Author: Talalian Arpi

THE RICH PRESIDENT OF THE POOR COUNTRY

Pan Armenian
03.10.2005, “PanARMENIAN Network” analytical department

Ilham Aliev’s salary is 20 times as much as the salary of Robert
Kocharyan and 4 times as much the salary of Vladimir Putin.

>>From now on the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev will receive
a salary of 90 million manats or approximately 19600 US dollars,
which makes 239 thousand dollars per year. With this increased salary
Ilham Aliev becomes the highest-paid president in CIS and one of
the highest-paid presidents in the world. Meanwhile, it is worth
mentioning that by living standards Azerbaijan is behind the half of
African states.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Formally, the rise of the president’s salary was
caused by the rise of the minimal salary in the country. According
to the law, the president has to be paid for his job with a sum which
is 600 times more than the minimal salary in the country. For today,
this is an unsurpassed record.

There is no country in the world where the president thinks that he
has the right to receive 600 times more than a pensioner. Maybe it’s
because of the voracious appetite of Azerbaijan rulers that more than
40 percents of Azerbaijan population live in deep poverty.

Coming to power in autumn, 2003 Aliev junior made a populist
gesture, demanding from the parliament to decrease his salary as if
to promote social justice. The parliament of Azerbaijan obeyed the
request of Aliev and decreased the presidential salary to 5,500 US
dollars. However, after half a year Aliev started increasing his
salary. In the course of two years of Aliev junior’s governance
the presidential salary was increased from 27 million to 90 million
mantas, that is by more than three times. Is it much or not? Perhaps
it will be easier to understand comparing with the salaries of other
presidents. According to Baku published “Novoye Vremya” newspaper,
the current salary of Ilham Aliev is equal to the salary of the US
president before 2001 when it was doubled by the decision of the
Congress. USA is an extremely rich country, but in Azerbaijan one
third of the population lives in poverty.

Excluding monarchs, George Bush is today the highest-paid leader in
the world. Last year his income was estimated 785 thousand dollars,
400 thousand of which was his salary. But it should be noted that
George Bush pays a tax of 80 thousand and makes other donations to
the church and charity organizations. So, if we compare the financial
abilities of George Bush and Ilham Aliev, the latter will hardly stay
back because in contrast to the US president who accurately declares
his incomes from dividends, Aliev junior does not declare his shares
from oil contracts. Baku journalists claim that Aliev’s clan takes
every fifth dollar from oil export incomes.

Taking into account the mentioned facts, the rise of the salary looks
simply provoking. Aliev has appointed a salary which is four times more
than the salary of Vladimir Putin and three times more than the salary
of Jack Shirak. The president of China Hu Jintao will perhaps feel
uneasy if he learns that his salary is 8 times less than the salary
of Aliev. The president of Check Republic must be proud to have shaken
hands with Ilham Aliev, because his salary is only 1500 US dollars. The
salaries of Ilham Aliev’s GUAM partners are also much less than their
Azeri colleague. Victor Yushenko receives 4700 US dollars and Michael
Sahakashvili – 2180 US dollars. Byelorussian president Alexander
Lukashenko, who earns only 300 dollars per month, can be sure that
that the price of his birthday gift from Ilham Aliev can be more than
the whole salary fund of the Byelorussian president’s administration.

Latvian president may also envy the salary of Ilham Aliev. Vaira
Vike-Freiberga had to keep her Canadian citizenship not to lose
her pension.

In her interview to a Latvian radio station she confessed that if
she had to live only on her salary, she would appear in the same
dress almost all the time. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia
Salome Zurabishvili has also decided to save the funds of Georgian
state budget. Thanks to her French citizenship she receives a special
payment from the Elisey palace and her salary is higher than that of
Michael Saakashvili.

As compared with Ilham Aliev, Robert Kocharyan looks more than
modest. His salary is only 400 thousand drams which is equal to
approximately 890 US dollars. Ilham Aliev has not still increased the
military budget of Azerbaijan, making it equal to the whole budget
of Armenia, as promised.

