A YEAR AFTER HARIRI'S ASSASSINATION: ASAD STRIKES

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAMASCUS 000625 SIPDIS SIPDIS PARIS FOR ZEYA; LONDON FOR TSOU E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/12/2015 TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR ECON SY LE SUBJECT: A YEAR AFTER HARIRI'S ASSASSINATION: ASAD STRIKES A TOUGHER POSE REF: DAMASCUS 0594 Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Stephen A. Seche, per 1.4 b,d. ¶1. (C) Summary: One year after the murder of Rafik Hariri, the Syrian regime seems both confident and, increasingly, willing to adopt a more confrontational stance towards the West, making moves such as receiving Iranian President Ahmadinejad in Damascus and facilitating the violent demonstrations that took place in early February to protest the caricatures of Mohammed. While much of this confrontational approach has been carefully modulated, especially towards the UNIIIC, Syria's approach to Lebanon has been consistently marked by the use of violence and intimidation. The controversy over the caricatures of Mohammed offered the regime the perfect opportunity to showcase its confrontational politics and reap further political gains internally and regionally. The perception that its more combative posture has thus far succeeded seems to have buoyed the mood of the regime in the past few weeks. Nonetheless, several liabilities remain for the SARG that may undercut these policies in the coming months. End Summary. ¶2. (C) EMBRACING CONFRONTATION: The signs from Damascus on the anniversary of the assassination of Rafik Hariri point to a regime that has decided to opt for a more confrontational approach to its relationship with the U.S. and much of the rest of the international community. For the foreseeable future, Bashar al-Asad seems to have given up on the pretense of looking for common ground where he could negotiate with the U.S. in return for an easing of the pressure against his regime. At the same time, he seems emboldens to make gestures designed to signal his disregard for international efforts to isolate his regime. Contacts who know the regime well insist that some of these confrontational gestures are tactical and, except with regard to Lebanon, could be abandoned quickly if the SARG felt there was an opening to the U.S. promising better relations and addressing some of its interests. Given that such a meeting of the minds is unlikely, we assess that Syria's more confrontational posture is likely to continue. ¶3. (C) GETTING IT STARTED IN NOVEMBER: The SARG's more combative stance became apparent in November, when the regime settled on its posture of reluctant cooperation with the Hariri investigation, in tandem with a harsh nationalistic campaign against the UNIIIC and the U.S.-led international pressure. This stance was highlighted by the President's jingoistic, anti-Lebanon demagoguery in his November 10 speech, language that resonated very well with a Syrian public eager for strong leadership to restore national dignity wounded by persistent international criticism of Syrian policies. The December 12 assassination of Gibran Tueni, on the same day as the release of the second Mehlis report, signaled in the most brutal way possible that the Asad regime had decided that it would not permit Lebanon to slip out of its orbit and become a surrogate for US and French interests. ¶4. (C) KHADDAM AND AHMADINEJAD: It should be noted that former VP Kaddam's increasingly negative press campaign from Paris in late December and early January rattled the regime and seemed to reinforce the SARG's decision to adopt a more confrontational posture. The President received Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on a very high-profile state visit January 19-20. The visit took place just as Iran's confrontation with the international community over its nuclear program was reaching another crisis stage. The two countries sought to use the visit to demonstrate a united front against pressure from the United States and the West and to advance foreign policy goals linked to Lebanon, Iraq, and the Palestinians. While there was some second-guessing outside the regime about the wisdom of embracing the Iranians just when their leader seemed headed for full pariah status, the signals we got indicated little or no ambivalence inside the regime. Analysts close to the regime insisted that the SARG, in addition to showing that it had a friend and protector it could turn to, wanted to use the visit to remind the U.S. that it also had options, i.e., it could create mischief in a variety of places, if the U.S. chose to deal with it exclusively with pressure and isolation, or if it chose to try to unseat the regime. ¶5. (C) ASAD'S SECOND HARD-LINE SPEECH: Shortly after Ahmadinejad's visit, Asad delivered a second hard-line speech, this one dropping some of the threatening language he had previously directed at Lebanon but otherwise repeating his attacks on the UNIIIC. Using the forum of an international Arab lawyers conference in Damascus, Asad insisted that the international pressure on Syria was not just a campaign directed against Syria (or the regime) but was targeting the entire Arab and Islamic world. Asad also made clear that any internal reforms were a mere footnote, an