For the first Caravan symposium we take up the ordeal of Syria, now nearly a full year into a terrible struggle between a dictatorial regime and a rebellion determined to overthrow it. What can be done about Syria? What follows is a range of opinions and preferences from Charles Hill, Itamar Rabinovich, Habib Malik, Russell Berman, Nibras Kazimi, Abbas Milani, Joel Rayburn, Josh Teitelbaum, Reuel Gerecht, Asli Aydintasbas, Camille Pecastaing, and Fouad Ajami.
“What are the range of options open to the United States, and other powers, in the face of the large-scale violence that the Assad regime has unleashed on the Syrian people?”
Reporters covering the Obama Administration’s foreign policy have provided the answer: “the U.S. sees few good options in Syria” (Washington Post, 12 Feb 2012). Those living in a time of revolution, it has been said, often don’t realize it. Washington does not seem to understand that what is going on in the Middle East is a world-historical (not merely regional) event.
Whatever is to be done or not done about Syria has to start with the recognition that the U.S. must now devise a new foreign policy, or grand strategy, toward the entire Middle East; nothing can make much sense outside a new departure of that magnitude.
The unfolding Syrian crisis presents the U.S with a manifold policy dilemma. Several issues and challenges are at stake:
1) The current impasse is likely to continue for some time and with it the unacceptable massive killing of civilians.
2) The future of Syria is of crucial importance for the Middle East. The replacement of the Assad regime with a functioning secular democracy (or even a semi democratic regime) would have a hugely beneficial effect on the region. A successful suppression of the opposition (even temporarily) would constitute a victory for Iran and Russia and would have adverse effects on the region’s politics.
The Assad regime is certainly a brutal and merciless regime when it comes to stifling any internal dissent or throwing its weight around neighboring countries. Few have forgotten the multipronged misery caused to the Lebanese by Syria’s nearly three-decade long occupation of their country. But today the larger and intricately nuanced picture needs to be kept in mind as one contemplates Syria’s future while the situation inside the country unravels with daily bloodshed and expanding violence. By all indications, Assad’s demise does not seem imminent. Sadly for the civilian population of Syria the internal strife there is most likely going to fester with a rise over time in innocent casualties.
On the plus side the eventual fall of this regime will weaken the emerging radical Shiite axis extending from Iran’s Qom to Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon and on the Mediterranean. And as is the case with other Arab countries experiencing change the hope remains that some form of liberal democratic rule will eventually replace a homegrown despotism. However, the dangers of things going horribly wrong remain very palpable and should not be brushed aside. Bringing down a dictatorship may be measured in weeks, months, and in some cases years, but building a viable democracy is a generational project, especially in an environment like the Arab east that has been largely freedom-starved for most of its history and inhospitable to pluralist political self-fulfillment.
The cruel violence that the Assad regime is directing against the Syrian population has elicited words of condemnation across the world. Fleeing the wrath of the Syrian military, refugees have poured over the borders into Jordan, Lebanon and, especially, Turkey. Meanwhile in embattled cities like Homs and Aleppo, the Syrian government shows its true face by ordering the army to keep hospitals under surveillance, prohibiting doctors from treating wounded civilians.
Blame for these atrocities belongs squarely with President Bashar al-Assad, and his protectors in Tehran and Moscow. Blame does not belong in Washington (although some of the tenacity with which Assad clings to power can be attributed to Nancy Pelosi’s embarrassing 2007 junket to Damascus, when she toadied up to the dictator). Nor should one imagine the U.S. single-handedly intervening to end the bloodshed. Yet the longer the fighting goes on, the clearer the inability of the American administration to exercise any influence at all. The Syrian crisis is therefore both a crucial moment in the battle between democracy and dictatorship in the Arab world and an important “stress test” on the viability of American power.
At this point, almost a year into the Syrian revolt, we know this much: President Barack Obama is unwilling to tip the scales, with American heft, against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Obama doesn’t even seem inclined to unleash covert action that may aid the Syrians fighting their dictator. The American administration is handling Syria no differently from how it processed the changes in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen: give it time, allow others to take the lead, and see whichever way the chips may fall. However, on Syria, neither the Gulf monarchies, nor Turkey, nor Israel, or either France and Britain, are willing to take one step in any meaningful and tangible direction without American leadership, and it should be clear by now that this leadership is not forthcoming; Syrian revolutionaries are on their own.
