IF ONLY GEORGE W. BUSH WEREN'T THE LIBERATOR:

(via Matthew Cohen):
Syrian intellectuals urge reform: Assad: Under growing pressure to implement political reforms (BBC, 2/04/04)

Over 1,000 Syrian intellectuals have signed a petition urging President Assad to implement political reforms.
It calls for the release of political prisoners and the lifting of a state of emergency in place for 40 years. [...]

One of those who signed the petition - a lawyer and human rights activist - told the BBC that recent events on the international stage had encouraged them to launch the petition, and he said there are rumours that President Bashar al-Assad has already referred the issue of the continued state of emergency to the Supreme Court.

For the past year, Syria has been under an intense American spotlight.

The Syria Accountability Act, recently passed by the US Congress, imposed sanctions on Damascus for alleged links to terrorism and for seeking to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

The Syrian activists say they are hoping the regime may have realised that reform and national reconciliation are an important defence against American pressures.

Very amusing moment today on Fresh Air--Terry Gross was interviewing Egyptian publisher and human rights activist Hisham Kassem. She noted that he had supported the Iraq War before it started, in the belief that it would bring reform not just to Iraq but the whole region, and she wondered if he'd reconsidered. He answered that he hadn't, that the war had in fact brought democracy to Iraq and was having a liberalizing effect throughout the Middle East. She asked for examples, which he proceeded to cite, saying therer were really too many to go through in their entirety. Then, not knowing when she'd dug her grave deep enough, she asked if the Kay report had called the war into question. He answered that he didn't care about WMD nor think it was the primary cause of or justification for the war, that getting rid of the regime was sufficient unto itself. Her disappointment at the improved prospects for freedom in the Arab world was palpable. How have liberals worked themselves into such a perverse position?

MORE:
Analysis: Is Syria changing? (Claude Salhani, 2/4/2004, UPI)

In some ways Assad finds himself today in a situation reminiscent to that of Mikhail Gorbachev at the time when the then leader of Soviet Union introduced Perestroika and Glasnost. The arms race between the United States and the USSR forced the Soviet Union to overspend money it simply did not have just to keep pace with NATO and Western military technologies and spending. The result, as we know, bankrupted the Soviet Union, forced the collapse of communism and led to the breakup of the USSR.

Similarly, Syria today finds that its economy cannot keep pace and that change is badly needed. The demise of the Soviet Union, once Syria's chief supporter and its main arms supplier, has slowed Syria's ability to acquire modern military equipment. "Nevertheless, its military remains one of the largest and most capable in the region," according to the U.S. Department of State.

But maintaining its current military status is forcing a heavy burden on the predominantly statist economy, which has been growing, on average, more slowly than its 2.4 percent annual population growth rate, causing a persistent decline in per capita GDP.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 4, 2004 8:58 PM