “Obviously, this is going to lead to the Syrian government,” he told the Council on Foreign Relations. “How far up the line is [the investigation] going to go? … Will Mehlis implicate someone in the president’s family[?] … If it was somebody in the immediate family, it would be a real crisis.”15

  As soon as I awoke the next morning, I ran to my computer to see if the report’s text was available. A colleague in Beirut, The Times’ correspondent Nicholas Blanford, had sent me the report electronically. As soon as I opened it, Hugh called.

  “Did you see it? Did you see it?” he yelled into the phone. When I asked him what he was talking about, he said, “The report. Hit ‘View Changes’ in Microsoft Word. Someone at the United Nations removed Assef Shawkat and Maher al-Assad’s names right before the report was published.”

  Sure enough, in paragraph ninety-six, the report said, “One witness of Syrian origin but resident in Lebanon, who claims to have worked for the Syrian intelligence services in Lebanon, has stated that approximately two weeks after the adoption of Security Council Resolution 1559, senior Lebanese and Syrian officials decided to assassinate Rafik Hariri.” The “Track Changes” version, however, showed that the names “Maher al-Assad, Assef Shawkat, Hassan Khalil, Bahjat Suleiman and Jamil al-Sayyed” in the original draft had been removed and replaced with “senior Lebanese and Syrian officials.” The tracked changes showed that the text had been removed at midday on October 20 by “special rep”—presumably Terje Roed-Larsen, UN special representative for the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559.

  I just stared at the screen in disbelief. Assef Shawkat? Maher Assad? Until then, the only place where you might see their names associated with any crime—the Hariri assassination or anything else—would be on far-right Lebanese websites or that of the exiled Reform Party of Syria in the United States. At Syria Today, we didn’t dare write their names, which was out of fear, but also out of lack of evidence. This report seemed to change all that.

  I called my friend Ibrahim Hamidi at his office in the Al Hayat newspaper bureau. When I asked him if he had heard about the changes, he had no idea what I was talking about. After a few minutes of trying unsuccessfully to explain how “Track Changes” in Microsoft Word worked, I jumped in a taxi and went over to his office. At his terminal, I showed him the text. He didn’t say a word and just stared at the screen, expressionless, in shock.

  At the United Nations, Syria’s foreign minister, Farouk al-Shara, faced tough questioning over the investigation. Shara responded to a line of the report stating that “there is probable cause to believe that the decision to assassinate former prime minister Rafik Hariri could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials” by turning the statement around and saying that, by the same definition, the United States, Spain, and the United Kingdom must therefore be responsible for the recent terrorist attacks on their own countries. Immediately, the United Kingdom’s foreign secretary, Jack Straw, issued a strong rebuttal, describing Shara’s comparison of Syria’s situation in Lebanon to that of the United States, United Kingdom, and Spain as “grotesque and insensitive.” He also reiterated Mehlis’s position regarding Syria’s lack of cooperation with the investigation, which he hoped Syria would rectify. “But I have to say, after what I have heard, that I am not holding my breath,” Straw said.16

  The panic started immediately. In open-market currency trading in Lebanon, the Syrian pound lost nearly 25 percent of its value overnight. At Syria Today, staff members were stunned by the news. “My family and I stayed up all night watching television coverage of the report,” one staff member told me. Another said that he never “dreamed of a day when he would see high-level Syrians atop a United Nations report.”

  In private, Hugh and I discussed the investigation in depth and how it would impact Syria Today‘s coverage. We both understood that the day’s events would have a profound impact on what the magazine could and could not print. However, we also recognized, based on our conversations with trusted sources, that things at the top of the Assad regime seemed chaotic and that it was a distinct possibility that the regime could topple, resulting in some kind of palace coup or an Alawite military officer seizing power. The Syrian opposition, historically hapless, had managed to agree on the Damascus Declaration. More impressive than the declaration’s text were the political skills shown by Syria’s most well-known opposition leader, Michel Kilo, who had managed to draft the declaration quietly. The Muslim Brotherhood had also jumped onboard. Perhaps some sort of democratic transition was possible in Syria—but the chances seemed remote.

