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It was the worst concert I’ve ever seen. Coming out from the syrian palerlemnt house, and watching it live on TV (Arabic link):

Syrian lawmakers demanded on Saturday that former Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam be tried for treason and corruption after he publicly broke with President Bashar al-Assad.

Speaking from Paris, where he moved after resigning as vice-president in June, Khaddam launched an unprecedented attack on Assad, saying he had threatened Rafik al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister who was assassinated in February.

He also accused the government of making political blunders in Lebanon and of failing to deliver economic and political reforms at home, leaving millions of Syrians to go hungry.

“I ask the Syrian leadership to try him … for humiliating 10 million Syrians when he said half of the Syrian people are eating from the garbage,” legislator Umeima Faddoul told a session of Syria parliament.

“I tell him, those who eat from the garbage are traitors like you … Treason is the darkest shade of black.”

Al-Arabiya TV will air the complete interview again tonight at 6:30 GMT.

Again, it was so pathetic to see a legislator after legislator stood up in parliament to accuse Khaddam of corruption and treason during four decades as a senior official in Syria. Some also accused him of betraying his country by moving to France. If it reminds us of anything, that is the similar bad directed play’s that used to show on Iraq TV by former Iraqi regim officials.

Some of the syrian lawmakers could not make out that the interview was on Al-Arabiya TV not Al-Jazeera, and when he was corrected (three times), he insested it was on Al-Jazeera. It just tells you that the guy forgot was he was told to say!!

“You don’t deserve to be a Syrian, you can go to hell because no Syrian will forgive you, who hoped to return to your country one day on an American tank.” One of the lawmakers said.

It is important to remeber that Syrian deputies are elected to parliament by popular vote but rarely diverge from the official line. They belong to a group of parties led by the ruling Ba’ath Party.

On the other hand, it seems that the Syrian opposition watched yesterday the interview with remarkable delight. This is the best greeting for 2006 for all those who aspire to see “Regime Change” (hopefuly democracy and freedom) flourish in Syria. Kaddam is the highest ranking Ba’athist to turn against the regime and his timing could not have been planned better (or worse).

At the end, the one man who could bring them all down can’t be in higher rank than Kaddam is, and that is why his timing is impeccable.

The optimist Syrian opposition believes that Kaddam has already testified about the killing of Rafik Hariri to the UN team to warrant the stipulation of Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter under which Resolution 1636 was passed. Chapter VII provides the United Nations with ample powers to stop “THREATS TO THE PEACE, BREACHES OF THE PEACE, AND ACTS OF AGGRESSION.” This in effect is the closest thing to a declaration of war by the United Nations.

Should this prove to be correct, is it a question of time before the Syrian regime falls?

On the other hand, the matter of regime change in Syria has been widely reported and to a certain extent, the US State department has avoided giving the impression that the US policy towards Syria is headed for regime change.

While “Behavior Change” is the official policy of the US State Department’s on Syria, this has not managed to offset the signs that one could read during meetings and declarations of US officials on this matter. There was a sense that a “no policy” on Syria was the policy. But the straddling of the fence will have to end now that Kaddam, the highest ranking defector, has given the international community the reason, if not the ammunition, to finally take a decisive role if it does not want to see chaos prevail. The international community must make a decision whether, with such overwhelming support by not only the democratic opposition but also by insiders of the regime to see “Regime change” take place. I’m afraid that Kaddam is the Tsunami that cannot stop the notion of toppling the Syrian regime.

It is also important to note that this is Abel-Halim Khaddam, who oversaw Syrian interests in Lebanon a while back. Bashar Assad is probably going mad over the falling of the house of cards. On the other hand, Khaddam may be positioning himself to take over the presidency of Syria. The so-called “opposition” doesn’t exist but is rather a few disaffected people. But if the Baath have to stick around in Syria, they may be better off with someone with real leadership qualities.

[Read more: Ex-Syrian Aide Says Assad Did Threaten Lebanese, Syria MPs demand treason charges, Syrian parliament votes for Khaddam's trial, Hariri 'threatened by Syria head', Syrian TV assails Khaddam for giving "false testimony", Insider Shock In Leb-Pol Slay, Assad vowed to 'destroy' critics, Former Syrian VP Says Hariri Threatened, Assad Threatened Hariri, Assad Threatens The Middle East]

Who is Abdul Halim Kaddam?

By Daniel Nassif.
Middle East Intelligence Bulletin.

As one of the only Sunni Muslims in a regime dominated almost entirely by Alawites (an esoteric offshoot Islamic sect considered heretical in much of the Arab world), Syrian Vice-President Abdul Halim Khaddam has exercised a great deal of influence over Syria’s foreign relations within the region during the last two decades. Though once considered a possible successor to Syrian President Hafez Assad, his political influence has been on the decline for several years.

Khaddam was born in 1932 in Banyas, a northern Syrian city on the Mediterranean coast. While studying law in the early 1950’s, Khaddam met Hafez Assad through Syria’s National Union of Students and joined the Ba’ath Party. He began his career as a lawyer in Damascus until the Ba’ath Party assumed power in 1963, after which he quickly ascended the political ladder, serving as Governor of Qunaitra (the largest city in the Golan Heights) in 1967 and as Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade from 1969-1970. After Hafez Assad’s assumption of power in November 1970, Khaddam assumed the posts of Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister as well as joining the Regional and National Commands of the ruling Ba’ath Party. In March 1984, Khaddam became one of Syria’s three Vice-Presidents.

