A MOST REWARDING WAR

In Syria it is no longer permissible to criticise America,

reports Charles Glass Damascus THE GOVERNMENT here invited 43 writers to the offices of the Political Secur- ity Police to discuss their declaration con- demning the American war against Iraq. For the last 25 years, it has been customary in Syria for the government itself to con- demn American imperialism, American aggression, American hegemony and American support for the Israel that occu- pied Syrian and Palestinian lands. Writers' organisations, like trade unions and women's groups, followed suit. Had the 43 novelists, poets and essayists released their statement as recently as six months ago, 'It was eight hours of boredom followed by 60 seconds of frantic activity.' the Syrian press would have published it alongside the news of the telephone call between President Hafez Al-Assad and the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, the tele- gram from the Ukrainian Peasants' Fed- eration to Syria's reigning Ba'ath Socialist Party and the latest conference of the Aleppo branch of the Revolutionary Youth Union. The writers, however, chose the moment that Syria and the United States were in accord, the moment the United States was waging war from the air on an officially despised Arab neighbour, the moment Syrian officialdom was in no mood for criticism of their new friends in Washington.

On the day they delivered their message condemning America for a 'criminal war intended to destroy the Arabs and give America a free hand to control the globe' to overseas news agencies in Damascus, the writers received telephone calls from the Political Security Bureau. Small groups of them kept appointments at different times during that night. There were no interrogations, no threats, only reminders that statements implying criticism of gov- ernment policy should not be published. `Why', a security man asked one of the writers, 'did you issue this declaration?'

`I feel for these people,' he said of the Iraqis who were at that moment under- going the greatest aerial bombardment since the second world war. 'These are our people. I feel their house is my house. I feel their children are my children.'

`I feel this too,' the security man said, according to the writer, 'but you must not write it.'

In Syria, as in most of the countries of the Muslim and Arab worlds who are supporting the American war, the differ- ence between the actions of the govern- ment and the sentiments of the people has never been more obvious. People here are free to speak among themselves about their hatred of the American bombers, but they cannot break the government's monopoly of publishing and broadcasting to air their views. They have been advised not to send statements to foreign journal- ists, and the Minister of Information has said that correspondents who write about dissidence in Syria will be asked to leave the country.

The Syrian government expects di- vidends from this war. Every other partici- pant, regional power, stateless minority and political movement anticipates some- thing from the spoils of post-war Iraq. Syria's government is investing an esti- mated 15,000 troops in a non-combatant adventure in Saudi Arabia and is running the risk of conflict with its own citizenry. But Syria has already reaped part of its reward. The United States agreed last year to Syria's quick dispatch of the Lebanese army general, Michel Aoun, who opposed Syria's presence in his country and who is now hiding in the French Embassy in Beirut, and the imposition of a Pax Syrian in Lebanon, with Lebanon as downpay- ment. And the Syrian government seeks a post-war instalment in the form of Amer- ican sponsorship of the peace conference on the Arab-Israeli conflict at which Syria will play a commanding role. This is what diplomats here say Presidents Assad and George Bush discussed last November in Geneva. This is what they believe the American Ambassador here, the affable and polyglot Edward Djeredjian, discusses regularly with the Syrian foreign minister, Farouq Ash-Shara. That way, Syria and not Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would claim credit for delivering a Palestinian state. Syria would also expect the confer- ence to bring the return of its Golan Heights.

Syria is not alone in exacting a price for its cautious support of American policy. For involving itself on the American side, Syria's benefits are nothing compared to those accruing to Israel for not becoming involved. The United States, Europe and Japan are paying Israel billions of dollars for staying out of the war with Iraq. With each Scud Saddam Hussein sends towards Tel Aviv, he is in effect bestowing on Israel a billion dollars from the coffers of his other enemies. Whether the Americans are also paying Israel with a promise not to hold the peace conference they are promis- ing to Syria is one of the great secrets of this stage of the war. Everyone here is suspicious, recalling Britain's conflicting first world war promises to Arab inhabi- tants, European Jewish immigrants and France over Syria and Palestine. Britain pleaded the exigencies of war as an excuse and the United States would no doubt feel entitled to do the same.