  Concerning Syria Today, we decided to go ahead with our coverage of the Hariri investigation but also to push red lines to see where things stood. In December 2005, Syria Today‘s cover story, “When Exception Becomes the Rule,” probed Syria’s use of security courts to try civilians and examined the Hariri evidence in detail. To our surprise, the edition came back from censorship approved. We were relieved, not only for the edition’s clearance, but because in the days leading up to the magazine’s publication, rumors had spread throughout the Syrian capital that our former patron, Asma al-Assad, had fled to London to live with her family. Her NGOs remained open, but reports from friends said that no one was showing up for work.

  On December 15, 2005, the Security Council met to discuss Mehlis’s findings since his first report. After extensive deliberation, they passed Resolution 1644, which demanded that Syria respond “unambiguously and immediately” to the commission investigating the terrorist attack that had killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, and they extended the investigation another six months. The resolution also demanded that Syria implement “without delay” any future request of the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission. The resolution was passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, meaning Syrian noncompliance would be a “threat to peace,” allowing the United Nations to use sanctions or military force to enforce the measure.17

  As 2005 drew to a close, many predicted that the Assad regime would soon fall. On December 30, former vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam gave a lengthy interview on the Saudi-owned pan-Arab satellite television station Al Arabiya. He said that Assad’s advisers were putting the country on the path to ruin, forcing Khaddam to choose between the regime and his country. He did not directly criticize Assad, but descriptions of how easily he had been duped by the former Syrian security chief in Lebanon, Rustom Ghazaleh, and Farouk al-Shara made the president appear naïve.

  While Khaddam had polite words for the president, his comments on the Hariri assassination grabbed international headlines. He said that if Hariri’s murder was carried out by Syrian intelligence, “they would not make such a decision alone … this is not possible”—indicating Assad would have certainly known about the murder. Khaddam added that Assad had threatened Hariri during their last meeting in Damascus. Khaddam said that he and other Syrian officials heard Assad say “very, very, very hard” things to Hariri and that “he will crush anyone who tries to get out of our decision. I cannot recall the exact words. But they were very harsh words.”18

  5

  THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY FRIEND

  For ten days after Mehlis announced his findings, the presidential palace in Damascus was silent. Rumors spread throughout the Syrian capital that President Assad had suffered a nervous breakdown, as Syria now faced even greater diplomatic isolation and the specter of UN sanctions should the regime fail to comply with the investigation. Many in Damascus talked of a possible palace coup, in which Bashar would be replaced by his brother Maher or his brother-in-law, chief of military intelligence Assef Shawkat—both names in the tracked changes of Mehlis’s first report. Others predicted that Assad would try and bu
ild up popular support by implementing the reforms promised at the Baath Party conference, most notably a new political parties law.

  At 7 AM on November 10, a mobile-phone text message—sent in Arabic and English to all subscribers of Syriatel, the mobile network owned by Assad’s cousin and business tycoon Rami Makhlouf—broke the silence. It asked Syrians to attend a rally that day near Damascus University demonstrating “love of country and the rejection of external pressures.” By midday, thousands gathered out in front of the main hall of Damascus University. Pumping their fists into the air, the crowd chanted, “In spirit, in blood, we will sacrifice for you, oh Bashar”—the same mantra that Syrian soldiers had chanted at that airbase in the Bekaa the day Syrian forces pulled out of Lebanon.1

  When President Assad took the podium inside the university’s main hall, he seemed ill at ease. Obviously under pressure, Assad started in a way that his father never did: he made it personal.

