Few Syria observers ventured a guess at the New Year as to what the coming 365 days may hold for the country. The region’s topsy-turvy politics is the primary reason, but so is a trait unique to Syria: its seeming inability to set targets and meet them. The final date of the June 2005 Baath Party conference (where a “great leap forward” was promised to take place) was officially set only a week before the meeting began. To date just one of the conference’s edicts—proclaiming Syria a “social-market” economy—has made it onto paper. It’s election year in Syria, however, and some events penciled into the country’s agenda for 2007 are noteworthy. Sometime before July 10, President Bashar al-Assad is expected to win a (still officially unscheduled) referendum on a second seven-year term in office. In parliamentary elections slated for the second half of April, the ruling Baath Party, which leads
