Can Syria's Assad Regime Make Peace with Israel? - J. Scott Carpenter: U.S. and European observers believe that Israel's new government will seek peace with Damascus in an attempt to pry the Syrian regime away from Tehran. Yet peace with Syria remains highly unlikely for a fundamental reason: without Israel as an enemy, Syria's minority regime loses its sole rationale for retaining power. The consolidation of Hafez al-Assad's power in 1970 relied heavily on loyal Alawite officers in the military and security apparatus, yet Alawites, the backbone of the Baathist regime, comprise only 12% of the population. To maintain this minority dominance, the Baathist regime imposed a state of emergency 46 years ago, providing the state a vast array of tools to monitor all social communication and to restrict individual freedoms of expression and association. Since the "threat" from Israel has been the essential and necessary myth for retaining the authoritarian grip of the Alawite minority in Damascus, losing it would eliminate the Assad regime's raison d'etre. Given the ruling clique's view that peace and regime preservation are zero-sum options, to seek a peace agreement is to chase a mirage. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)

Rights Group Urges Syria to Eliminate Special Court - Alia Ibrahim (Washington Post): A Human Rights Watch report Tuesday called on Syria to abolish its Supreme State Security Court, an institution used to stifle opposition to the government. The Supreme State Security Court "consistently ignores claims by defendants that their confessions were extracted under torture and frequently convicts them on vague and overbroad offenses that essentially criminalize freedom of expression and association," the human rights group said. The report said 153 bloggers, activists and private citizens have been tried on vague charges such as weakening national sentiment or awakening sectarian tensions. "This is not a court. This is just a means to legitimize the rulings of security apparatuses," said Mohammad Abd! allah, a Syrian human rights activist now living in the U.S. who was tried by the court on charges of publishing false information.

Syria Set Up Missile Facility at Suspected Nuclear Site - Katy Byron: Syria's nuclear chief Ibrahim Othman told members of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency Tuesday that his country has built a military missile facility at a site where traces of uranium have been detected in the past. The Dair Alzour site was bombed by Israeli aircraft in September 2007. (CNN)

Syria Building Chemical Weapons Plant - Yaakov Katz: Syria is building a chemical weapons production facility in the country's northwest, satellite images obtained by the defense analyst group Jane's reveal. The Al-Safir facility is located at a missile base that holds a significant part of Syria's long-range Scud D ballistic missiles. (Jerusalem Post)

Syria Getting Away with Murder? - Joshua Hammer (Atlantic Monthly): The investigation into the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri is nearing its end and a trial in international court looms. Insiders say the trail of evidence leads, ultimately, to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. But the investigators now fear that Western concerns about regional stability will prevent the naming of the biggest names. The bomb that killed Hariri killed 21 people and injured 220 more. It set dozens of cars on fire and knocked down several buildings. A report to the UN about the assassination revealed that three months before Hariri's death, his security detail had been mysteriously reduced from 40 to eight; that six anonymously purchased mobile phones were used on the day of! the attack to keep the bomber informed of Hariri's movements and to provide intelligence on the three possible routes that Hariri could take from the parliament building to his home; that the suicide truck moved into position one minute and 49 seconds before Hariri's convoy passed by; and that the truck itself had been stolen in 2004 in Sagamihara City, Japan. The killers appeared to be sophisticated, politically connected, and well-funded: clearly this was not the work of a lone extremist or a fringe group. It bore the hallmarks of a government-sponsored assassination.