SITTING on a leather sofa in a modern marbled palace overlooking the ancient city of Damascus, President Bashar al-Assad paints what he describes, with considerable understatement, as a “black picture” of the consequences for the entire Middle East of an American war on Iraq.

Countries would be partitioned, he says. There would be floods of refugees. Economies would grind to a halt. Foreign investment and trade would dry up. Poverty would deepen.

“The consequences are not going to be contained within Iraq,” he says. “The entire region will enter into the unknown.” Far from eliminating the threat, the war would merely create “fertile soil for terrorism”.

But Mr Assad believes war is inevitable. The Americans have made up their mind. “Despite the UN resolutions and the fact that the inspectors are there, they are all the time announcing that they want to launch a strike against Iraq,” he says.

“Even before the return of the inspectors, the US was trying to obstruct the return of the inspectors and this is evidence that what they really want is to launch a strike against Iraq.”

This is the first interview Mr Assad has given to the British press since succeeding his father in July 2000 and he is giving it because he is about to make an unprecedented visit to Britain, during which he will meet the Queen and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

It will be the first visit by the leader of a country that spent much of the Cold War in the Soviet camp, features high on America’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, and has long been seen as one of the most hardline Arab states. America also suspects it of developing weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Assad does not come across as some sort of ruthless dictator. In striking contrast to the austere style of his father, who rarely gave interviews but spoke for hours to the few Western leaders he met, the 36-year-old President has a ready smile, a modest demeanour and a friendly “bedside manner” that must have stood him in good stead during his clinical practice as an eye specialist in London.

He speaks good English, although he uses Arabic for this 90-minute interview. He wears a smart grey suit. He and his wife, Asma, happily posed for a Western-style “photo-opportunity” on a balcony of the presidential palace.

But for all his familiarity with the West, he clearly harbours deep resentments towards the Bush Administration’s policies in the region. He challenges Washington’s assertions that Saddam Hussein is a threat to the region.

“We are a better judge of this because we live in the region. It is not logical that others should decide that something is or isn’t a problem for the region. I think the bigger problem is that any country should interfere in the internal affairs of another country,” he argues.

He says that Syria has voted in favour of the United Nations Security Council resolution authorising a return of the weapons inspectors to Iraq to delay a war, not to make one possible.

He admits that there are points in that resolution with which Syria, the only Arab member of the Security Council, does not feel comfortable.But it faced two options: an American strike, regardless of any UN or international legitimacy, and a resolution “that seems to serve at least to postpone the war”.

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