indulgence that Syria could not afford to any significant degree in the current confrontational environment. He dropped broad hints that he would not accept being questioned by UNIIIC. (Note: We have heard subseqQtly that, in fact, Asad will meet with Brammertz under certain conditions.) ¶6. (C) On the foreign policy front in January, Syria adopted a more conciliatory posture while it courted its once reluctant allies, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. While leaders of the two counries continued to urge Asad to cooperate fully with UNIIIC, some of the urgency and pressure seemed less intense after the second Mehlis report, which had been read in Syria and throughout the region as weak and indicative of a lack of compelling evidence. Asad's trip to Saudi Arabia, followed by the much-discussed Saudi initiative to improve relations between Syria and Lebanon, also lent support to the view that the weak Mehlis report, the confrontational optics of Bashar allying himself so closely with Ahmadinejad, and fears about potential instability in Syria if the regime fell, all combined to overcome lingering Saudi hostility over the Hariri assassination. ¶7. (C) HAMAS WIN REINFORCES CONFRONTATIONAL STANCE: Hamas's overwhelming electoral victory in the Palestinian territories in late January provided the perfect vehicle for Syrian leaders to convince themselves and others that their decision to fight U.S. pressure with pressure of its own had been vindicated. Asad met with Damascus-based leaders of Hamas, including external leader Khalid Misha'al, reinforcing the embrace Asad gave all the rejectionist groups last fall, when he met their leadership, encouraging them to continue with the resistance. Hamas' victory has permitted the SARG to play its Palestinian-rejectionist confrontation card, while Asad acts statesmanlike, urging the world to respect the will of the Palestinian people. Inside Syria and in the Arab world, the regime's long-standing use of Hamas and other rejectionists as proxies to emphasize its own steadfast rejection of any accommodation with Israel paid a big dividend, offering the regime a rare opportunity to demonstrate that it had anticipated events correctly and "picked a winner." Given those benefits, it is unlikely the SARG will join the international community in urging Hamas to recognize Israel and lay down its arms. ¶8. (C) CARTOON CONTROVERSY MARKS FURTHER STEP: The controversy over the caricatures of Mohammed offered the regime the opportunity to showcase its confrontational politics and reap further political gains internally and regionally. Quietly channeling intense Islamic anger in Syria towards demonstrations that it was confident it could whip up to a level appropriate for sending political messages, the SARG set events in motion that resulted in four embassies being damaged or destroyed. Afterwards, the SARG has maintained its hard-line publicly and privately with our diplomatic colleagues from Denmark and Norway, claiming that the responsibility for the events of February 4 lies with the nations whose media have published the offensive images. While there remains some doubt about the precise level of violence that the regime wanted, SARG officials have not expressed regret or offered any compensation. ¶9. (C) The regime is persuaded that its pre-emptive action ensured that any Islamic anger in Syria would be directed away from it, towards the Europeans, while simultaneously sending the message in the region that Syria is at the forefront, protecting Arab and Islamic dignity. To certain regimes in the region, like the Saudis and Egyptians, and to the international community, the Syrians also used the riots to send the message that the secular Asad regime is the last bulwark holding back the Islamic fundamentalists. The "cartoon" riots demonstrate that Syria's new willingness to confront the West extends beyond the U.S. , with the SARG putting on the table its relations with the Europeans, long one of its tightly-grasped aces, wagering that its bluff will not be called, or calculating that in the current high-stakes posturing over the fate of the regime, ties with Europe may be a necessary sacrifice in the short term. The SARG also reaped the benefits from the shudder of instability in Lebanon the next day, stoking at least to some extent the outbreak of violent rioting and sectarian tensions in Beirut over the ongoing caricatures controversy. ¶10. (C) CABINET RESHUFFLE SHOWS NO RETREAT: The recent cabinet reshuffle reinforces these perceptions, as does the extended visit to Damascus of maverick Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr. The new cabinet, even with the promotion of Walid Mu'allim to foreign minister, promises little except for an endorsement of the status quo: modulated confrontation abroad and repressive internal policies dressed up with a bit of economic reform and periodic discussion of political reform (without implementation). Sadr's visit allows the SARG to once again flourish one of its wild cards, this time an Iraqi one, and make the case that it has more options available to assert its influence, either to assist the U.S. (if Syria's interests can be addressed) or to make mischief. The visit also reinforced the optics of Syria's confrontational policies, with