However already today he puts 20 times higher taxes than his Armenian
colleague. By the way, Azeri journalists claim that the President
of Armenia earns only 380 dollars and is the least-paid president in
Eurasia. The journalists of course say what is wished instead of what
exists, but as it is said, money is not the thing that makes people
happy. Anyway, it should be added that there is hardly a president
who does not know ways to live without salary…

DAYS OF ITALIAN-ARMENIAN FRIENDSHIP STARTED IN YEREVAN

Pan Armenian
05.10.2005 13:05

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ “Today we are opening Days of Italy in Armenia. In my
opinion it is the best manifestation of the Armenian-Italian friendship
and age-old ties”, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian stated
during the opening ceremony of the Days. He also expressed gratitude to
the Italian government, the Italian Embassy in Armenia and specifically
to Ambassador to Armenia Marco Clemente for his contribution to the
organization of the events. He also thanked Mkhitarians for their
devoted work, which will allow the Armenian people to get acquainted
with the treasurers of the St. Lazarus Island. Vartan Oskanian noted
that the events will be held under the aegis of the Presidents of
two states. As RA MFA Spokesman Hamlet Gasparian stated earlier the
exhibition of the treasures of St. Lazarus Island, which will last
till the end of the year, will become the core of the events. In his
words, this cultural event has a political ground as well, since
Armenia is engaged in the EU New Neighborhood Policy. Tom remind,
Italian Ambassador to Armenia Marco Clemente stated that the Italian
government did its best to make the events accessible for the Armenian
people. “Italy will fill whole Yerevan with its love, friendship and
the desire to strengthen relations. We should take every opportunity
to bring together our national and cultures,” he said.

HOW THE DREADED SUPERSTATE BECAME A COMMONWEALTH
Timothy Garton Ash

The Guardian, UK
Oct 6 2005

The question to ask is not what Europe will do for Turkey, but what
Turkey has done for Europe

This week, the European Union did something remarkable. It chose
to become an all-European commonwealth, not the part-European
superstate of Tory nightmares. You see, the main effect of the
bitterly contested opening of membership negotiations with Turkey
is not to ensure that Turkey becomes a member of the European Union,
which it may or may not do 10 or 15 years hence. The main effect is
to set the front line of enlargement so far to the south-east that it
ensures the rest of south-eastern Europe will come into the EU – and
probably before Turkey. There’s a nice historical irony here. Turkey,
which in its earlier, Ottoman, form occupied much of the Balkans,
and therefore cut them off from what was then the Christian club of
Europe, is now the European door-opener for its former colonies.

Article continues

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Bulgaria and Romania are joining the EU in 2007 anyway. What was
Austria’s price for finally agreeing to the opening of negotiations
with Turkey? A similar promise for Croatia! One thing leads to
another. When those Balkan countries are in, they will immediately
start agitating for their neighbours to join them, just as Poland
is now agitating for a promise to Ukraine. No matter that those
neighbours are former enemies, with bitter memories of recent wars
and ethnic cleansing. The mysterious alchemy of enlargement is that it
turns former enemies into advocates. Germany was the great promoter of
Polish membership, and Greece remains one of the strongest supporters
of Turkish membership.

When Serbia and Macedonia come knocking at Brussels’ door, they
will exclaim: “What, you have said yes to Turkey, but you say
no to us, who are closer to you and obviously more European than
Turkey?” Since these countries are mainly small, and since the EU
already takes responsibility for much of south-east Europe’s security
and reconstruction, as a quasi colonial post-conflict power, the
reluctant older members of the EU will sigh: “Oh, what the hell, one
or two more small countries won’t make that much difference anyway –
our big headaches are Turkey and Ukraine.” So they’ll slip in.

The result is that, whether or not Turkey achieves membership over the
next decade, by 2015 the European Union will cover most of what has
historically been considered to constitute the territory of Europe. And
it will have some 32 to 37 member states -for Switzerland, Norway and
Iceland may eventually choose to come in, too. The frontline cases
will then be Turkey and Ukraine, while Russia will have a special
relationship with this new European Union.

Now only someone possessed of the deliberate obtuseness of a Daily
Mail leader writer could suppose that such a broad, diverse European
Union will ever be a Napoleonic, federal (in the Eurosceptic sense of
the F-word), centralised, bureaucratic superstate. That’s why those
who do still want something like a United States of Europe think
Monday was a terrible day for Europe.

Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the main author of the EU’s stillborn
constitutional treaty, was in despair, while Britain’s Jack Straw
was grinning ear to ear. Roughly speaking, the British hated the
constitution because they thought it would create a French Europe,
while the French hate enlargement because they think it will create a
British Europe. Thus Giscard laments that these further enlargements
“are obviously going to transform Europe into a large free-trade
zone”. That is what continental Europeans classically charge the
British with wanting.

Indeed, that is what some Brits do want Europe to be. That’s one reason
Margaret Thatcher loved enlargement. I recently heard a leading member
of the Conservative shadow cabinet say explicitly that he likes the
prospect of further widening because it will make the EU what it
should be, a large free-trade area. But they do not represent the
thinking of the British government; and anyway they are wrong.

This larger Europe will be much more than a free-trade area, or
it will be nothing. It already is much more. And most of these new
members care passionately that it should be. To be just a free-trade
zone, the EU would have to take a large step backwards even as it
takes a large step forwards, and that it will not do. The prospect,
rather, is of an entity that is as far beyond a free-trade zone as
it is short of a centralised superstate. For want of a better term,
I describe this unprecedented continent-wide political community as a
commonwealth – but I have in mind something more like the early modern
Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth than today’s British commonwealth.

Meanwhile, I don’t want you to think I’m ducking the question of
Turkish membership. If we were starting from scratch, I would say
that the European Union should have a special partnership (Angela
Merkel’s term) with Turkey, as also with Russia. Why? Because at its
eastern and south-eastern borders Europe does not end, it merely
fades away. It fades away across the great expanses of Turkey and
Russia. Somewhere between Moscow and Vladivostok, somewhere between
Istanbul and Hakkari, you find yourself more in Asia than in Europe.

This only partly European character of the two countries’ geography
and history suggests a special partnership, for the sense of belonging
to a geographical and historical unity is important for any political
community of Europe.

However, we are not starting from scratch. We have promises to keep.

For more than 40 years we have assured Turkey that it will belong
to our European community. We have repeated, strengthened, made
concrete these promises over the past decade. The example of Turkey,
reconciling a mainly Islamic society with a secular state, is vital
for the rest of the Islamic world – and not insignificant for the 15
to 20 million Muslims already living in Europe. When I was recently
in Iran, a dissident mullah, who had been imprisoned for 18 months
for criticising his country’s Islamic regime, told me: “There are
two models, Turkey and Iran.” Which should we support? The answer
is what Americans call a “no-brainer”. And so the European Union,
although it has no brain – that is, does not take decisions like
a nation-state – has made the right choice. Turkey is an exception:
not a precedent for Morocco or Algeria. For good reasons, the European
Union has just decided to include a chunk of Asia.

Before that happens, however, we have to ensure two things. First,
that Turkey really does meet the EU’s famous Copenhagen criteria,
having a stable liberal democracy, the rule of law (with full
equality for men and women), a free market economy, free speech
(also for intellectuals who say there was a Turkish genocide against
the Armenians), and respect for minority rights (notably those of
the Kurds). Turkey still has a long way to go. Second, and quite as
demanding, public opinion in existing member states, such as France
and Austria, must be prepared to accept Turkish membership. Between
those two, you have at least 10 years’ work ahead.

So, characteristically, the European Union has done something very
important this week, without itself really understanding what it has
done. It has not decided to make Turkey a member. It has decided that
Europe will be a commonwealth and not a superstate.

BULGARIAN DELEGATION HEADED BY PRESIDENT’S WIFE TO TAKE PART IN INTERNATIONAL BOOK FAIR IN MOSCOW

Focus News, Bulgaria
Oct 3 2005

Moscow/Sofia. A three-day International Book Fair opens today in
Moscow under the auspices of Russia’s first lay Lyudmila Putina,
sources from Moscow told FOCUS News Agency.

Bulgarian President’s wife Zorka Parvanova heads the Bulgarian
delegation. The event will also be attended by the first ladies of
Great Britain, Germany, Austria, Armenia, Kyrgyzia. The fair aims to
promote different ways of arousing the interest of schoolchildren
from primary and secondary schools in books. Many discussions are
envisaged to be held on the topics of children’s books, contemporary
tendencies and Harry Potter phenomenon.

