Thirty-five years ago, Bashar’s father, Hafez Assad firmly established his dictatorship over Syria. The accomplishment was all the more remarkable because Mr. Assad’s Allawite sect makes up only about fifteen percent of Syria’s mostly Sunni Muslim population. Through brutal exercise of force, and with strong support for decades from Russia, Hafez Assad was able to rule by terror. Upon his death in 2000, the presidency passed to Hafez’s son Bashar, an ophthalmologist, uncomfortable with the political intrigues of his father, but brought into the act when family plots worthy of Shakespeare eliminated other likely candidates.

In addition to inheriting a tight grip of power over the Syrian people, Bashar also assumed Syria’s control over neighboring Lebanon, its support for militant anti-Israeli groups funded by Iran and a strident anti-American policy. All of that was bad enough but Bashar began to dig his own grave with blatant support for members of Saddam Hussein’s government and family.

Syria became a haven for many of them, their riches and perhaps some of their weapons. At the same time, Syria became the support for the Sunni insurgents who were financed and armed in Damascus, then crossed the long porous border into Iraq to wreak destruction on the American military, Shiite civilians and the nascent Iraqi government. In response, the United States did its best to ostracize internationally the Syrian regime and punish it economically. We threatened a regime changes but with the lack of support for the United States’ war effort in Iraq, our voice fell on deaf ears. All of that changed with the recent assassination of Lebanese reformer and political figure, Rafiq Hariri.

For years, Syria has had a tight grip over neighboring Lebanon, initiated when Syrian troops rolled into that country ostensibly to help maintain peace during a civil war between Maronites and Muslims. Several months ago an independence movement began in Lebanon among Lebanese political figures called “reformers.” The Syrian military and intelligence occupiers took a firm view trying to block this movement from getting off the ground

As the movement gained momentum, there was increasing alarm in Damascus that the Syrians might be losing control. In a desperate measure to reverse the tide of events, Syrian intelligence, aided by cooperative Lebanese officials, plotted Hariri’s assassination. They weren’t willing to risk failure. The bomb which devastated the car Hariri was riding in left a huge crater in the middle of the street. The Syrians of course publicly denied any involvement despite cries by Lebanese officials, the French and the United States of what was obvious, namely that culpability rested in Damascus.

This verbal standoff might have continued but for the fact that the United Nations, in one of the relatively useful things it has done in quite a while, appointed a special prosecutor, Detlev Mehlis, to investigate the Hariri killing. As far as the Syrians are concerned, this dogged German is the prosecutor from hell. He rivals Jean val Jean, Victor Hugo’s creation.

As a result of Mehlis’ investigation, already four Lebanese security officials, who were close to the Syrian regime have been arrested, but Mehlis is far from finished. He has now taken his investigation, backed by the clout of the UN Security Council, to Damascus. The imminent questions now are how high up in the Syrian government will Mehlis be able to find conspirators, and will Assad agree to turn them over to the U.N. and to Lebanon for punishment.

Assad is truly between a rock and a hard place on the issue of cooperation with Mehlis. If he does not do so, pressure from the United States and France, who for a change are unified on an issue, could lead to economic and other sanctions which will raise the level of misery in Syria sufficient to produce a change of regime. Alternatively, Assad could turn over the perpetrators and that in turn will fuel the growing opposition by Sunnis in Syria for an ouster of Assad. Increasingly, Sunni militant groups have been engaged in gun battles with the police.

The handwriting on the wall is now coming into clear focus. The ophthalmologist’s days of being the Syrian ruler are numbered. Before we cheer too loudly, let’s try to ensure that what we get will be better, not worse, than Assad.