Is Assad on the rocks?

Let's hope so....

Facing additional pressures at home and abroad, the schedule of Bashar al-Assad, Syria's president, is particularly busy these days. There is much to do and time is of the essence. His timing, however, does not seem to work.

For example, President Assad had planned to head his country's delegation to the United Nations summit last month. While restlessness was growing in Damascus, Assad could have benefited from a visit designed to ease Syria's international isolation and show the 40-year-old president as a young reformist Arab ruler.

But following unwelcoming signals from Washington and increasing turmoil at home, Assad was forced to stay behind.

The accusing fingers in the wake of the February assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri appeared to have come closer to Assad's own door. Detlev Mehlis, the chief UN investigator appointed to investigate the murder, had already named four pro-Syrian Lebanese security officials as suspects. Now with the help of the French and other secret services he is shining the spotlight directly on Damascus and possibly to the presidential palace itself.

Meanwhile, on the domestic front, the Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has just published a study categorizing 30 percent of Syria's 18.3 million people as poor, including 2.2 million who are unable to provide for their own basic needs. This study was joined by an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report released last week warning that, baring significant reforms, Syria may become "locked in a cycle of financial volatility, fiscal deterioration, low growth and rising unemployment."

Since coming to power in June 2000, Assad has little to show to his credit. The removal of Iraq's Saddam Hussein not only deprived Assad of his sole remaining Ba'athist ally, but also of a significant source of income that came partly through the UN's massive Oil for Food scheme.