AT THE Rowda Café in the heart of old Damascus the clatter of dice on backgammon boards, the smoke from the nargile water pipes and the rich smell of Turkish coffee are a source of great comfort in these difficult times.

Syria may be at the heart of a furious international storm, but the old men who have been coming here for decades like to think that nothing will impinge on the timeless routine of life in this ancient Arab capital.

Certainly from the outside, Damascus appears tranquil and orderly. Unlike the brash new cities of the Middle East, such as Dubai or reconstructed Beirut, the Syrian capital feels like a place that time forgot. Traffic is light, many of the cars are rickety and old, there are few high-rise buildings and the ancient city centre remains charming and unaltered. American fast-food restaurants are absent, internet cafés are still a rarity and owning a mobile phone is still considered a status symbol.

Even the hideous 1970s Soviet-style buildings, such as the vast presidential palace perched above the city on Mount Kassyoun, add to the impression that Damascus is a place stuck in the past.

Hamdan, a writer who has lived in Syria for 50 years, has emerged without a scratch from four Arab-Israeli wars and a number of military coups. But as he puffs on a cigarette and scans the doom-laden headlines of the day’s Arabic newspapers, which have just arrived from Beirut, he has an ominous feeling that the country is entering a new and explosive period.

For three decades Syria was regarded as a great force in the region. Its support for hardline groups made it respected and feared. It dominated its neighbour, Lebanon, and projected its power across the Middle East. It was always said that peace with Israel could never be achieved without Syria, a country whose opinion even America ignored at its peril.

But in short order those cert- ainties have gone. Syria is now rapidly pulling its troops out of Lebanon in the face of unprecedented international pressure from America, Europe and even its old Arab allies. When Terje Roed-Larsen, the United Nations envoy to the Middle East, meets President Assad here today it will not be a courtesy call. Instead, he will deliver an ultimatum to Damascus that unless it co-operates fully with the international community and leaves its smaller neighbour alone, Syria faces political isolation and even the threat of sanctions.

The country is also under attack for its support of militant Palestinian and Lebanese groups and its suspected backing for Iraqi insurgents. Behind the long list of criticisms from Washington and elsewhere is the unmistakable warning that the one-party Baathist regime in Syria is out of step with the dramatic changes sweeping the region and that unless it changes its ways fast it may not survive at all. What many Syrians are now openly debating is whether their leader, a London-trained former eye doctor, can shoulder these challenges.

His father, Hafez al-Assad, seized power in a coup, brutally suppressed internal opposition and successfully out-manoeuvred his enemies abroad but his 39-year old son now presides over a far weaker country that has benefited little from the modest reforms of his five-year rule. Despite promising widespread change, he has found it impossible to overcome the old guard inherited from his father’s years. The ruling clique, which controls the security forces and much of the country’s wealth, has a vested interest in keeping a one-party state in place.

Ammar Abdulhamid, one of a new breed of opposition human rights activists in Syria, believes that Mr Assad has to choose reform or watch the regime come crashing down on top of him. “There is a major window of opportunity now. This is the time to get ahead and be proactive by championing real reforms,” he said. Senior figures in the regime promise that serious reforms will be announced at a Baath Party congress planned for the summer, giving Mr Assad the platform to replace the old guard.

There are doubts, however, about whether the President has the power and the character for the battle ahead. Western diplomats point out that the leader often makes confused and contradictory statements and describe his style of leadership as “dictatorship without a dictator”.

Nevertheless, the young leader appears fully aware that his own fate and that of his country are at stake. At the end of a recent interview with Time magazine, he said: “Please send this message: I am not Saddam Hussein. I want to co-operate.”

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