Anatolia news agency, Ankara, in Turkish
28 Sep 05

TURKISH OPPOSITION LEADER DESCRIBES EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION AS
“TRAP”

London, 28 September: [Opposition] Republican People’s Party [CHP]
leader Deniz Baykal has described the European Parliament’s demand
for the recognition of the so-called Armenian genocide as a trap.

Maintaining his contacts in Britain as the guest of the Labour
Party’s annual congress, Baykal regretted the European Parliament’s
resolution. However, he said that it has not surprised him.

Asserting that Turkey will be confronted with similar traps in the
form of demands in the future, Baykal noted: “Many conditions have
been put to Turkey. However, no condition exists to guarantee
Turkey’s accession to the EU as a member. Unfortunately, the EU
creates problems in its assessment of Turkey’s accession to the
organization.”

Stressing that Turkey has found itself in a difficult situation
because of the policy it maintained and because of its relations
[with the EU], Baykal criticized the government by saying that the
party warned it in the past. He noted: “However, they believed that
things would be put right on the way. That was a serious mistake.”

Baykal will have dinner with the representatives of many Turkish
associations and civilian organizations in London this evening.

ARMINFO News Agency
September 23, 2005

KAZAKHSTAN SHOULD CHANGE ITS POSITION ON KARABAKH CONFLICT TO ENLIST
THE SUPPORT OF ARMENIA IN OSCE

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 23. ARMINFO. “I treat with great respect to
Armenia’s position stated by Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan raising
the objection against the chairmanship of Kazakhstan to the OSCE in
2006”, the OSCE ambassador to Armenia Vladimir Pryakhin stated in an
interview to ARMINFO.

In his words, all the 55 OSCE member-states has the same status as
the OSCE decisions have been made only on the consensus basis. “If
Armenia is to be against Kazakhstan, the principle of votes consensus
maintenance will be violated, and the OSCE also will object”,
Pryakhin noted. He added that the position of Kazakhstan on some
issues, in particular, on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, is not
convenient to Armenia. “If Kazakhstan changes its position, Armenia
should not object against its chairmanship to the OSCE next year”,
Pryakhin noted.

ARMINFO News Agency
September 23, 2005

OSCE TO SUPPORT ARMENIA IN ECOLOGY INITIATIVES

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 23. ARMINFO. “We and our Planet” educational and
environmental program was presented today at the Yerevan Museum of
Armenia’s Nature. The program has been initiated and implemented by
“Khazer” environmental and cultural NGO with the support of the OSCE
Office in Yerevan and the Aarhus Center.

Within the project 10 brochures and 5 posters have been published in
2004 on the following topics: the first betrayal against nature,
climate change, preservation of ozone layer, forest, water,
biodiversity, persistent organic pollutants, fish and birds of
Armenia, Lake Sevan problem, and genetically modified organisms. This
year the publications were enriched by 6 new posters and 4 brochures:
our environment and the Aarhus Convention, specially protected
natural areas, earthquake protection, and alternative energy.

Head of “Khazer” NGO Amalia Hambartsumyan noted that the program has
been implemented from 2003, 100 copies of 11 posters and 14 brochures
have been published within this period. 400 schools of general
education have already received the completes. The OSCE Office in
Yerevan allotted $4.000 for publishing the second completes, she
noted.

Welcoming the activists of Armenia’s ecological movement, Head of the
OSCE Office in Yerevan Vladimir Pryakhin named the program the
“family holiday”. He stressed that “titanic efforts of ecological
society do not go out in Armenia until the people of this country
live in harmony with nature”. Pryakhin also noted that the OSCE
welcomes the ecological initiatives in Armenia and will continue
supporting them.

Baku Today, Azerbaijan
Sept 25 2005
X-Sender: Asbed Bedrossian <[email protected]>
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.1 — ListProcessor(tm) by CREN

OSCE, Pace Should Cooperate In Karabakh Conflict Resolution – Russian
Co-Chair

Baku Today / AssA-Irada 25/09/2005 19:36

The OSCE Minsk Group mediating settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan
Karabakh conflict and the special committee of the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) may cooperate on a number of
issues, the MG Russian co-chair Yuri Merzlyakov said.

He was commenting on the hearings on the Karabakh conflict held in
Paris within the PACE committee last week.