Everyone in this region is watching the war closely, waiting for the right moment to declare himself or to change alliances. No one wants to end up on the losing side, Syria keeps a line open to Iraq, just as the PLO chairman, Yasser Arafat, praises Saddam Hussein in public and remains in touch with Saudi Arabia in private. Tur- key, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Kurdish minority in northern Iraq and the Palestini- nans are all hoping to benefit from whatev- er order emerges from this war. In that sense, it is like the first world war, when the borders over which the world is now fighting were drawn across the severed limbs of the Ottoman empire. Those who missed out at the Paris peace conference of 1919, particularly the Palestinians and Kurds, do not want to be deprived of a chair at the banquet that follows this war.

Most of them are here: Palestinian politicians, Kurdish guerrilla leaders, Iraqi opposition groups. George Habash, the once young and charismatic leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Pales- tine, is now 65 years old, a greying and avuncular image of his fiery young self: the man who pioneered and then in 1972 abandoned plane hijacking as a means of bringing his people's existence to world attention. Sitting in his office in Damascus, he professed sympathy for Saddam Hus- sein, a man whose style of governance is at variance with all Habash's stated democra- tic beliefs. Habash, like most Palestinians who have come to view Saddam as their champion since his 12 August comparison of his occupation of Kuwait with Israel's of the West Bank and Gaza, says he wanted an Iraqi victory. This annoys the Syrians, who may yet ask him to leave Damascus. `Yet', he said, 'what do you expect from Palestinians dispersed and living in Rashi- dieh camp [in Lebanon] for example? Let us suppose Saddam is defeated. Do you think these people will surrender?' Another Palestinian leader here said with apparent approval, 'Saddam is going to prolong the war as long as possible.' When the battle on the ground starts, he will use the fatal weapon for the Americans, which is to send as many coffins as possible to the United States.

Kurdish leaders here stated that guerril- las of their pesh merga, those who face death, have begun entering Iraq from Iran in their thousands. 'Our policy is to be in Iraq and organise, not to fight,' said the leader of the Kurdish Socialist Party. The Kurds are waiting. 'Even now, we are afraid of concessions by Bush to Saddam. The Kurds are not sure this conflict will bring an end to Saddam, and we must be prudent. If he survives, he may turn on us. We have a lot of bitter experience of that'. If Saddam should go and central authority collapse in Iraq, the Kurds hope to fill the vacuum in their homelands in the north. They say they do not want a state of their own. 'We are asking to be put on the agenda. We are 30 million people, we are asking for human and civil rights and democracy within the existing borders, we

are realistic.'

Turkey has made it clear it would invade Iraq if the Kurds declared an independent state. It has also said it would take action if attacked by Iraq or if either Syrian or Iranian forces entered Iraq. Although Tur- key has limited its actions thus far to mobilising along the Iraqi border and permitting American warplanes to fly bombing missions from its territory, it may yet choose to redraw the map of the Middle East and claim the oilfields of northern Iraq for itself and Nato. That would make a nonsense of the principle over which this war, is ostensibly being fought, that territory shall not be acquired by force, the principle will not prevent it. But the longer the war goes on, the more predictable its outcome.

Iran too has stated it will not accept intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan, and a Turkish invasion would mean the possibil- ity of war with Iran — pitting the region's old antagonists, the Ottoman and Persian empires, against one another on Kurdish soil. The Iranians are aware they have lost considerable ground to Saddam Hussein in the battle for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. Their fatwa against Salman Rushdie pales by comparison to Saddam's stand against the United States and its allies, and they are looking for ways to restore the primacy of Iran in the souls of the faithful from Indonesia to Mauretania.

Iraqi opposition groups, who cannot support the American bombing, look to the war to pave the way for democracy in their country. In a way, Saudi human rights activists and Syrian writers hope that the regional shake-up may permit democracy to be born in their countries. Optimistic, but people sense the time is ripe for change, as it was two years ago in Eastern Europe.

That Saddam is evil is beyond dispute, as attested to in the recorded pleas of thousands of Iraqis during all the years his crimes were ignored and encouraged. Yet what is the real reason the United States, Britain and France have decided to destroy this monster or his army, when they supported him for ten years, when they ignored so many earlier annexations and invasions — Tibet, East Timor, Cyprus, the West Bank and Gaza, the Western Sahara, these last three by America's allies in the crusade against Saddam in the last 40 years? From Damascus, which Britain in 1917 promised would become the capital of a United Arab State, it seems obvious why the Syrians, Kurds, Palestinians, Iraqis, Iranians, Turks and Saudis are fighting, sitting on the fence or biding their time. What is not so obvious is this: what are we fighting for?