Word: syrian
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...spectacle of rockets raining down on northern Israel has got to have Hafez Assad grinning - if he's able to, since a British newspaper reported over the weekend that the Syrian president recently suffered an incapacitating stroke. But Assad certainly has reason to smile, because the latest exchange of fire between the Jewish state and the Hezbollah guerrilla fighters just across the border casts a shadow over Israel's plan to complete its withdrawal from Lebanon without first concluding a land-for-peace deal with Syria. Hezbollah fired Katyushka rockets into the town of Shlomi on Friday, killing one soldier...
...Ousted Pakistani Prime Minister, who has been jailed for life 33. Ship pronoun 34. Listen in on, in a way 35. Earth-friendly prefix 37. Wile E. Coyote's supply company 41. Lipton competitor 44. Divining device 45. Judge who's no friend of 4-Across 48. Syrian Foreign Minister __, who distanced himself from the idea of sending troops to south Lebanon 50. Hurting 51. Hour on some sundials 52. Valletta is its capital 53. Photographic image, for short...
With no peace, Hizballah still faces a serious dilemma. If the impasse in negotiations with Israel persists, as indicated by President Clinton's failed talks in Geneva last week with Syrian President Hafez Assad, Syria may eventually sanction new Hizballah attacks to pressure Israel for concessions. Yet if Hizballah cooperates with such wishes, the Israeli reprisal bombings that would surely follow might alienate legions of Hizballah's hard-won Lebanese supporters. What is not in doubt is that Hizballah's well-trained and well-equipped fighters will fight on, if told to do so. "When the Israelis leave, we will...
...placing his regime in peril. Conflict with Israel has propped up Assad's authoritarian rule; peace will undermine a pillar of the regime's legitimacy. Worse yet for the Assad regime, peace on the Israeli front and the security arrangements that come with it will invariably mean redeploying the Syrian army from the Golan Heights closer to Damascus. Coups occur when troops mill around the capital, not when they are stationed far off on the Golan. No one knows this brutal fact better than Assad, who himself seized power by coup d'etat in 1970 as an air force general...
...Israeli and Syrian governments eventually reach an agreement, it would be folly for the Israeli public to scuttle it. Ultimately, for Israel the strongest defense against Syria is not the strategic buffer of the Golan Heights, but the destabilizing influence peace will have on Assad's authoritarian rule. The current regime in Damascus is a major bottleneck to peace; it occupies Lebanon with 30,000 troops, allows the radical Iranian-inspired Hezbollah to operate against Israel, and remains on the State Department's list of terrorist-sponsoring states. A Syrian-Israeli agreement under these circumstances will be more like...