Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Bashar al-Assad's crackdown kills UK hopes of a new dawn



Britain's decade-long optimism that Syria's autocratic regime in Damascus would relax has turned to dust

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 April 2011

"The story of Britain's relationship with Syria over the last decade has been the repeated triumph of hope over experience. The web of personal links created by Bashar al-Assad's British education and his marriage to a British-born woman created a familiarity that ultimately proved deceptive.

The hope that Assad would one day relax his autocratic regime, distance himself from Iran, make peace with Israel – and along the way open Syria's sclerotic markets to British business – waned over the years but never quite died until the bloody events of the past few days....

The tenacious optimism was fuelled in part by organisations such as the British Syrian Society, funded by Syrian businessmen and founded by Asma Assad's father, President Assad's father-in-law, Fawaz Akhras. The society has financed business conferences attempting to lure British investment into Damascus on the strength of legal and financial reforms. It also paid for visits by British MPs who met the president and his top advisers.

In the light of the bloody crackdown on Syrian protesters, the long history of British overtures to Damascus is now an embarrassment. But Doyle, a critic of much of Britain's policy in the regions, still believes that it was worth the gamble: "If we hadn't tried we would always have been wondering: What if?""

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