Syria: Handle with care

One of the more sensational political murder mysteries of the Middle East has been unraveling at a fast clip. On Valentine’s Day, a powerful former prime minister of Lebanon, Ra > k Hariri, was killed in a Beirut bombing. Late last week, a U.N. investigation all but implicated the top political leadership in Syria. The Security Council was briefed Tuesday.

Hariri’s crime was to challenge Syria’s iron grip on Lebanon. On Monday, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said itwas “ true confessions time” for the Syrians. The United States and Britain talked of harsh sanctions. Meanwhile, crowds > lled Damascus streets to protest the report, which Syria has denounced.

The hornets’ nest of reaction to the U.N. > ndings brings a stark message: Proceed, but with caution. Clearly, the Middle East and the world would be better off without rulers like Syria’s Bashar Assad, 40, who inherited the dictatorship from his father > ve years ago. Assad, a Baathist ally of Saddam Hussein, has been sheltering former members of the Iraqi elite. Many of the insurgents in Iraq come from or through neighboring Syria. His regime also fosters terrorists in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

Removing or reforming the regime would send a strong message throughout the Middle East, where such dictatorships are more the rule than the exception. Already, the U.N. report has been the subject of excited talk across the region and, no doubt, considerable worry in the palaces of kings and dictators. But the bigger question is this: How to ensure that chaos does not follow?

As Iraq has painfully shown, removing a repressive regime does not ensure a democratic replacement. Even with U.S. troops in Iraq, that enterprise remains precarious at best. In Syria, Assad’s regime has little credible opposition to speak of. The Muslim Brotherhood might be the strongest, raising the specter that Islamists could come to power if Assad falls.

The trick is to pressure Assad to institute such changes as handing over those implicated in the bombing ( dif > cult when his brother and brother- in- law are among them); allowing multiparty elections monitored by outsiders; and demonstrating an end for support of terrorists. It’s not out of the question Assad might do all this to stay in power. Until now, he has done just enough asked of him to prevent the most punitive measures.

Done right, squeezing Assad would involve coordinated international pressure, so lacking in Iraq because of the Bush administration’s early, go- it- alone insistence on war.

Handled ineptly, Syria could ignite further disaster.