Syria restrains itself after U.S. raid on its soil

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LATTAKIA, Syria -- Here in Bashar Assad's hometown, they love their leader. Or at least they make an extremely good show of appearing to do so.The dictator's mustachioed face glares from the back of taxi cabs and smiles benevolently out from the windows of banks and hair salons in this laid-back coastal city, sometimes alongside the image of his father, Hafez, who ruled this country before him.But the younger Assad's grip on Syria has never been as firm as his strongman father's. Even though a tight lid is kept on dissent in this authoritarian republic, snickers can be heard about the president's weak-looking chin (usually drawn more chiseled in the billboards than in real life) and his less-than-macho background as an orthodontist.In other words, his countrymen wonder whether their leader can take a punch. And thus they're looking anxiously to see what Assad will do after taking one in the kisser this week when U.S. troops and attack helicopters crossed into Syrian territory and carried out a raid that left eight people dead.Unfortunately for Assad, the truth is that there's not a lot he can do, at least not without jeopardizing the slow but steady progress Syria has made in recent months toward bringing itself out of the international isolation imposed by the Bush administration.It's not that Syria doesn't have tools at its disposal. If it wanted, it could open the floodgates to allow even more foreign fighters into Iraq (even the U.S. State Department admits Syria is at least trying to clamp down on the number of jihadis crossing its territory) or destabilize the U.S.-friendly government in Lebanon.But Assad in recent months appears to have made a strategic choice to come in from the cold by improving Syria's relations with Europe, opening diplomatic relations with the new government in Beirut and even flirting with Israel via back-channel peace talks over the Golan Heights. Though the Bush administration remains ideologically opposed to reconciling with Damascus, Syria has made no secret of its hope for better ties with the next administration, particularly if it's led by Barack Obama.Such incomplete moves have left Damascus in awkward limbo between a cautious West and its fuming long-time ally, Iran. Analysts in both Syria and the United States say that Syria's strategic limbo may explain why the U.S. military decided to take action now after five years of complaining about the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq via Syria.Some suggest that political considerations in the United States may have also been a factor, as the U.S. military may have been trying to set a precedent for action in Syria before the next administration takes over.Syria's response to date has been to unleash sharp-tongued Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, who called the raid "criminal and terrorist aggression," and to close an American school and a U.S. cultural center in Damascus, moves that primarily hurt the Syrian students who attend the former.The U.S. embassy in Damascus said that it may be forced to close "due to unforeseen circumstances or events." There has been no U.S. ambassador in the country since the 2005 murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, a killing that Washington believes was organized in Syria."Syria does not want an escalation," said Marwan Kabalan, a political scientist at the University of Damascus. "Syria does not want to let this raid have any impact on its relations with the European Union or other countries."It's not the first time in recent months that Assad has had to turn the other cheek.He was embarrassed earlier this year when Imad Mughniyeh, the military commander of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, was killed by a mysterious explosion in Damascus that Syria blamed on Israel and the United States. Assad's regime also had no response last fall when Israeli warplanes bombed a suspected nuclear site in northern Syria.Some wonder how long Syria can remain silent in the face of the repeated violations of its sovereignty. There's little doubt that the Assad regime would be under tremendous domestic pressure if not for the fact that most of its political opponents are currently in prison.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)