`The OSCE MG co-chairs are mediating the talks and presenting
proposals, while PACE may contribute to mobilizing public opinion in
the two countries to achieve the compromise needed for the conflict
resolution. It may also be actively involved in ensuring
implementation of commitments that the sides assumed upon admission
to the Council of Europe, with a pivotal obligation being the
peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict.’

Merzlyakov stated that CE and PACE may take up `control over every
ceasefire violation and influence the sides to honor their
commitments’.

`The belligerent statements that sound every now then and calls for
settling the conflict with the use of force certainly do not promote
conflict resolution…We are ready to share our credentials with PACE
to ensure such statements are not made any longer.’

Merzlyakov said the mediators are concerned over the growing military
budgets of Azerbaijan and Armenia, which `may affect the process of
implementing their commitments on the peace conflict settlement’.

RADA’S STORY
Eric Beauchemin

Radio Netherlands, Netherlands
Sept 22 2005

Rada Verdiants arrived in the Netherlands over a decade ago. Her
asylum requests have been repeatedly denied but she continues to
submit appeals to remain in this country.

Verdiants was one of the 300,000 to 400,000 Armenians living in the
neighbouring republic of Azerbaijan. In 1988, Armenians in Azerbaijan
started staging strikes and peaceful demonstrations to have the
disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh transferred to Armenian
control. The ethnic conflict eventually exploded into violence.

“In February 1988, the Azeris carried out a genocide in Sumgait,
a city about 30 kilometres from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. For
three days, Azeris murdered innocent Armenians.

“The situation got progressively worse and a curfew was imposed in
Baku. Groups of Azeris patrolled the streets asking everyone for
their identity cards. We were required to carry identity cards all
the time, but if it showed that you were Armenian, they’d beat you
up very badly. People weren’t only getting beaten up, they were also
getting killed. Some people refused to carry their ID cards. If they
were men, then the Azeris would force them to drop their pants. You
see Azeris are Muslim and so they are circumcised, while Armenians are
Christians and they aren’t. Whenever I think about those days in Baku,
I feel very bad.

“Some Azeri friends would take me to work in their car. Not all Azeris
were bad. But these gangs that were harassing Armenians, they had
police support. If you tried to submit a complaint to the police,
they would do nothing. The police would tell us that we had to leave
the country.

Entrance to Rada’s asylum-seekers centre

Break-in “One day, three Azeri hooligans broke into my house. They beat
me up and committed other acts of violence. I tried to call the alarm
number, but it took time for the Russian soldiers to come to save me.

They finally came, but it was a bit late. At least my life was saved.

A lot of women were raped during that time. I remember speaking to a
young girl who was raped. She was deeply shocked by what had happened
and she eventually went crazy.

“When the soldiers came, they didn’t ask me anything. They simply told
me to pick up my things and they took me to the airport. There were
a lot of other Armenians there: many had been beaten. Some had broken
hands and feet. People were shouting and crying. We were all afraid.

Trauma “I’m still traumatised by what happened. I often have
nightmares. I find it hard to concentrate. I get irritated very
quickly. Sometimes I feel like I can’t control myself, that everything
is out of control, even my life.

“I have been receiving psychiatric treatment for the past four years.

They have also prescribed medication for me. I don’t know what I
would have done without that. I was thinking all the time that I
can’t handle this situation any more. I even thought about suicide.

Asylum-seekers centre where Rada is staying

No future “I have lost over 10 years of my life here waiting to
find out whether I can stay or not. I know I can’t go back to
Azerbaijan. But I don’t have any hope of my situation here getting
any better. So I’m just sticking around. When I’m not depressed,
I go the nearby village or go for a stroll. But when I’m depressed,
I just stay in bed. It’s getting better now with the treatment, but
especially in autumn and winter, I get really depressed. Sometimes
I can’t even cook for myself.

“I don’t know what is going to happen to me. I feel like I don’t have
a future.”

Story can be listened to at

U.S. pressures Syria to fall in line on Lebanon, Iraq

USA TODAY
Wednesday, Sep 21, 2005

By Barbara Slavin

The United States is increasing pressure on Syria, using harsher words
and pointed diplomacy to get President Bashar Assad’s government to
stop aiding Iraqi insurgents.

Recently, Bush administration officials met for the second time with a
Syrian opposition leader who favors Assad’s replacement by a
democratic government.