Sadr visiting Iran before arrival in Damascus, departing here for Lebanon, and speaking to the press about "resistance" and "occupation" in Iraq and the "cartoon controversy" as "proof of Western hate for Islam." (See reftel). ¶11. (C) A POLICY OF SMOKE AND MIRRORS?: To a degree, this confrontational optic is smoke and mirrors. But in foreign policy as in politics, perceptions count. Syria is projecting, with some degree of success, protection by a regional power, influence with a newly-legitimized terrorist group poised to take power in the Palestinian territories, and defiance in Lebanon, balanced slightly with some carefully measured cooperation with UNIIIC. This confrontational posture has been enhanced by the regime's success moderate success in wooing back its reluctant regional allies. This wooing seems to have been enhanced by the widely held perception in the Arab world that the UNIIIC inquiry -- weakened by the departure of Mehlis and the SARG's vigorous use of recanting witnesses -- does not have the evidence needed to sustain an international pressure campaign that could unseat the regime. (Saudi/Egyptian fears that any regime collapse could unleash instability in Syria and enhance Iran's growing regional influence are also factors.) ¶12. (C) REGIME'S MOOD BUOYED: This successful projection of a tougher, more combative regime seems to have buoyed the mood of the SARG, persuading some of its key officials that they have turned the corner, or at least made the best of a very tough situation. That mood has been reinforced by the one area, Lebanon, where Syria's foreign policy is based less on perceptions and more on the raw, even brutal exercise of power and influence, leavened by strategic dollops of political manipulation and support for maneuvering by its allies and proxies there. People here are convinced that Syria's influence in Lebanon is on the rise again, and they do not question very closely the violent tactics and intimidation that have been used in the past year to reassert it. The regime also feels it has wriggled around the isolation policy the U.S. has tried to use to pressure it to end its interference in Lebanon's internal affairs. ¶13. (C) SENSE IT CAN OUTLAST THE U.S.: The mood of the regime has also been buoyed by the perception that U.S. has not managed to assert complete control in Iraq and is looking for an exit strategy that eventually will lead Washington to look to Damascus. That reading, combined with the regime's assessment that it can outlast the Bush Administration, has bolstered regime confidence and reinforced its decision to send a signal that it has suspended all efforts to come to some kind of accommodation with the U.S. ¶14. (C) SANCTIONS: On the economic side, SARG officials believe there is no international will to impose broad economic sanctions on the country. They largely discount the effectiveness of new unilateral sanctions the U.S. might apply and believe that, internally, they are well-positioned to blame the U.S. for any ensuing economic suffering, rather than be blamed themselves. While they seem more concerned about the damage that targeted UN sanctions could inflict, they appear to have convinced themselves that their allies will help to limit their severity. ¶15. (C) CONTINUING VULNERABILITIES: Despite the SARG's upbeat mood, some liabilities remain that may undercut its ability to sustain a more confrontational foreign-policy approach in the coming months. UNIIIC may yet develop and reveal evidence sufficient to submit to an international tribunal and create a critical mass of pressure on the regime that it will find difficult to bear. Despite all the current bravado, we pick up signals that among SARG officials there remains tremendous sensitivity to the danger that the UNIIIC investigation poses and recognition that the pressure could ratchet back up rather quickly. On the political side, Syrian allies Hamas and Iran may respond to international pressure, or find themselves at policy impasses that will negatively impact on the SARG's sense that it is playing a winning hand. Hamas, in particular, faces a tricky, daunting task in trying to translate its electoral victory into political leverage. In addition, the Syrian economy has shown its vulnerability each time political pressure on the regime has mounted. The Syrian pound devalued dramatically in the fall when pressure was most intense on the regime and can be expected to do so again as soon as Syria comes under a negative international spotlight. Economically, at least, the SARG's new-found confidence could soon prove short-lived. ¶16. (C) ONE YEAR LATER: Given a year of sustained U.S.-led international pressure that forced it to withdraw its troops under nearly humiliating circumstances, we might have expected the SARG to be back on its heels and in a defensive, cautious posture. The short-term successes of its current confrontational stances have instead boosted regime morale and made it likely that it will continue to seek appropriate opportunities in the coming months to demonstrate its willingness to respond to external pressure with pressure of its own. Wherever possible, it will use its proxies to assert that defiance, in order to avoid being dragged into any unwanted, direct confrontations with the U.S. SECHE