.Syrian regime on the brink
TEL AVIV - The Syrian regime seems dangerously close to a free fall - not so much because there is a coherent opposition movement bringing it down, but because it is increasingly unable to control the spiraling economic, social and political tensions that are pulling apart the Syrian state and society.
Accurate information coming out of the country is sparse, but the latest reports overwhelmingly point in this direction, and the trends they describe have been developing gradually since the start of the uprising.
The reactions of regional and world powers, presumably based on intelligence estimates unavailable to the general public, are particularly important to observe. They both reflect and threaten to influence decisively what is happening in the country.
In the past weeks, the entire spectrum of responses shifted in a way that offers a gloomier perspective for the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Some of the more optimistic strategies call for a "radical surgery" of the regime and the replacing of key military figures and powerbrokers with "moderate" opposition members. The pessimists - or opportunists - are debating an armed intervention.
"It is absolutely clear that the Syrian government is running out of time," United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN days ago. "There isn't any question about that."
Last Friday marked the largest demonstrations in the country - and in some of the most sensitive places. Hundreds of thousands (up to 500,000, according to some reports) people took to the streets in Hama, the fourth-largest city in the country and a powerful symbol of the resistance against the Assad family. In 1982, Assad's father Hafez ordered the army to attack the city, a center of a Muslim Brotherhood uprising at the time, and between 10,000 and 40,000 people were massacred as a result. It was arguably the largest modern massacre by a contemporary Arab ruler against his own people.
By Syrian and Assad family standards, thus, last week's demonstrations were relatively peaceful, and the level of government repression was relatively low: "only" 25 were allegedly killed, with hundreds injured. Subsequently, however, the army encircled the city and entered it slowly in the face of stiff opposition. Dozens more were killed and an unknown number wounded and arrested.
"Residents have been sleeping on the streets and put up sand barriers and tires to block any assault," The Palestinian news agency Ma'an wrote on Wednesday, citing Agence France-Presse. It appears that the government's strategy is to draw out the repression to avoid a single large massacre that could further energize the domestic opposition and the international community. The emotional scars of 1982 run deep in the memories of both.
If confirmed, the information that several hundred thousand people came out in protest would be quite significant: according to a 2009 census, Hama's population was just under 700,000. This would mean that the majority of the inhabitants joined the protest. In terms of percentages, such a turnout would beat even Egypt and would constitute one of the highest in the Arab uprisings so far.
Suffice it to mention that the population of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, scene of some of the largest demonstrations, is around seven million people, with an additional 10 million living in the environs. Even at the height of the unrest, only a small fraction of them came out against the regime.
Parallels to Libya's Benghazi and Misurata come to mind. These similarities must weigh heavy on Assad's mind, particularly as they are starting to reflect in the approaches and the rhetoric of the international community as well. The talk of an international intervention in the country, for example a limited incursion by Turkey to create a buffer zone in Syria, is growing louder and louder. Arguably, this would create a protected area for the Syrian opposition, similar to the Benghazi area in Libya.
An article in Sunday's edition of the influential Turkish newspaper Hurriyet asks, "[C]ould Turkish troops actually enter Syria, without seeking Damascus' permission first, and set up shop there?" It proceeds to answer: "You bet." The author explains:
[T]here is always a chance that Syria might turn out to be worse than Iraq. Should the Assad regime carry out massacres in large cities such as Aleppo - certainly a possibility, given that Assad's father bombed downtown Hama in 1982, killing at least 10,000 to crush an uprising there - the AKP [Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party] might find Turkish public sympathies for the persecuted fellow Muslims next door too unbearable to ignore. Genocidal massacres in Syria, coupled with the breakdown of law and order, would make Turkish intervention almost unavoidable. So, a Turkish buffer zone inside Syria might well be Turkey's best option to avoid a direct military intervention for humanitarian reasons, but only so long as Assad does not turn genocidal on his own people. [1]
Meanwhile, on Wednesday Amnesty International published a report accusing the Syrian regime of committing crimes against humanity. If this seems like the beginning of a repeat of the Libyan scenario, there is some reason. "Most of the crimes described in this report would fall within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court," writes Philip Luther, a senior Amnesty International official. [2] Recently, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was also indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. A NATO military campaign against him and his regime has gone on for over three months now.