At the United Nations on Monday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
chaired a meeting on shoring up Lebanese democracy that excluded
Syria, long the power broker there, and Emile Lahoud, Lebanon’s
Syrian-backed president.

Last week, President Bush said the United States would work with
allies to further isolate Syria, already subject to U.S. trade and
investment sanctions. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad,
accused Syria of harboring training camps for insurgents and said
U.S. patience was running out.

Several Syria experts say the Bush administration has started to plan
for a Syria without Assad at its helm, but some warn that the
alternatives could be even worse.

“The administration is scouting,” says Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East
expert at the Congressional Research Service in Washington. “There’s
no Chalabi out there,” he adds, referring to Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi
exile leader who promoted the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and is now a
deputy prime minister in Iraq.

Last month, Farid Ghadry, a Syrian-American who heads an opposition
group called the Reform Party of Syria, met for an hour with the head
of the National Security Council’s Middle East section.

Ghadry says he and Michael Scott Doran discussed the “transition from
an autocracy to a democracy and why a transitional parliament is an
important element” of that change. It was his second meeting with U.S.
officials; in March, he went to the State Department to discuss
Syria’s future.

His party claims to have offices in 18 countries, including an
underground office in Syria, and operates a Cyprus-based radio station
that broadcasts into Syria.

U.S. officials began anticipating the fall of Assad when Syrian troops
were forced to withdraw from Lebanon in April after the Feb. 14
assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, Katzman
says.

Hariri supporters charge that Syria was behind the murder. A
U.N. investigation has led to the arrest of four pro-Syrian Lebanese
security officials. Investigators led by German Judge Detlev Mehlis
went to Damascus on Tuesday to interview Syrian officials about the
crime.

The meetings with Ghadry and the administration’s decision to grant
visas to two Syrian reformers to attend a May conference in Washington
show the administration is in “the very early stages” of planning for
regime change in Syria, Katzman says.

Appropriations bills for the fiscal year that begins in October
promote democracy in Syria, he says. A House version allocates as much
as $1.5 million; the Senate version does not specify an amount.

U.S. officials want Assad out of power because they don’t believe he
will stop the flow of fighters from Syria to Iraq, says Flynt
Leverett, a former member of the National Security Council in the
Clinton and current Bush administrations.

Administration officials declined repeated requests for comment. In
the New York Post on Thursday, Rice said the U.S. intention was still
to change Syria’s behavior. “But we’ll see whether or not the Syrian
government is smart enough to take that course,” she said.

Monday, she told reporters at the U.N. that “Syria needs to get on the
right side of events” by stopping interference in Lebanon and ending
support for Palestinian militants and Iraqi insurgents.

Syria denies it is helping Iraqi insurgents. The United States is not
patrolling the border, while Syria has stationed 10,000 troops there,
says Buthaina Shabaan, Syria’s minister of expatriates and an adviser
to Assad. Instead of pushing for Assad’s removal, Americans should ask
whether “promoting violence and war is the right way to change
countries and bring freedom and democracy,” she says. “Are they
satisfied with the results in Iraq?”

Several Syria experts say Assad’s removal could pose new problems.

Theodore Kattouf, U.S. ambassador to Syria until September 2003, warns
of a power vacuum, leading to chaos, or a worse leader, such as
Assad’s uncle Rifaat.

Exiled by Assad’s late father, Rifaat Assad has long sought power but
would be an unlikely ally for the Bush administration. In 1982, he led
a brutal crackdown on Islamic fundamentalists in the Syrian city of
Hama. An estimated 20,000 people were killed.

Murhaf Jouejati, a Syrian-American professor of political science at
George Washington University, says Rifaat Assad is extremely unpopular
in Syria and that the secular opposition is weak. Jouejati calls
Ghadry a “Chalabi mini-me.” The fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood
would take advantage of any instability, he says. “The Bush
administration wants regime change but cannot find a viable
alternative.”

Frustration with Assad has been building since the United States
invaded Iraq in March 2003. Edward Djerejian, U.S. ambassador to Syria
under the first Bush administration, met with Assad in January and
urged him to cooperate, just as his father did during the Gulf War in
1991. “He has not made a strategic decision to do so,” says Djerejian,
director of the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.