Flushed with military victory, Pentagon hawks want to "remodel" the entire region to suit American and Israeli interests, a course, which they insist requires more "regime changes" in a pro-American direction.

In contrast, doves in the State Department argue that, rather than engage in further military adventures, the US should give priority to ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if it is to contain the dangerous wave of anti-Americanism sweeping the region.

What seems clear is that the United States intends to retain a forceful presence in the Middle East and that every Arab regime will need to adjust to this enforced "new reality".

The populations of the Arab world are not about to become pro-American, although it is widely recognised that the absence of democracy in Iraq robbed that country of the capacity to defend itself against foreign occupation.

Change is coming in the Arab world. Some 30 political parties took part in Yemen’s elections. Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has responded positively to calls by hundreds of Saudi intellectuals and businessmen for modest reforms. By declaring that elections will take place in June, King Abdullah of Jordan has confirmed that Jordan’s Parliament, suspended since June 2001, will soon be able to function again.

Writing this week in the International Herald Tribune, Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Moasher said "the Arab world needs to take the initiative in making its political and economic systems more democratic." A tardy resuscitation of the "Damascus Spring?"

Being in the front line of the Arab-Israeli conflict, it risks being squeezed between the jaws of American power on one front and Israel power on the other. Ruthless men in Washington and Tel Aviv have vowed to punish Syria for its support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and for radical Palestinian factions.

The destruction of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party has encouraged those who would like the Syrian Ba’ath to suffer the same fate, removing from the political scene the last party proclaiming an Arab nationalist ideology.

So what should Syria do to defend itself? The threat appears to be have been understood by both leadership and population. On 18 April, "Akhbar al-Sharq", an internet magazine published in London, reported that 1,124 Syrians, many in the exiled opposition, had signed a manifesto saying they would return home to fight if American troops entered Syria.

Other manifestos issued on April 17, Syrian independence day, were addressed to the authorities. About 140 leftists, rightists, Muslim Brothers and ordinary citizens signed a manifesto published by the Damascus Center for Theoretical and Civil Rights Studies declaring that a strong internal front based on freedom for all was the only effective defense against American and Israeli aggression.

On 21 April, "Akhbar al-Sharq" said Tayyib Tizini, a well-known professor of philosophy at Damascus University, had called for a national democratic dialogue. "Please start to open the circle from inside", he urged the authorities, "before some foreign power opens it from outside!" A petition is now circulating in Syria and on the internet calling for a national conference to draft political and economic reforms.

This new agitation for political freedoms recalls the flowering of free debate which took place during the six-month "Damascus Spring" of 2001, a brief period of relative freedom which was brought to an abrupt end with the arrest of 10 leading civil rights activists in August and September of that year and the closing down of the civil-society forums they had founded.

Two independent members of parliament, Ma’moun Homsi and Riad Seif, were sentenced to five years in jail on what were widely seen to be trumped up charges. According to an Egyptian lawyer, Ahmed Fawzi, who wrote a detailed report of their case for the Arab Commission for Human Rights, their arrest, detention and trial constituted a flagrant violation of their parliamentary immunity, of the Syrian Constitution, and of the commitments Syria had made under international law.

A more recent case of arbitrariness was the arrest on 23 Dec. 2002 of Ibrahim Hamidi, the respected Damascus correspondent of "Al-Hayat" supposedly because of an obscure feud between security services. He has been held without charge ever since. Appeals to President Bashar Asad to review his case in the interest of Syria’s own reputation have gone unanswered.

In spite of obstruction from entrenched interests, the political arena needs to be opened up to allow various political tendencies to emerge. Political parties need to be allowed to operate freely, debate should be encouraged inside the Ba’ath itself, while the National Progressive Front (a grouping of six small factions around the Ba’ath Party) should be abolished.

The energy of all Syrian citizens needs to be mobilized in these difficult times, freeing the Syrian economy from certain individuals, grown rich and powerful in the 1990s, who have acquired a stranglehold on the Syrian economy and block any government reform program. They have a monopolistic grip over key sectors of the economy.

The Syrian state is not working effectively on either the administrative or the political level. Managers of the large public sector companies are poorly paid (between $200 and $300 a month) and, as they work under strict control from policing bodies, have little authority or incentive to do better.

Because of blockages at all levels, businessmen and industrialists resort to corruption in order to bypass regulations. Increasingly, the real economy is taking place outside the legal structures of the state. Honest civil servants, seen as obstacles to private deals, find it hard to survive, as the economy becomes a battleground for rival interest groups.

Independent Syrian economists agree that the real urgency is to encourage the private sector, both Syrian and foreign. Once local businessmen and industrialists are seen to be able to work and make money within the law, without obstruction from well-connected barons, foreign investment might well follow.

At the same time, civil servants and public sector managers need to be given the protection, and the pay, to defend the public interest. Public debate and criticism of the government’s performance, as well as of the activities of special interest groups, should be encouraged, as it is the only way to ensure that reforms serve more than a few individuals.

The downside, however, is that the government has in recent years virtually withdrawn from playing any vital role in the economy, yet without liberating it either. Inadequate current spending has caused most public services to deteriorate. There has been virtually no major public investment in the past five years, apart from the construction of power plants (after repeated crises when lights went out in the capital) and of cotton spinning factory, as well as long-delayed deals with the American company Conoco and the French TotalFinaElf for the recovery and distribution of associated gas.

The opportunity to undertake necessary structural economic reforms was missed during the period of strict austerity of the 1990s, and missed again in the past few years when Syria enjoyed an artificial boom from trade with Iraq and the flow of subsidized Iraqi oil.

Editor’s note: Patrick Seale is a veteran Middle East analyst, journalist and writer. He wrote this commentary for the English-language Lebanese "The Daily Star", published on its 6 May issue.

Editing, highlights and some phonetisation of names are by IPS