Yet the parallels with Libya - where, it is worth mentioning, Gaddafi is still holding out - are not complete. Some influential analysts, for example the chief of Israel's military intelligence Major-General Aviv Kochavi, think that Assad still has a chance. "We must not belittle the reform package Assad has begun to promote," General Kochavi told the Israeli news site Ynetnews. "These reforms regard the improvement of wages, subsidies, and the opening up of more jobs." [3]
Israeli analyst Zvi Bar'el points out several key rifts and failures of the Syrian opposition:
The opposition and protest movements are finding it hard to unite their struggle. Despite their common goal of establishing a democratic state which advocates human rights, there are many divisions among opponents of the regime both within Syria and among the Syrian emigrants, and the representatives of Syrian factions who advance differing agendas. An example of this division is in the harsh criticism against the gathering of intellectuals in Damascus that took place last week, who requested to establish a dialogue with the regime and apply deepening reforms without demanding Assad's departure. In contrast, Syrian emigrants united by the loose framework of the Local Coordination Committee, a group that has been tracking the protests in Syria, believe there is not room to engage in further dialogue with the regime and that the regime must be overthrown.
[4] Syrian blogger Yazan Badran argues that the uprising, as well as the government, has failed in several different "narratives and struggles," and has not been able either to conduct a successful class struggle or to bridge sectarian divides. [5]
Bassam Alcadi, the president of the Syrian Women Observatory, also voices a nuanced opinion. Reforms are necessary, he asserts, but those reforms must be achieved in a non-violent way and would take some time to implement. "Any ... elections will not be 'free' in a meaningful way until the anticipated new democratic laws (Party Law, Media Law, and Free Assembly Law) have been in effect for at least a full year," he writes. "Anything less and elections would be limited to only the blindly pro-regime and the blindly anti-regime camps."
He also lashed out against the meddling of the international community in Syria:
I object to describing what the West is doing (especially the US, French, British, and German governments) as "close follow up". On the contrary, their intervention is a deliberate provocation of the crisis with one goal, and that is to coerce the Syrian People to adopt the Libyan Scenario, or to force the regime to surrender to the West's political agenda. They [the West] have not only ignored facts on the ground, but have recently started exerting open pressure on the Syrian People, by punishing state-owned institutions and companies that tens of thousands of Syrian families depend on for their livelihood. [6]
What emerges is a very complex and nuanced picture. There is the government, and its repression. There are those who are vehemently against the government, and are prepared to use arms to overthrow it. Then there are those who are critical of both sides, and although they may occasionally come out to protest, they have not yet thrown their weight behind either. These people generally constitute what scholars of peace and conflict call "the middle ground". There is reason to believe that despite the highly charged narratives that reach us from the conflict, there is still a considerable portion of the Syrian population that occupies this middle ground.
Thus, the extremists have yet to pose a very realistic danger to the Syrian regime, it seems. Technically speaking, Assad does not face an imminent internal threat: the main pillars of his rule, such as the military and the unity of his family and sect, still stand.
The threat comes from elsewhere. There are powerful internal and external factors fueling the instability, and it seems reasonable to assume that only a part of the people who participated in last week's protests sympathized with the radical opposition.
Sectarian politics, conducted both by the opposition and the government, stand prominent among those factors. There is a real danger that the Syrian social fabric might start to unravel in the near future.
The economic situation in the country is also extremely worrying, and has received comparatively little attention.
"[I]n the Syrian capital of commerce [Aleppo], no one is making money anymore, threatening to undermine the key pillar of a long established pact between Aleppo's Sunni merchant class and the imposed stability of the Alawite-led regime," an al-Jazeera report points out. "Massive layoffs [are] imminent." [7]
The same applies to much of Syria's economy, according to numerous sources. The situation in the country is already dire, and a long-time crisis and famine were among the factors contributing to the start of the unrest. The longer the instability continues, the worse the economic crisis will become. Eventually, this could shift the division lines from political to economic, and could bring down the Syrian government in a way very different, and much more catastrophic, from what the opposition is currently trying to do.
