When History Turns A Corner

SANA / AP
WITHDRAWAL: Syrian President Assad meets with Qatari Prince Sheikh Hamad Bin Khlifa Al thani to discuss withdrawing troops from Lebanon

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What unfolded next was a high-level shove by Syria's enemiesand, more unexpectedly, by its friendsfor it to announce a withdrawal from Lebanon. The timing couldn't have been better for Washington.

For the past year, Bush had been pressing Syria to shut down support for insurgents wreaking havoc in Iraq. "The priority is to get Syria to stop playing a significant role in facilitating the insurgency," a U.S. official told TIME. The U.S. also wants to make Damascus crack down on terrorist groups aided by Syria that are trying to scuttle the reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

But Syria's troubles multiplied when Europe, led by France, and then Russia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt piled on too. It fell to Assad to play out his poor hand. Under its family dynasty, Syria has long relied on delay and deceit in dealing with the West. Washington had complained for months that Damascus was harboring Iraqi Baathists who were suspected of stirring up trouble in Iraqwhich Assad always denied.

Then 30 former Saddam Hussein henchmen were mysteriously arrested by Iraq. After the group proved to include Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan al-Tikriti, a half-brother of Saddam's who was once a widely feared internal-security chief, Syria said it knew nothing about their capture. The ploy was supposed to buy some time, appeasing Washington without losing crucial support from hard-liners in his own Baath Party who oppose cooperation with the West. By the time Assad flew to Riyadh on Thursday, he had run out of allies. Backed by Egypt, Crown Prince Abdullah read Assad the riot act, told him to get out of Lebanon and then all but issued a transcript to reporters. "That's kind of unbrotherly talk," quipped a U.S. State Department official.

Even Arab rebuke wasn't enough to force Assad out of Lebanon, which signals to some longtime observers that his grip on power could be in jeopardy. He has not been as gifted as his father in handling hard-liners who oppose compromise with the Lebanese or Israelis, much less the Americans. Asks Dennis Ross, the retired Middle East envoy for the past two Presidents: "Will he use the moment to sweep away the Old Guard and put Syria on a new path? Or will the Old Guard move against him?"

Meanwhile, oligarchies across the region were pondering the uncertainties of their own restive populations. If Lebanon suggested how suddenly unpopular regimes could be swept away, it was a fear already uppermost in many minds. So a number of regimes were taking baby steps toward liberalization, either to consolidate power before real reform or just to buy time.

Saudi Arabia
Nowhere are the stakes higher and the risk of chaos greater than in the famously closed kingdom that controls a quarter of the world's known oil reserves and was home to 15 of the 19 Islamist hijackers who launched the attacks of 9/11. Since then, the House of Saud has found itself ever more threatened by extremists bent on seizing power. The regime's surprising answer to save itself: the sight last month of Saudi men in white robes and kaffiyehs leaning into cardboard voting booths to cast ballots.

The closest thing the kingdom has ever had to an election was when businessmen got together in Riyadh and Jidda and elected boards for local chambers of commerce. By those standards, the elections for 178 municipal councils being held in three stages that began on Feb. 10 are a big deal. The regime hopes the election of Shi'ites and tribal leaders in parts of the country where they dominate will help loosen the grip the conservative Wahhabis hold on cultural and religious affairs. But the danger in acceding to Western demands for free elections is that they could result in handing the Islamists power at the ballot box. So far, Islamic factions have carried the day, though without the huge margins many had predicted, and there is some evidence that moderate voters may be more numerous as the balloting continues. Risky as the outcome may be if elections are expanded, "the process is unstoppable," says a foreign analyst in Riyadh. "But so far, this is a very marginal thing, not a surrender of power."