  Before I start this speech, I would like to say that I was asked several times last week why I look pale, and whether it was because of the pressures. I said no. In fact I was a little ill. I am saying this so that I do not get asked the same question again. Political circumstances make us more united, and when we get united we become stronger and livelier. This speech was scheduled for next week, but because of the fast pace of developments, I decided to make it today.

  With that, Assad slipped back into standard “regime speak,” urging his people to remain strong in the face of “cultural and psychological warfare.” Instead of addressing the points raised in the UN investigation, Assad framed the crisis as a US or Israeli conspiracy against Syria. “We must be steadfast in facing this foreign attack,” Assad said. “We don’t want to name names, but you know who I am talking about.” The audience erupted in laughter.

  Concerning Syria’s domestic scene, Assad added that the regime would extend citizenship to hundreds of thousands of Kurds in Syria whose citizenship had been stripped away in the 1960s—a key point discussed at the Baath Party conference the previous June. In a clear warning to the Syrian opposition, Assad said, “If someone in Syria raises his voice in tandem with foreigners, he is being controlled by foreigners.”

  In the final lines of the speech, Assad hinted at his plan for rolling back the pressures bearing down on his regime. “This region has two options: chaos or resistance,” Assad said. “In the end, we are going to win, one way or another, even if it lasts a long time. Syria is protected by God.”2

  As I watched Assad receive a standing ovation, I thought about the speech and what it all meant. Directly and indirectly, Assad had told Syrians that the Hariri investigation in Lebanon was “politicized” and part of a plot against Syria by foreign powers. He was also clearly warning the opposition not to work with “foreigners”—that is, Americans or Westerners trying to help the Syrian opposition. But what was with “Syria is protected by God”? The Assad regime never made references to God, in keeping with the Baath Party’s distinctly secular language. And what did he mean by “resistance”? Resistance to the pressures bearing down on Syria? Or resistance to Israel? When I asked the Syria Today staff what they thought it all meant, they just shrugged their shoulders.

  We didn’t have to wait long for an answer. In the days following the speech, Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki arrived in Damascus for talks with Assad. After a long set of meetings with the Syrian president, Mottaki also consulted with “resistance” groups based in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine–General Command (PFLP-GC) chief Ahmed Jabril, and a representative of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A week later on November 21, Hezbollah launched an attempted kidnapping in Ghajar, a border village disputed between Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The raid marked the largest attack on Israel since the withdrawal of its forces from Lebanon in May 2000.

  On January 19, the hard-line Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made his first state visit to Damascus. The two leaders announced a bilateral alliance to confront “foreign pressures,” and President Assad publicly declared Syria’s support for Iran’s efforts to acquire nuclear technology. High-level delegations accompanying Ahmadinejad signed a number of protocols pushing economic, educational, and cultural cooperation between the two countries to unprecedented levels, followed up by scores of visits by Iranian officials. By June, Damascus and Tehran concluded their first mutual defense pact. “Syria’s security is considered as part of the security and national interests of Iran,” Iranian defense minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said after the June 2006 signing ceremony in Tehran. “We find ourselves bound to defend it.”

  While Syria’s deepening relationship with Iran made international headlines, the regime began to reorient its rhetoric and propaganda toward Islam. At first, the symbolism was largely political. On the streets of Damascus, posters with images of Assad, Ahmadinejad, and Nasrallah, all surrounded by roses, began appearing on shop facades and car rear windows. Larger banners with Syria is protected by god were strewn throughout the Syrian capital. Syrian flags, with the slogan written into the middle white band alongside two stars—reminiscent of Saddam Hussein’s addition of “Allahu akbar” (God is great) to the Iraqi flag after his forces were driven out of Kuwait in 1991—hung from buildings. State-owned radio and TV repeated the slogan so many times that it quickly turned into a mantra.

  By January 2006, however, there were real signs that the regime was reorienting itself away from its secular past and toward Islam. In September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. States throughout the Arab world demanded that the Danish government apologize for the incident. Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s refusal to do so, because his government “does not control the media,” as it would violate “freedom of speech,” fell well short of most Syrians’ expectations.

