Syria Siding with the U.S.

Early risers in Damascus these days are treated to what is ordinarily an unthinkable sight in the Syrian capital: antigovernment graffiti. LONG LIVE SADDAM HUSSEIN, one scrawler proclaimed recently in a bold protest against President Hafez Assad's participation in the U.S.-led alliance against Saddam. The inscriptions are quickly erased, but government authorities know that all the whitewash in the world cannot obliterate the sentiment they express. "To be anti-U.S. and pro-Arab nationalism is what people in Syria have been groomed for, and it's very difficult to shake off," says a Western diplomat in Damascus. "This feeling is all of the government's making, and now it doesn't serve their purposes."

- It is no small irony that as President Bush and Assad met in Geneva last week, both men found themselves under attack at home for the get-together -- the American for cozying up to a dictator who has never been reluctant to use terrorism to achieve his goals, the Syrian for dealing with the U.S. Posters of Assad have been defaced. Anonymous leaflets criticizing the alliance with the West have quietly circulated and, according to diplomats, have resulted in arrests in southern Syria. Authorities have confided to foreign dignitaries that an estimated 85% of the public opposes Syria's gulf policy. Even Syrian military officers have privately expressed misgivings.

Assad is hardly concerned about winning a popularity contest. As he once said, "It is not public opinion that makes government but government that makes public opinion." Nonetheless, Damascus has fired up its propaganda machine to assure the public that Assad has not completely changed course -- and in so doing has underscored some of the problems confronting the coalition against Saddam in the gulf. The state-controlled media continue to attack the U.S. bitterly for its support of Israel. In addition, Damascus officials have asserted that the 3,000 Syrian troops in Saudi Arabia will defend the desert kingdom but will not participate in an attack against the army of another Arab nation, even though Saddam and Assad, who head rival wings of the socialist Baath party, bitterly resent each other.

Assad's allies profess not to be worried. "It's what the Syrians do, not what they say, that counts," says a Western diplomat. That point was emphasized earlier this month, when the first of 300 Syrian tanks and other armored vehicles arrived at the Saudi port of Yanbu. Assad had agreed to the shipment in September but claimed that transportation problems had delayed the deployment. Though Western diplomats initially dismissed that excuse, they now believe Assad and are confident that Damascus will honor its original commitment to send its entire 9th Armored Division, totaling 15,000 men.