So what happens next?
The Syrian revolt has regressed into the Syrian insurgency, and that is exactly where the Assad regime wants in to be. The regime was nonplussed by internet-savvy peaceful protestors, chanting democratic and non-sectarian slogans; it had never prepared itself for such an unprecedented challenge. The regime is on much firmer footing—they trained for and experienced such things in the past—when it is confronted by an insurgency.
Stakes in Syria are high. Not only the prospects of democracy in the Muslim Middle East, but also the possible emergence of a new brotherhood of authoritarianism—with China and Russia as its Big Brothers, Iran and Syria as its critical Islamic beach-heads, and state capitalism as its economic model– is at stake.
In spite of their apparent differences, the Syrian and Iranian regimes are kindred souls. Syria is a pseudo-totalitarian secular regime, founded on an eclectic Ba’athist ideology—a strange brew of Arab nationalism, and European fascism. The Islamic Republic of Iran is also a pseudo-totalitarian theocratic regime, based on Khomeini’s eclectic form of Shiism–one that places absolute power in one man (Valiye Fagih) who not only claims to represent God on earth but can, upon expedience (Maslehat) override even the fundamental tenets of Islam.
The Arab awakenings and assertive international role of Russia and China at the expense of the United States have created a new strategic situation for the rulers of Riyadh. Seen from Saudi Arabia, the US stood idly by at the ignominious toppling of its erstwhile allies, the dictators of Tunisia and Egypt. Its rival across the Gulf, Iran, is on its way to having a nuclear weapon and has attempted to assassinate its ambassador to Washington. Although the US has ratcheted up pressure on Tehran, the mullahs seem to be running circles around Washington with the connivance of Moscow and Beijing. Even though Riyadh has been successful in limiting the contagion at home through a combination of the stick of its security forces and the carrot of financial munificence, its satellite kingdom in nearby Bahrain is ablaze, with majority Shiites protesting against the Saudi-supported minority Sunni Al Khalifa family. The US appears confounded, and as a result the Saudis believe they need to take up a larger role in the region.
Onto this strategic playing field — enter Syria and the insurrection currently under way. Iran looms large in the background as Riyadh calculates its moves toward Damascus. The Al Saud rulers would dearly love to see the destruction of the pro-Iranian Assad regime. Iran, through its proxies Syria and Hezballah, have undermined the stability of Lebanon since 2005, when they connived to murder the staunchly pro-Saudi former prime minister of Lebanon, Rafiq al-Hariri, in February 2005. His successor and son, Saad, was undermined by a coalition of pro-Iranian forces and forced to resign as prime minister in January 2011. The result has been an increase in Syrian, Iranian and Hezballah control over Lebanon and the stymieing of Saudi (and US) efforts to bring about a stable and independent Lebanon. Riyadh would have no problem with Bashar Assad receiving his comeuppance.
Although Bashar al-Assad could still kill off the revolt against his tyranny, it seems increasingly unlikely. The rebellion today is far larger—geographically and numerically—than the rebellion of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in Hama in 1982. Two past massive revolts can still give Bashar hope: the triumph of the Algerian military junta over Islamists in the 1990s and the crushing victory of Saddam Hussein over Iraq’s Shiites following the First Gulf War. In both cases, the regimes slaughtered tens of thousands of people, as well as tortured thousands more, to quiet the eruptions. Given the increasing ferocity of the government onslaught against civilians, the Syrian regime is obviously now betting that the outside world will not intervene. It’s probably a bad bet, however, since outside powers really don’t have to do that much—the apparent sine qua non of foreign assistance—to topple the Assad family and the Shiite Alawite forces behind it.
Although the Alawite units in the army and the Alawite-dominated security services have stayed steadfastly loyal to Bashar, they appear to be just too few in number to kill enough Sunnis in enough places quickly enough. Although the vast majority of Syrian Sunni military units have not risen against the government, they have not been used in front-line assaults against the rebellious cities and towns. The regime is probably loath to risk such a deployment as it might cause a rapid and decisive crack in discipline, changing overnight the regime’s odds of survival. Unlike his father in 1982, Bashar hesitated to bring the full force of his power against the opposition last year. The regime has since had to deal with uprisings everywhere. Alawi forces have repeatedly cleared towns yet failed to hold them.
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