Syrian President Bashar al-Assad speaks at the opening of the 4th General Conference of Arab Parties in Damascus in March. (Associated Press/Bassem Tellawi)

He has no tanks or soldiers in the battle. But in Western and, it appears, in Arab eyes, Syria is very much on the front lines as far as the conflict in Lebanon goes.

What's more, its young president, Bashar al-Assad — diffident, publicly reticent and, in his mind at least, reform-minded — is very much in the diplomatic crosshairs.

That's because both Syria and Iran are, to varying degrees, the principal backers of the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah, which sparked this conflict by killing 10 Israeli soldiers and taking three others for hostage purposes.

Western intelligence sources say Iran gives Hezbollah about $100 million US a year in military supplies and is the prime source of the Lebanese group's estimated 15,000 rockets. Syria is the conduit through which much of this equipment makes it way to southern Lebanon; it is also said to provide training camps in its Bekaa Valley for Hezbollah militia and safe havens for Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.

But Syria is very much the junior partner in this arrangement and al-Assad, at 40, a seemingly reluctant leader: A British-trained eye doctor, he took over following the death of his strongman father Hafez al-Assad six years ago but only because his older brother, Bassel, who was being groomed for the presidency, was killed in an accident a few years earlier.

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As a result, and because he painted himself early on as a Western-styled reformer, seeking economic if not political change, Bashar al-Assad is seen as the weak link in this partnership. That has now made him the object of intense international pressure.

In recent days, the leaders of Italy, Egypt and Turkey have all called urging him to do something to rein in Hezbollah and convince it to give up its hostages. Washington has been turning up the heat, witness George W. Bush's open mic remark to Tony Blair at the recent G8 summit: "We just need to get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's all over."

All this helps explain why Iran stepped up its own counter-pressure on its smaller ally, to stiffen al-Assad's backbone. Iran's foreign minister visited Damascus a few days ago to pledge that if Israel or anyone else attacked Syria over the latest crisis Iran would rush to its aid. Iran's controversial President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad drove the point home with an open letter, reiterating the promise, the very next day

All this pressure perhaps explains, too, why al-Assad has been so quiet, seeming to straddle the fence, while next door, Lebanon, a country that was virtually a client state of Syria until just last year, roils under Israeli bombs.

True, al-Assad has allowed several large pro-Hezbollah rallies to take place in Damascus. He has also opened his doors to tens of thousands of refugees (including Americans fleeing Lebanon, the state news agency has reported), and he is desperately trying to get water and other humanitarian supplies into Lebanon.

But he has assiduously said almost nothing publicly about the conflict itself, other than to chastise Western nations for not sending an international peacekeeping contingent to southern Lebanon — which is the Tony Blair idea and not something that seems very high on Ahmadinejad's agenda.

What can al-Assad do?

What the West would like al-Assad to do is force Hezbollah to stop shelling Israeli villages and agree to give up its Israeli hostages, presumably by threatening to cut off his support for their bases if the Shia militia group won't play ball.

That would be a huge step and it would clearly break the alliance with Iran, which in many respects is one of the more unusual ones in all of the Middle East.

Iran, of course, is a fundamentalist Shia theocracy and part of what Blair has called the "arc of extremism" cutting through the Shia and Sunni divide in the Muslim world.

Syria, on the other hand, is usually considered a secular state run by the al-Assads' Baathist party (though a much different version than Saddam Hussein's in Iraq). Its leadership has been predominantly Sunni, save for the al-Assad family, who belong to a minority sect.

Still, Syria backed Iran in the war with Iraq in the early 1980s and has been a mostly close ally since, benefiting economically by their ties, analysts say.

Many Middle East observers, however, see the relationship between the two countries as essentially a marriage of convenience between two pariahs. Each sees itself as a state under siege, particularly from the U.S.

Neither wants to be the next Iraq — Tehran especially given the current furor over its nuclear ambitions — and al-Assad likely feels he needs Iran's Shia legitimacy to help maintain the internal coalition his father cobbled together over 30 years ago.

But given Syria's close ties with neighbouring Lebanon, al-Assad can at this point probably rationalize turning his back on Hezbollah as a way of helping the Lebanese government control its own destiny. And his prize, should he dare to swing his support, could be something like the Golan Heights, which Israel won from Syria over the course of two wars in 1967 and 1973.

The Golan is extremely important to both Syria and Israel because it controls much of their fresh water supply through the Sea of Galilee. Israel values the plateau as well as a strategic lookout on Syrian military build-ups. So it would never be dealt without a series of safeguards.

Syria's cipher

Israelis don't want to give up the Golan, opinion polls show. But it has been on the table before, as recently as seven years ago during a potential peace deal that Bill Clinton was trying to broker, and conceivably it could be again if the price was right. Like, say, a peace deal with Syria and the end of Hezbollah's influence in southern Lebanon.

The big questions, of course, are how would you get to that kind of negotiation from where things are now and would al-Assad seize the moment? In his six years in power he's been very much a cipher.

He began his presidency as a reformer, loosening restrictions on international business, the internet and the media. But since then there has been a noticeable tightening of the media rules, in particular, and a crackdown on dissidents.

Three years ago he said he would be interested in restarting peace talks with Israel, but then he refused the offer to visit Jerusalem and take them up in earnest.

At the same time, though, he has been going out of his way to patch up relations with Turkey, a NATO member and backer of Israel.

His six years in power have been marked by extreme caution — he has been very slowly easing out the old guard functionaries who were loyal to his father — and very little in the way of telling public pronouncements.

He may well be trying to just ease his way through this crisis as well, feeling it is not worth the internal dissension, and maybe an attempt on his life, that a role in resolving it would bring. But if he passes on this opportunity, he will likely have sealed his reputation with the West and it is extremely doubtful another like it will come his way again.

IN DEPTHMiddle East in Crisis

Decision time for Syria's Bashar al-Assad

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