In the Lion's Den_ An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle With Syria - Andrew Tabler [50]
I then tuned into Syria’s satellite TV station. The 9 AM newscast talked extensively about the president’s “important and historic” speech, with numerous snippets from the address. The newscaster simply said that the various working committees would begin their deliberations that day. No mention of press conferences. I turned to BBC World Service, hoping to find out what was going on elsewhere in the world. Suddenly I saw a still of Syrian vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam, under which appeared a box reading RESIGNATION. That got my attention. The BBC gave no details, only reporting that Khaddam had resigned from “all party and government affairs.”
After a brisk walk to the Syria Today offices, I was greeted at the door by Othaina.
“Khaddam resigned,” I said.
“Really?” Othaina answered. “There’s nothing in the Syrian media about it. But remember, all members of the regional command resign on the first day of the conference. Maybe it’s just a rumor and he’s staying.”
I checked the website of the newspaper Al Hayat for details. Ibrahim Hamidi reported that Khaddam had indeed resigned on the first day of the conference.
“Some people were saying yesterday there will be a 2:30 PM and 9:30 PM press conference each day,” Othaina said. “Maybe we will get some details then. Bouthaina Shaaban will apparently head each one.”
Perhaps more than any other person, Bouthaina Shaaban was the best-known international spokesperson for the Syrian regime. A former translator for late president Hafez al-Assad, Shaaban was a member of Syria’s ruling Alawi sect. With a doctorate from the University of Exeter, complete with a Fulbright fellowship, Shaaban had a friendly but proud manner that made her the favorite of international journalists around the time of the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003. As the spokesperson for the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the time, Shaaban landed telephone interviews on CNN, the BBC, and other major English-language news services due to her excellent English and ties to the regime.
Following a rumored fallout with foreign minister Farouk al-Shara, Shaaban was “kicked upstairs” by the president and made the country’s first “minister of expatriates.” She was charged with bringing talented Syrians back to their homeland, and her ministry building was set up in the Damascus satellite city of Dummar, about a thirty-minute trip from the center of the capital. She has been traveling the world ever since, the human face for Syria’s estimated fifteen million diaspora community.
In the world of Baath Party politics, however, Shaaban still carried weight as a member of the party’s fifty-member central committee—the body immediately under the party’s ruling “regional command” (“regional” in this case meaning Syria, since Baathist pan-Arab ideology considers Syria only a “region” of the “Arab nation”). Given her experience and position, it was no surprise to me that Shaaban was appointed as the party’s official spokeswoman for the conference.
I called the public relations office of the Ministry of Information for clarification of the press-conference times. The office assistant confirmed the rumor about the times for the conferences. After I hung up, I looked at Othaina.
“Now we wait,” I said.
And we did just that. As the morning dragged on, I combed newspapers in search of details about Khaddam’s resignation and information on the conference agenda. The three state-owned daily newspapers carried only excerpts of the president’s speech, along with a full spread of photos. No other information was available, other