Syria may be losing leverage

DAMASCUS, Syria — As the war between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah slogs into its third week, Syrian officials and analysts say the nature of the longstanding relationship between Damascus and the militia appears to be shifting, with Syrian leverage rapidly diminishing.

For the decades when Syrian soldiers were deployed in Lebanon, Damascus kept firm control over the pipeline of arms to Hezbollah and could encourage or suppress its activities with little trouble. Now, analysts argue, even if asked, Syria may have trouble tamping out the flames.

"The cards are being thrown in the air in a significant way, and it's not clear how they will land," said one Western ambassador, declining to be identified further because he lacked permission from his capital to speak officially. "There may be a new strategic situation in the making because Israel does not have the overwhelming strategic superiority that it thought it had."

The basis of that new equation is Hezbollah's continued ability to land rockets deep inside Israel despite two weeks of punishing assaults, with plenty of indications suggesting it can fire for weeks, if not months.

With each passing day, the sight of an Arab force hitting Israel with rockets makes Hezbollah increasingly popular across the region and thus more costly to restrain, particularly because the Israelis have labeled it a death match. Given the chilly U.S. approach to Damascus, with no promise of anything for cooperating, it is also not clear why Syria would want to squash Hezbollah.

"Essentially you are asking them to connive in their own demise," the ambassador said. "Persuading Hezbollah to commit hara-kiri doesn't make sense from Syria's point of view. It would mean the loss of their No. 1 card, not only in Lebanon but with Israel."

Hezbollah is believed to have enough of the 13,000-plus rockets it announced were in its arsenal in 2005 to keep going for a couple of months anyway.

Ironically, by forcing Syria to withdraw its military from Lebanon last year, the United States and its allies diluted significant direct leverage Syria might have had over Hezbollah.

The consensus here is that Iran, Syria and Hezbollah were all taken aback by the ferocity of Israel's response to the capture of two soldiers; the seizure seemed to fall within the unspoken rules of limited engagements. Similar operations had prompted prisoner exchanges in the past, the current demand by Hezbollah for ending the fighting.