Syria Leader Looks Set to Stay the Course
DAMASCUS, Syria — Buffeted by criticism and demands for reform, Syrian President Bashar Assad opened his party congress Monday by sidestepping all mention of political change, pledging continued devotion to pan-Arab nationalism and calling modern technology a threat to Arab identity.
The 39-year-old president had touted this week's Baath Party gathering as a turning point for a nation under pressure. Analysts had predicted the sessions could lay the groundwork to ease emergency laws, remove obstacles to opposition parties, weed out some of Syria's aging functionaries and extend citizenship to thousands of stateless Kurds.
Yet only a few hints of change emerged Monday. Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam -- a stalwart of the "old guard" and a key backer of Syria's now-defunct political control over Lebanon -- reportedly announced his resignation. Assad did call for overhauling Syria's largely state-run economy.
But on the whole, Assad's brief speech made it plain that old Baathist principles would remain very much intact.
"We believe that the ideas and teachings of the party are still relevant and current and respond to the interests of the people and the nation," Assad told more than 1,200 Baath regional commanders. "Where their implementation has fallen short, it is individuals who bear responsibility, not the idea or ideology."
The three-day congress, the first of its kind in five years, is a forum for ruling party officials throughout the country to confer on Baathist policies. It comes at a time when Syria is staggering under massive international and domestic pressure.
In the last week alone, the regime has been accused of involvement in the killings of a prominent, reform-minded Kurdish imam and a celebrated Lebanese journalist. Suspicion about Syria's role in the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, along with several bombings that have rattled Beirut and its suburbs, also shadows Damascus.
Syrian officials have repeatedly denied involvement in the attacks, but Assad bowed to pressure and pulled Syrian soldiers out of Lebanon after Hariri's death, a move that cost his country significantly in regional clout.
Meanwhile, the U.S. has been accusing Damascus of undermining stability in Iraq by allowing insurgents to use Syria as a transit point.
At home, Assad is weathering criticism from a persistent, albeit fractious, opposition movement.