  On the morning of February 4, banner-wielding protesters began gathering near Rouda Square in Damascus for what would be the biggest diplomatic incident since the storming of the American ambassador’s residence in 2000 in response to US-coalition air strikes on Iraq.

  Around 3 PM, demonstrators marched toward the Danish embassy located in the adjacent neighborhood of Abou Roumaneh, where Leila and I were sitting in that neighborhood’s local Kentucky Fried Chicken—Syria’s first Western fast-food restaurant. As I tucked into my three-piece-chicken combo meal, I noticed a swelling crowd through the restaurant’s front windows. When the demonstrations first started, uniformed security services patrolled the streets and traffic policemen directed cars across the district’s main thoroughfare. Soon, however, the waves of protesters could not be controlled. Leila and I rushed out of the door to see what was going on. The crowd was angry but not unruly. Uniformed security agents were gathered at the far end of the boulevard, where a perpendicular street led to the three-story villa housing the Danish, Swedish, and Chilean embassies.

  As I rounded the corner of Abou Roumaneh Street, pushing my way through security forces dressed in olive green, I began to hear something that sounded like popcorn popping. About thirty yards down the street, protesters were stoning the Danish embassy. I stopped in my tracks and took a photo.

  As I got closer to the embassy, I heard calls of “Allahu akbar” punctuated by sounds of shattering glass. Around a thousand protesters were pushing hard toward the embassies, packed into an area the size of half a football field. Flags of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad fluttered in the air. Banners with enigmatic slogans in English, such as we are ready printed in blood-red ink, dotted the crowd. I was a bit surprised, since Syrian protest banners are usually handmade, full of horrible English spelling and grammar mistakes. What happened next helped me understand just what that slogan meant, a little about where it was coming from, and who was behind it.

  The front gate of a church adjacent to the embassy complex was open, with no signs of forced e
ntry. Half a dozen Syrian men, between the ages of fifteen and fifty, were trying to scale the wall of the embassy from the church garden. As the crowd cheered the climbers, I began to notice that more than fifteen uniformed state security agents were assembled in front of the church—smoking cigarettes. Not a single officer lifted a finger to stop the rioters or looked at all nervous.

  A number of protesters had already climbed onto apartment-block balconies across from the embassy—a perfect pitcher’s mound for the rock barrage that was still under way. A banner reading IT’S NOT FREEDOM THAT YOU MEAN, BUT INCITEMENT WHAT [sic] YOU MEAN was draped over one terrace railing. Where the stones came from was anyone’s guess, but their brown, earthen color indicated that they did not come from the immediate surrounding area, which was completely paved or covered in asphalt.

  One of the climbers, a Syrian man in his early thirties with long black hair and a shortly cropped beard, finally made it onto the terrace of the embassy complex’s second floor, which was home to the Swedish embassy. He immediately began tugging at the Danish coat of arms, a colorful metal plate under the flagpole a floor above. Breaking it loose, he lifted it above his head and slammed it to the earth. Momentarily silenced by the spectacle, the crowd then roared approval, as chants of “Allahu akbar” echoed again. Unable to reach the Danish embassy on the third floor, the bearded man hoisted the green banner of Islam—on which was written LA ALLAH ILLA ALLAH, WA MUHAMMAD AR-RUSUL ALLAH (There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is the prophet of God)—up the Swedish embassy’s flagpole. The crowd roared again.

  Protesters were excited but not full of the kind of hate that might justify their stoning a building. While my light-brown hair, blue eyes, and northern European features (a Danish friend once told me that I look a bit Scandinavian) would have seemed to scream “hit me,” I noticed not so much as a dirty look. I was sporting a short-cropped beard, which could have been taken as a sign of Muslim piety. Every time Leila called me on my mobile phone, I made sure I spoke in Arabic. When a few English words slipped out of my mouth, a number of protesters looked my way, but not too hard.