Assad baulks at Soviet road to Damascus

Press, 19 April 1989, Page 21

Assad baulks at Soviet road to Damascus

debts of $25 billion. The Soviet Union has also come round to -the view that its regional interests are best served by maintaining good working links with all parties to the Middle East conflict, including Israel. The normalisation of relations with Egypt and the opening up of consular links with Tel Aviv, as the prelude to full diplomatic links, are part of this strategy.

“At a recent seminar in Jerusalem, a Soviet foreign policy expert, Andre Somhikin, acknowledged that Moscow had made a critical mistake in failing to accept the Camp David peace accords and that policies and practices towards Zionism were being re-evaluated. An early test of the Soviet Union’s new-look foreign policy will arise over Moscow’s reponse to the escalating Lebanese crisis. Assad is in a quandary over how to respond to latest challenge of the Christian leader, Michel

Aoun, who has called on the Syrian President to step down as the only way of defusing tensions among the warring Lebanese communities.

Some of Assad’s advisers argue that direct Syrian military intervention is the only way to respond to such outright provocation. In an attempt to force Assad’s hand, Aoun has shelled Syrian military headquarters in Chtaura in the Lebanese Beka’a valley. But by responding in kind to Aoun’s attack, Assad would risk annoying his Soviet , ally, which provides the weapons for the 40,000-strong Syrian deterrent force in Lebanon. Taking on the Christians in a new Lebanese war would go against the advice of caution and restraint that is part and parcel of the new Soviet policy.

Another test will rest on the outcome of Soviet Minister Dmitri Yazov’s trip this

month to Damascus. Syria has been pleading with Moscow to upgrade its arms equipment in response to the increasing sophistication of Israel’s military capability. Top of the Syrian shopping list is a request for Kirov-class submarines, SS-23 surface-to-surface missiles and SU 24 bombers. The Soviets had earlier agreed to supply Syria with MiG-29 warplanes, some of which have arrived, but it has still to respond to the other demands.

The new-look Soviet policy is anathema to Assad because it challenges his conviction that strategic parity and a willingness to engage in armed struggle are the only ways to extract concessions from Israel. Separate deals undermine Arab aims to secure a just settlement of all disputes. Syria’s own strategy of forcing Israel to relinquish the occupied Golan Heights will suffer ifjsuch separate deals are allowed to