Dossier: Abdul Halim Khaddam former Syrian vice-president

After forty years of government service and six months of quiet, self-imposed exile in Paris, former Vice-president Abdul Halim Khaddam has suddenly reemerged to challenge Bashar Assad's leadership of Syria. Although he has no power base inside Syria and little credibility as an opposition leader, Khaddam's wealthy Lebanese benefactors make him an attractive ally for the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

Background

Khaddam, a Sunni Muslim born in the northern Syrian seaport of Banias in 1932, was a close high school friend of the late Hafez Assad, whom he followed into the secular nationalist Baath Party at age 17. He acquired a law degree at Damascus University and worked as an attorney until the Baathist seizure of power in 1963, then assumed a series of provincial governorships in Hama (1964), Qunaitra (1964-65), and Damascus (1965-69). He was attorney general from 1968-69, and minister of economy and foreign trade from 1969 to 1970. After Assad assumed the presidency in 1970, Khaddam was appointed foreign minister.

A brilliant and charismatic diplomat, Khaddam was instrumental in helping a regime dominated by Alawites (a heterodox Islamic offshoot) gain acceptance in the predominantly Sunni Arab world. He was widely credited with forging strong Syrian relations with Saudi Arabia and Iran's Islamic Republic (both provided the Assad regime with enormous levels of financial aid in the 1980s, despite their mutual animosity). Not surprisingly, he was a prime target for the regime's enemies, surviving at least two assassination attempts (five, by his count). In 1984, he was appointed one of Syria's three vice-presidents, but continued to carry out special diplomatic missions abroad.

His most profound contribution to the regime came in Lebanon, where Syrian hegemony was achieved and sustained by combining brutal coercion with skillful diplomacy. While Gen. Ghazi Kanaan, the Alawite chief of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, specialized in intimidating Lebanese elites into obeying Damascus, Khaddam excelled at persuading them to accept Syrian hegemony. Whereas Kanaan worked behind the scenes (most Lebanese had never even heard his voice until he gave an interview last year with a Beirut radio station), Khaddam was often in the spotlight.

In a sense, Syria's "high commissioner for Lebanon" went native, reveling in high rent Beirut social life and forming lucrative business partnerships with Lebanese elites, especially Rafiq Hariri, a billionaire construction tycoon who served as prime minister from 1992-1998 and 2000-2005. Hariri bought Khaddam a lavish mansion (previously owned by daughter of Aristotle Onassis) on the fashionable Avenue Foch in Paris and made him a silent partner in a range of rapacious business schemes in Lebanon, most notably telecommunications.[1] Hariri also brought Khaddam's sons into legitimate joint business ventures in Saudi Arabia. In return for his largesse, Khaddam granted the prime minister political preeminence over his rivals. On one occasion, he famously chided ministers who were pressing for the premier's resignation, telling them Hariri was "here to stay until 2010."[2]

That was not to be. The fact that Khaddam (along with Kanaan and former Syrian Army Chief-of-Staff Hikmat Shihabi) was effectively in Hariri's pocket made him a threat to Bashar Assad, who began assuming control of the Syrian regime in the last two years of his father's life. In 1998, Shihabi was ousted, while Bashar took control of the "Lebanon file" from Khaddam, forced Hariri out of office, and shifted power to a newly "elected" president, Gen. Emile Lahoud. Khaddam retained his position as vice-president, but was reduced to mostly ceremonial diplomatic functions.

When Hafez Assad died in June 2000, executive authority nominally passed to Khaddam until the selection of a successor by parliament and his approval by public referendum. Bashar occupied no official position in government or the ruling party at the time and there was considerable speculation that Khaddam might try to assert his constitutional prerogatives (perhaps with outside backing from Arab governments) and obstruct his ascension. It was later rumored that Khaddam voiced objections to other senior regime figures within hours of Assad's death and was sharply rebuked. At any rate, Bashar and his allies were careful to deny Khaddam even the trappings of office. Foreign Minister Farouq al-Sharaa instructed foreign embassies to address all official condolence messages to Bashar, not the acting president. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared that Bashar should "take on the mantle" of leadership in Syria,[3] a stunning breach of diplomatic protocol (coming weeks before his election) that hinted of collusion. Foreign dignitaries who attended Assad's funeral ignored Khaddam, while lining up to meet privately with Bashar. Khaddam felt humiliated, but had little choice but to accept his fate.

