Word: syrian
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Early risers in Damascus these days are treated to what is ordinarily an unthinkable sight in the Syrian capital: antigovernment graffiti. LONG LIVE SADDAM HUSSEIN, one scrawler proclaimed recently in a bold protest against President Hafez Assad's participation in the U.S.-led alliance against Saddam. The inscriptions are quickly erased, but government authorities know that all the whitewash in the world cannot obliterate the sentiment they express. "To be anti-U.S. and pro-Arab nationalism is what people in Syria have been groomed for, and it's very difficult to shake off," says a Western diplomat in Damascus...
...small irony that as President Bush and Assad met in Geneva last week, both men found themselves under attack at home for the get-together -- the American for cozying up to a dictator who has never been reluctant to use terrorism to achieve his goals, the Syrian for dealing with the U.S. Posters of Assad have been defaced. Anonymous leaflets criticizing the alliance with the West have quietly circulated and, according to diplomats, have resulted in arrests in southern Syria. Authorities have confided to foreign dignitaries that an estimated 85% of the public opposes Syria's gulf policy. Even Syrian...
...whether the Arabs would carry the fight across the border into Kuwait. The Saudi Defense Minister, Prince Sultan, said early in the crisis that his country could not be used as a launching pad for an attack on Iraq without King Fahd's approval. Commanders of the Egyptian and Syrian units have said their troops are deployed to defend Saudi Arabia and not for offensive operations. While a United Nations resolution authorizing force against Saddam Hussein might galvanize the Islamic forces, for some of them the thought of killing their "Arab brothers" is still a strong deterrent to their involvement...
Syria has pledged an armored division -- 15,000 men, 300 Soviet-made T-72 tanks -- but they too are trickling in, with only 3,000 troops deployed so far in Saudi Arabia, though more were expected last weekend. Coordination between the Syrian and Western forces would face another serious obstacle: the Syrians are armed mostly with Soviet hardware. As a radical Arab state standing shoulder to shoulder with the conservative royalty of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Syria's greatest value is political. "If they never fire a shot," says Jeffrey Record, a Washington military analyst, "they are worth their weight...
...sprang up during the country's 15 years of civil war have promised to disband their forces and transform themselves into political parties. The pro-Iranian Hizballah, a Shi'ite extremist group that is thought to hold most of the Western hostages in Lebanon, feels threatened by the recent Syrian deployment in its stronghold, Beirut's southern suburbs. But given the importance Damascus attaches to its relations with Iran, especially in the midst of the effort to isolate Iraq, the Syrians are unlikely to turn on Hizballah yet. Last week Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa dampened speculation that some...