Khaddam was a key player in several foreign policy initiatives, most notably Syria’s alliance with Teheran during the 1980’s and its intervention in Lebanon since 1976. His role in cultivating the Syrian regime’s network of political control within Lebanon earned him the nickname “Lebanon’s High Commissioner.”

Khaddam’s first major mission to Lebanon came in May 1975, after President Suleiman Franjieh appointed a military cabinet headed by Sunni Brig. Nur al-Din al-Rifa’i in a desperate bid to stop Lebanon’s descent into civil war. A Syrian delegation led by Khaddam met with prominent Sunni leaders on May 24 and convinced them (after much arm twisting) to withdraw their support for the cabinet. On May 25, the cabinet resigned and Khaddam pressured Frangieh to appoint Rashid Karami, a strong Syrian ally, as Prime Minister three days later.1 Within the next few weeks, the conflict which had hitherto been confined to sporadic clashes in Beirut spread to engulf the entire country.

When the Gemayel government reasserted its authority over the capital and surrounding areas in 1983, Khaddam was again instrumental in undermining Sunni support for government (the Sunni Prime Minister at that time, Shafiq Wazzan, had repeatedly called for the withdrawal of the Syrian troops and was “a driving force behind the [May 17th] agreement with Israel”).3 In October, Khaddam attended the Conference of the Lebanese “National Reconciliation” in Geneva, Switzerland that explicitly excluded Wazzan. Khaddam acted at the Conference as if he were the spokesman of Lebanese Muslims and reserved for himself the right to veto any future arrangement that did not ensure Syrian control over Lebanon’s affairs. Lebanese representatives from the two thirds of the country occupied by Syria were terrorized and careful not to dissent from Khaddam’s line.

Khaddam was the main broker of the 1985 Tripartite Agreement between Elie Hobeika, the commander of the Lebanese Forces at the time, Nabih Berri of the Amal militia, and Walid Jumblatt of the Progressive Socialist Party militia.

This agreement ended up in failure when Hobeika was ousted from East Beirut. Later, Khaddam encouraged Hobeika to come back to Lebanon from France and reestablish his base in the city of Zahle in the Syrian-occupied Bekaa Valley. Through the use of carrots and sticks, Khaddam was also instrumental in pressuring Lebanese political elites to support the 1989 Taif Accord (a similar document to the earlier Tripartite Agreement). The Taif Accord was used as a pretext to oust the legitimate Lebanese government and finalize the Syrian occupation of Lebanon.

With the Syrian occupation of Beirut in 1990, Khaddam worked assiduously to solidify Syrian control over successive Lebanese governments. In particular, his relationship with former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was very close. Several years ago Khaddam told Lebanese officials that Hariri was “here to stay until 2010,” adding that “we in Syria have had no change (in regime) since 1970. Continuity leads to stability.”4

Ironically, Khaddam’s close association with Hariri marked the beginning of his political demise. Bashar Assad, the son and heir apparent of Syrian President Hafez Assad, took control over Syrian policy in Lebanon in 1998, fearing that Khaddam might use Hariri, his money and his Saudi connections to challenge his ascension to the presidency. Syrian policy in Lebanon under Bashar took advantage of widespread disaffection with Hariri and his failed economic policies to bring the Lahoud-Hoss government to power. Hariri has spent his days since then trying to rub shoulders with Bashar Assad and distancing himself as much as he can from Khaddam and former Syrian army Chief of Staff Hikmat Shihabi, another loser as a result of Bashar’s ascendency. Hariri is no longer offering his private plane, his mansions in Europe or his boat to accommodate and entertain the Khaddam and the Shihabi families.

Perhaps the best indication of Khaddam’s political eclipse was the reaction in Lebanon to the death of his grand-daughter last month. In Lebanon, when the relative of an important Syrian official passes away, it is front page news and Lebanese politicians line up to attend the funeral or issue scores of statements and poems for the occasion. The only coverage given to Khaddam on this occasion was a brief paragraph in Hariri’s newspaper, al-Mustaqbal, and Hariri was virtually the only political figure to pay his condolences to the Syrian Vice-President.

Khaddam’s role within the Syrian regime has become largely ceremonial: paying condolences and carrying messages to the leaders of Sunni regimes in the Arab world. He is unlikely to contest this demotion, knowing that any overt signs of dissatisfaction will encourage the ostensibly reform-minded Bashar to expose details of the well-known indulgences of Khaddam and his sons in corrupt activities inside and outside Syria (e.g. Khaddam and his sons, along with the Shihabi family, used their political influence to involve themselves heavily in the cellular telephone business in Lebanon, which has earned them tens of millions of dollars in the last few years). Although officially Khaddam is still a vice-president, his political wings have been clipped and he will most likely slip graciously into a comfortable retirement.

1 Adeed I. Dawisha, Syria and the Lebanese Crisis (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1980), pp. 87-88. Dawisha notes that “Syria’s first intervention in Lebanese politics was highly successful. . . There can be no doubt that the Lebanese President, who perceived Karami’s appointment as a personal and political setback, would not have agreed to the appointment without explicit Syrian pressure.” 2 Al-Nahar, 8 January 1976. 3 Theodore Hanf, Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon: Decline of a State and Rise of a Nation (London: IB Tauris, 1993), p.287. 4 “Lebanon without Hariri–who holds the lock and key?” Mideast Mirror, 1 December 1998.

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