Although Bashar reinstated Hariri in late 2000, the Lebanese prime minister's political power was sharply reduced by the disempowerment of his Syrian allies (Bashar removed Kanaan in 2002 and replaced him with a loyalist, Gen. Rustom Ghazaleh). The Syrian leader's "new guard" lacked Khaddam's finesse in extracting money from Lebanon (the collapse of Bank al-Madina in mid-2003 was essentially a case of Ghazaleh not knowing when to say when)[4] and managing inter-elite clashes in the country. These failures ultimately led Hariri to conspire with Western governments. When Saudi political analyst Dawud al-Shiryan asked Hariri why he didn't ask Khaddam to intercede with Assad, the beleaguered prime minister replied that his Syrian friend was merely a "spectator" whose intervention would probably make things worse.[5]

The assassination of Hariri in February 2005 made Khaddam's future in Syria untenable. After returning to Damascus from the funeral (he was the only senior Syrian official who attended), Khaddam found himself and his family under constant government surveillance.[6] At the opening session of the 10th Baath party regional conference in early June, he took the podium and delivered a lengthy speech criticizing Syria's foreign policy and handling of Lebanon, leading to a heated exchange with Sharaa. He then stunned the 1,000+ delegates in attendance by announcing his resignation from all government and party posts. He left for Paris shortly thereafter, ostensibly to write his memoirs.

Although Khaddam declined all interview requests for the next six months, by the end of the summer it was common knowledge in Lebanese political circles that he and Shihabi (who also showed up in Paris) were conspiring with the late Hariri's son and political successor, Saad, and other Lebanese political figures residing in Paris for fear of assassination by the Syrians, as well as meeting with French, American, and Saudi officials. The apparent murder of Kanaan in October was probably motivated by suspicions that he was conspiring with Khaddam and Hariri. Members of Khaddam's immediate family still in Syria quietly left in the weeks that followed, indicating that he was not coming back and not planning to hold his tongue for very long.

By mid-December, the Syrian regime had reportedly frozen Khaddam's assets.[7] Although Syria's state-run media ignored him, the editor of Lebanon's Al-Diyar daily, Charles Ayoub, who is close to Ghazaleh, published an article on December 11 accusing Khaddam and Shihabi of corruption and treason - an unmistakable warning shot from Damascus.

Khaddam Strikes Back

On December 30, Khaddam finally broke his silence in a lengthy interview with Al-Arabiya satellite television. He had resigned, he said, because Assad's inner circle was leading the country to ruin, forcing him to choose between regime and homeland. "I chose to side with the homeland." He shied away from direct criticism of Assad, depicting him as naive and easily swayed by nefarious and incompetent underlings (particularly Ghazaleh and Sharaa). However, he made two very damaging allegations - that the Syrian president had harshly threatened Hariri before the assassination, and that the operation could not have been carried out by Syrian intelligence officials without his knowledge.

The reaction in Damascus was furious. Khaddam was excoriated by the state-run media and accused of treason by a unanimous vote of the Syrian parliament, while members of his extended family were obliged to publicly condemn him. This led Khaddam to take off the gloves in follow-up interviews, calling explicitly for the overthrow of Assad and reaching out to Syrian opposition forces.[8] He also met openly with the UN team investigating Hariri's murder.

Khaddam's residence in Paris and the fact that Saudi-financed media outlets intensively covered his initial revelations led some analysts to suggest that his defection was encouraged by Riyadh and Paris to retaliate for Syrian efforts to destabilize Lebanon.[9] If so, King Abdullah apparently got what he wanted from Assad, as Saudi-financed media outlets abruptly terminated their coverage of Khaddam (according to Al-Quds al-Arabi, the Saudi Information Ministry issued an explicit directive to this effect).[10] The daily Al-Hayat reported on January 6 that a "long" interview with Khaddam would be published the following day, but it never ran. The MBC satellite station chose not to broadcast a three-hour long interview scheduled to air on January 6, while Al-Arabiya canned a follow-up interview with Khaddam.[11]

