Syria drew a deep breath on Saturday when its president of 30 years, Mr Hafez al-Assad, the "Lion of Damascus", passed from the political scene. Syrians will not breathe easily again until they see how the constellation of forces shapes up for the new era. Mr Assad's rule was based on three pillars: the army, the Baath Socialist Party and his 11 per cent minority Alawite community, an off-shoot of the heterodox Shia Muslim sect.
The late president enlisted the support of all three to promote the succession of his second son, Dr Bashar Assad, the first handover from president to son in the Arab world. Army backing was assured by strategic pruning and the appointment of Gen Ali Arslan, a supporter of Dr Assad, as army chief. The exiling last week of the former army commander, Gen Hikmet Shihabi, after he was charged with corruption, put an end to his influential opposition to Dr Assad's succession.
The Baath Party was well primed by the elder Assad to support the young doctor as heir. The regional command of the ruling party met briefly in emergency session to nominate Dr Assad for the presidency. The command is scheduled to convene in regular session on June 17th to prepare the way for the succession by appointing him to the body, the second highest in the party. The new Syrian Prime Minister, Mr Muhammad Mustafa Miro, and the long-serving Foreign Minister, Mr Farouk Sharaa, could also be given senior posts, bolstering the position of the young man.
The third - and perhaps most important - pillar remains somewhat shaky. This is the allegiance of the heterodox Alawite community, the sectarian base of the rule of the late president. As Patrick Seale, Assad's biographer, remarked in conversation with The Irish Times: "Syrian politics are inter-Alawite politics."
A challenge might be mounted by the younger brother of the late president, Mr Rifaat Assad, a former vice-president who was dismissed from his official post and the party leadership in 1998 and exiled to Europe. Last autumn, his supporters, who were thought to be subverting the military, were rounded up and either imprisoned or absorbed into the regular army. While few ordinary Syrians would welcome the return of the brutal and unpredictable Rifaat, older members of the Alawite clique might prefer him to the untested and Westernised doctor.
If Dr Bashar Assad is permitted to pursue his personal agenda, he could make use of the fourth pillar of the regime's support structure. In much the same way that his father won kudos in 1970 for his "corrective movement", Dr Assad could secure the approbation of a majority of Syrians for his anti-corruption, economic reform and political liberalisation programme.
However, he will face opposition from politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen who have a stake in the socialist command economy installed when his father assumed power.
Without his father's intimidating presence, Dr Assad will have to contend with stiff opposition on the domestic front. Unless he successfully manages the transformation of the inefficient and corrupt command economy, he will lose the backing of younger businessmen and the public.
Dr Assad could also re-configure the Syrian army presence in Lebanon, presently estimated at 30-35,000 troops. In the past few months, he has secured a redeployment of most units to the eastern Bekaa region near the border with Syria. Damascus hopes that lowering the army's profile could make these troops more acceptable to the Lebanese.
The one issue on which the good doctor cannot adjust the dictum of his father is the Golan. Dr Assad is in no position to concede one inch of occupied Syrian territory to Israel. On this question, the elder Assad's stance remains sacrosanct.
This means that Syria will not accept the offer of the Israeli Prime Minister to withdraw from all but the shoreline of Lake Tiberias. For the son, as well the father, the price of peace with Israel is all of the Golan or nothing.
This stance bodes ill for the regional peace process because Mr Barak, weakened by his own failure to deliver peace and by recurrent coalition crises, cannot persuade his electorate to agree to a deal involving the evacuation of the entire Golan.
The late president's determination to secure lasting settlements between the Arabs and Israel by reclaiming all Arab territory ran counter to the more concessionary lines promoted by leaders like Egypt's Mr Mubarak and the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, a long-standing antagonist of Mr Assad.
Aware that assuming power in Damascus means he must don his father's regional mantle, Dr Assad can be expected to promote inter-Arab co-ordination and continue to press for the ostracism of Israel as long as it remains in occupation of the territories it captured in 1967. This means, on the multilateral regional level, that normalisation of relations between Arab states and Israel could remain frozen until a breakthrough is achieved on the Syria-Israel track.