In the Lion's Den_ An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle With Syria - Andrew Tabler [44]
The only Syrian party flags at the rally were those of the SSNP, which featured a black field adorned with a white circle and a red, swastika-like insignia known as “the tempest.” It was not a reference to Nazism, but rather an indication that Syria’s Baathist days were dwindling. Baathism itself is a pan-Arab doctrine for Arab political unity in the name of confronting the problems facing the Arab world, most notably, the issue of Israel. For some reason, the government decided that the symbols used seemed to be shifting toward something more limited, more area specific. The SSNP also has a vision for political unity but did not have the authoritarian stigma of Baathism. SSNP doctrine is something Syrians and Lebanese both understand, and some of them support it (though maybe not political union, but something that emphasizes the historical, cultural, and linguistic ties that bind Syria and Lebanon together).
As I walked down from Adnan Malki Square toward the office, I ran into Syrian journalists covering the protest. Most told me about rumors that a Baath Party conference would be held in early June. While many remained pessimistic that the conference would produce anything at all, others said President Assad was about to announce a sweeping round of reforms, called the Jasmine Revolution. They said some public relations agencies were already planting the aromatic flower, native to Syria and Lebanon, all over Damascus in anticipation of the event. The movement was to include, among other things, changes in the constitution to allow for multiparty elections (parties not based on ethnicity or religion, however), as well as the expansion of NGOs and similar other associations. From my work with the first lady, I knew that the latter had been under way for some time. The former, however, had not been seriously discussed in Syria in more than forty years.
Back at the Syria Today offices, Leila and I met to decide on how to cover the Lebanon crisis.
“I don’t believe Syria would kill Hariri,” Leila told me. “But it’s going to be the hottest story of the year, and we need to cover it.”
“Yeah, but what do we do if the investigation says Syria did it?” I asked. “Can we cover that?”
“I have no idea,” Leila said.
My ICWA fellowship was starting in earnest, so Leila hired Hugh Macleod, a British journalist working as an editor for the state-owned Syria Times, to edit the magazine. Hugh had just come off a stint at The Independent’s foreign desk, so he knew the issues well and gave us an in-house experienced Western perspective that proved to be vital in giving Syria Today an edge. Hugh believed in pushing the regime’s red lines, and since we had no idea where they now were, we tested them with each edition to see what would happen. As the investigation into Hariri’s murder unfolded, we reported on every development—each month we would print the edition and send it to the Ministry of Information’s censorship office, and each month it just came back approved with no comments.
Waiting for the state to actually set a date for the Baath Party conference, we then ventured into a realm that I would never have thought possible: opposition politics. Syria’s illegal-but-tolerated opposition parties were always hard to take seriously. Not because they hadn’t taken their licks from the state over the years, but rather due to the opposition’s stale political ideologies, chronic divisiveness, and questionable penetration into society. Marxist parties, for example, which threw around terms used only in North Korea these days, were ironically split along sectarian lines. Sectarian parties, especially Kurds, were divided ideologically. The Muslim Brotherhood, which had waged a terrorist war