As Khaddam continued to escalate his attacks on the regime in interviews with European media outlets (expressing "deep conviction" that Assad "is responsible for Hariri's killing" [12] and hinting that he is responsible for subsequent assassinations in Lebanon[13]), France also began to distance itself from him. In an interview with Radio Sawa, Khaddam said that officials in Paris had asked him to stop attacking the Syrian regime through French media outlets.[14]

Khaddam's efforts to mobilize support from the Syrian opposition fell flat initially. Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leader Ali Sadreddine Bayanouni welcomed Khaddam's defection,[15] but called him "a partner to the four-decade regime of corruption and despotism in Syria" and demanded that he "apologize for his role in the crimes the regime has committed against the people."[16]

In a January 14 interview with the German weekly der Spiegel, Khaddam declared that he was working to form a government in exile,[17], but this appeared to be wishful thinking. Apart from Shihabi (who has not yet publicly challenged the regime), he had not attracted any high profile Syrian allies.[18] By the end of January, the Arab media was completely ignoring him and Western media outlets had mostly lost interest.

In early February, however, Khaddam was suddenly in the headlines again after meeting with Bayanouni in Brussels. Afterwards, Bayanouni announced that they had "arrived at a common view of national action in Syria."[19] Whether this signifies the beginning of a serious partnership remains to be seen, but Khaddam's financial resources would clearly be a boon for the cash-strapped brotherhood leadership in exile.

Notes

  [1] On paper, 86% of LibanCell, one of two cellular phone companies granted exclusive control of the wireless market in Lebanon, was owned by two sons of former Defense Minister Mohsen Dalloul (a Hariri ally), but it was widely known that the Dalloul brothers were fronting for Khaddam (and Syrian Army Chief of Staff Hikmat Shihabi). See Gary C. Gambill, Lebanon's Cell Phone Scandals, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, January 2003.
  [2] "We in Syria have had no change (in leadership) since 1970. Continuity leads to stability," he reportedly added. See "Lebanon without Hariri--who holds the lock and key?" Mideast Mirror, 1 December 1998.
  [3] "Albright urges Syria to open up, urges Bashar to assume father's mantle," Agence France Presse, 12 June 2000.
  [4] See Gary C. Gambill and Ziad K. Abdelnour, The Al-Madina Bank Scandal, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, January 2004.
  [5] Al-Hayat (London), 4 January 2006.
  [6] Al-Safir (Beirut), 3 January 2006.
  [7] Claude Salhani, "Khaddam: the Syrian Tsunami," United Press International, 31 December 2005.
  [8] "This regime cannot be reformed, so there is nothing left but to oust it," he said in a January 6 interview with Al-Sharq al-Awsat.
  [9] Michael Young, "From Khaddam, a disquieting Saudi warning," The Daily Star (Beirut), 5 January 2005.
  [10] Al-Quds al-Arabi, 7 January 2006.
  [11] Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 9 January 2006. See also Arab media fall silent on Khaddam, BBC, 11 January 2006.
  [12] "Syrian former VP 'convinced' Assad ordered Hariri killing," Agence France Presse, 10 January 2006.
  [13] "What killed Hariri killed the others," Khaddam told France Info radio on January 9. "Syrian dissident raises questions," United Press International, 9 January 2006.
  [14] Cited in "Aoun launches attack on Khaddam," The Daily Star (Beirut), 16 January 2006.
  [15] "Syrian Muslim Brotherhood says ready to work with opposition," Agence France Presse, 7 January 2006.
  [16] Al-Jazeera TV (Doha), 8 January 2006.
  [17] "Syria's former VP prepares government in exile: press," Agence France Presse, 14 January 2006.
  [18] There have been persistent rumors that Gen. Ali Duba, a former head of military intelligence ousted in 2000, recently left Syria for exile in London and has been in contact with Khaddam. [See Claude Salhani, "Analysis: A Syrian government in exile?" United Press International, 5 January 2006] However, Al-Nahar (Beirut) on January 5 quoted a source close to Duba denying that he had left Syria.
  [19] Al-Jazeera TV, 8 February 2006.