Word: assads
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Damascus' imposition of the cease-fire on Lebanon was a personal triumph for Syrian President Hafez Assad. He can now legitimately pose as the protector of the Lebanese Moslems and claim to have prevented an Arab state from destroying itself in a civil war. Moreover, he has acquired some measure of authority over the 400,000 Palestinians living in Lebanon. By using the P.L.A. to stop the fighting, Assad avoided direct Syrian military intervention in Lebanon, which might have triggered an invasion by Israeli troops...
...Role. The "Syrian windfall in Lebanon," as a State Department official called it, is only the latest step in a Syrian campaign to undercut Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's position as the leading spokesman of the Arab world. Assad outmaneuvered Sadat last summer by refusing to negotiate a new disengagement agreement with Israel over the Golan Heights after Sadat had already signed the Sinai accords. Last autumn Assad balked at renewing the mandate of the United Nations peace-keeping force in the Golan Heights unless the Palestine Liberation Organization was invited to a major Security Council debate...
...Despite Assad's championship of the Palestinian cause, Syrian domination of Lebanon may prove to be a mixed blessing for the fedayeen. Assad has kept the 17,000-man Palestinian forces inside Syria on a tight rein, denying them the freedom enjoyed by guerrillas in Lebanon. Last week Foreign Minister Khaddam, after a meeting with the Palestine Liberation Organization's Yasser Arafat, gave guarantees to Lebanese Christians that the fedayeen would abide by prior (but mostly ignored) agreements to restrict their military activities within Lebanon. Some observers believe that in future negotiations with Israel, Assad might even promise...
Diplomatic Success. Any such negotiations are at best in the distant future. For now, U.S. experts fear that Assad may be so flushed with diplomatic success that he will become increasingly intransigent. "He may try to ride things out until the U.S. is ready to take a more sweeping crack at the problem," observed a State Department Middle East expert. This means that Kissinger's step-by-step diplomacy may, for the moment, be dead. Assad has said that Syria will refuse to attend a Geneva conference unless the P.L.O. is also given its own seat; these conditions...
...strength by hurrying to the conference table. After all, he seems to want to strike some bargain with Israel. Moreover, he has never joined the so-called "rejection front" of Libya, Iraq and the Palestinians, who refuse to have anything to do with the Israelis. The choice is now Assad's, and never before has a Syrian decision had so potentially great an impact...