Desperate Assad's Shrinking Options

DAMASCUS - Last week, stories surfaced in the Lebanese and Arabic press, saying that Syria was about to do away with Article 8 of the constitution that designates the Ba'ath Party as "leader of state and society".

With President Bashar al-Assad expected to deliver a speech this Monday, his third since the crisis began in March, optimists are claiming that he will go 10 steps further than everybody predicts - going as far, perhaps - as canceling Article 8.

This reform has been a high priority for the Syrian opposition for 40 years. For decades, however, the Ba'athists refused to discuss Article 8, claiming that given the Ba'ath Party's secular agenda, this article prevented radical Islamic groups, like the Muslim