DAMASCUS - Four years after President Bashar al-Assad took power - July 17, 2000 - and pledged to bring change, Syria presents an elusive picture of incomplete economic reform and a paralysed political climate, analysts say.
"The current climate reflects serious threats as the Americans increase their pressure. This should encourage the authorities to adopt democratic reforms," dissident writer and political activist Akram Bunni said.
The past few months have seen a deterioration in relations between Syria and the United States, with Washington in May imposing sanctions on Damascus who it accused of supporting terrorism, a charge strongly denied here.
In addition, an association agreement between Syria and the European Union, which should have been signed early this year, has been frozen while waiting a compromise over a clause about weapons of mass destruction.
Internally in recent months, clashes and arrests have increased involving security forces and human rights activists, students and even minors, according to non-governmental organisations.
In May, Aktham Naysseh, president of the Committees for the Defence of Human Rights and Democratic Freedoms in Syria, was arrested after seeking signatures for a petition urging the abolition of the emergency law, in place since 1963.
The restrictions on political activity, with unofficial political parties apparently being banned recently, come amid growing tensions in the Middle East linked to the continuing violence in Iraq and US pressures.
Even the pro-regime communist party is dissatisfied with the progress.
"Debate is developing, hundreds of political detainees were freed (in recent years), special economic courts have been repealed (in February), but (reform) accomplishments remain rare," acknowledged the communist newspaper An-Nur.
Economist Nabil Soukkar also charged that reforms to free up the economy "remain slow and lack coherence", and he urged the government to adopt a broader plan to ward off the effects of an expected "major decrease" in oil production in 2008.
The anticipated fall in the output of oil, which accounts for 70 percent of national revenues, will have a negative impact on the whole economy, he said.
He argued that the banking sector will remain ineffective - despite the recent creation of private banks to boost banking services and encourage investment - in the absence of more monetary and financial liberalisation.
The increasing external pressure on Damascus has found a parallel internally.
In mid-March, clashes between Syria's Kurdish community and security forces in the northeast, resulted in the deaths of at least 25 people over six days. Kurdish groups said the authorities also detained about 2,000 people although several hundred were subsequently released.
The clashes "served as a pretext for the security forces to tighten their grip on society", said Bunni, a former political detainee who has spent 17 years in prison.
Last month, to stop a planned sit-in by demonstrators, security forces mobilised thousands of their forces.
The main visible ray of light appears to be a new generation of public figures considered close the president who, like him, were educated in the West and are not affiliated with the ruling Baath party.
They include Syria's ambassador to Washington, Imad Mustafa, the head of the state planning commission, Abdullah Dardari, presidential advisor Nibras Fadel, and Duraid Dargham, head of the government-run Commercial Bank of Syria.
Their emergence is a sign of a "new spirit, not bureaucratic and not corrupt," Syrian journalist Shaaban Abbud recently wrote in Lebanon's An-Nahar newspaper.
However, he warned that "it is very difficult to know who in Syria represents the reformist line, how many they number and their influence.
"It is even more difficult to know if these people will keep their jobs."
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