Syrian leader wavers on compromise or crackdown

Associated Press

DAMASCUS, Syria

Syrian President Bashar Assad wavered between cracking down and compromising Monday in one of the Middle East’s most- authoritarian and anti-Western nations as thousands of protesters in a southern city defied security forces who fired tear gas to disperse them.

The unrest in Syria, a strategically important country of 23 million people, could have implications well beyond the country’s borders given its role as Iran’s top Arab ally and as a front- line state against Israel.

“Nobody has an interest in Syria going aflame,” said Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut. “Syrian instability has the potential of destabilizing the entire region.”

The southern city of Daraa — parched by drought, rural and impoverished — has become the flash point for 10 days of anti- government demonstrations in a country that has a history of brutally crushing dissent. At least 61 people have been killed since March 18, according to Human Rights Watch.

Touched off by the arrest of several teenagers who scrawled anti-government graffiti on a wall in Daraa, the protests exploded nationwide Friday.