لحظة من فضلك!..

As a young Syrian who lived the last part of Khaddam era and the transition to Bashar, allow me to say the followingas a personnal analysis:

I think that Khaddam’s reasons for his precisely timed comeback on the Syrian regime was because of a mix of reasons, mainly:

1- personal vendettas
2- fresh business deals
3- an oversized ego.

Think about it: here is a man that was selling his services to bidders from outside Syria who wanted to influence Syria’s political and major business decisions.

He sold his services to the Hariri senior and continued his alliance with the new Hariri. He is a major partner in most of Hariri’s businesses in Syria, Lebanon, Saudi and France as was Hariri a partner in his business in Syria, whereas Rafiq Hariri’s business competitors in Lebanon and Syria were having an extremely hard time finding any foothold in Syria . One major example: Prince Al-Walid Bin Talal who was unable to enter the Syrian market until Bashar came to power.. which by the way added to Khaddam’s mafia grievances in the last 5 years. Until 2000, it was very well known that it would be extremely hard for any big player from outside or inside Syria to enter the Syrian market unless they made someone from Khaddam’s mafia a partner (Coca-cola, Philip-Morris, Jaguar are just a few of Khaddam’s businesses in Syria with partnerships with the Hariri and other Saudis, plus the countless local businesses and chains in Syria) not to mention his sons and wife illegal businesses of smuggling, trade in nuclear waste, etc. I was personally told in 1998 (by a son of ex-senior bathist from the old -and now expired- guards) of a very well-known meeting between Al-walid bin Talal and Assad senior in Damascus where the prince begged Hafez to keep Khaddam cronies away from him as he was being kept out of the Syrian market because he refused to pay “the partnership fees” to one of Khaddam sons. I personally think that it was not possible for Emaar (the Dubai based mega properties investment company) to come to Syria with its 5 Billions Dollars investment if Khaddam was not “gently” kicked out from power during the last 5 years. Oh and by the way, did anyone else notice how Future TV (owned by Hariri) does not play Syrian TV shows unless they were produced by the Al-Sham Int… you guessed it.. it is owned by Khaddam!

Unfortunately, Syria was and still is run by corrupted mafia-style businessmen/politicians for the last 30 years, where Lebanon has been run by a larger number of corrupted mafia-style businessmen/politicians/sectarian Za’ims since its creation. These Lebanese and Syrian mafias interchanging control turfs in both countries and many powerful partnerships were created over the years of Syria in Lebanon.. both sides are to blame.

The Personal Vendetta!
As for Khaddam’s remarks on the foreign minister, it is a fact that Al-Sharaa lost a lot of the glamour he had in the nineties. He should be blamed for Syria’s recent foreign policy missteps. But although this incompetence begs for change in the foreign ministry’s head, it should be clearly stated that Farouk Al-Sharaa was and still is seen by the Syrian public as one of the few “clean hands” in the brutal and corrupted world of the Syrian regime. For more than 20 years, no one ever heard in Syria of any illegal activity by Al-Sharaa or any of his relatives (while it is a sad truth, it is something rare and admirable in the dirty world of Syrian regime). Given that Khaddam held, and obviously still holds, grudge for Al-Sharaa, this gives even more credibility to the rumors that prevailed in Syria during the last 5 years about tensions between Al-Sharaa and Khaddam, not always because of policy-related reasons! The rumors said that Al-Shara’a was critical of Khaddam wide-scale corruption and his sons imposed siege on investment in Syria.