Arguably, Syria has become a battle ground between Iran and its Western and Arab opponents, and this conflict threatens to overshadow the internal one. Unrest fueled by economic discontent, particularly around Aleppo (on the Turkish border) could well escalate the interference
"If Aleppo were to rise up, it would mean that one of the metrics by which the West is charting the fall of the Assad regime would have been met," Andrew Tabler, an expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told al-Jazeera.
The American secretary of state may just be right. Assad must act fast in order to save himself.
Asia Times
Accurate information coming out of the country is sparse, but the latest reports overwhelmingly point in this direction, and the trends they describe have been developing gradually since the start of the uprising.
The reactions of regional and world powers, presumably based on intelligence estimates unavailable to the general public, are particularly important to observe. They both reflect and threaten to influence decisively what is happening in the country.
In the past weeks, the entire spectrum of responses shifted in a way that offers a gloomier perspective for the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Some of the more optimistic strategies call for a "radical surgery" of the regime and the replacing of key military figures and powerbrokers with "moderate" opposition members. The pessimists - or opportunists - are debating an armed intervention.
"It is absolutely clear that the Syrian government is running out of time," United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told CNN days ago. "There isn't any question about that."
Last Friday marked the largest demonstrations in the country - and in some of the most sensitive places. Hundreds of thousands (up to 500,000, according to some reports) people took to the streets in Hama, the fourth-largest city in the country and a powerful symbol of the resistance against the Assad family. In 1982, Assad's father Hafez ordered the army to attack the city, a center of a Muslim Brotherhood uprising at the time, and between 10,000 and 40,000 people were massacred as a result. It was arguably the largest modern massacre by a contemporary Arab ruler against his own people.
By Syrian and Assad family standards, thus, last week's demonstrations were relatively peaceful, and the level of government repression was relatively low: "only" 25 were allegedly killed, with hundreds injured. Subsequently, however, the army encircled the city and entered it slowly in the face of stiff opposition. Dozens more were killed and an unknown number wounded and arrested.
"Residents have been sleeping on the streets and put up sand barriers and tires to block any assault," The Palestinian news agency Ma'an wrote on Wednesday, citing Agence France-Presse. It appears that the government's strategy is to draw out the repression to avoid a single large massacre that could further energize the domestic opposition and the international community. The emotional scars of 1982 run deep in the memories of both.
If confirmed, the information that several hundred thousand people came out in protest would be quite significant: according to a 2009 census, Hama's population was just under 700,000. This would mean that the majority of the inhabitants joined the protest. In terms of percentages, such a turnout would beat even Egypt and would constitute one of the highest in the Arab uprisings so far.
Suffice it to mention that the population of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, scene of some of the largest demonstrations, is around seven million people, with an additional 10 million living in the environs. Even at the height of the unrest, only a small fraction of them came out against the regime.
Parallels to Libya's Benghazi and Misurata come to mind. These similarities must weigh heavy on Assad's mind, particularly as they are starting to reflect in the approaches and the rhetoric of the international community as well. The talk of an international intervention in the country, for example a limited incursion by Turkey to create a buffer zone in Syria, is growing louder and louder. Arguably, this would create a protected area for the Syrian opposition, similar to the Benghazi area in Libya.
An article in Sunday's edition of the influential Turkish newspaper Hurriyet asks, "[C]ould Turkish troops actually enter Syria, without seeking Damascus' permission first, and set up shop there?" It proceeds to answer: "You bet." The author explains:
[T]here is always a chance that Syria might turn out to be worse than Iraq. Should the Assad regime carry out massacres in large cities such as Aleppo - certainly a possibility, given that Assad's father bombed downtown Hama in 1982, killing at least 10,000 to crush an uprising there - the AKP [Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party] might find Turkish public sympathies for the persecuted fellow Muslims next door too unbearable to ignore. Genocidal massacres in Syria, coupled with the breakdown of law and order, would make Turkish intervention almost unavoidable. So, a Turkish buffer zone inside Syria might well be Turkey's best option to avoid a direct military intervention for humanitarian reasons, but only so long as Assad does not turn genocidal on his own people. [1]
Meanwhile, on Wednesday Amnesty International published a report accusing the Syrian regime of committing crimes against humanity. If this seems like the beginning of a repeat of the Libyan scenario, there is some reason. "Most of the crimes described in this report would fall within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court," writes Philip Luther, a senior Amnesty International official. [2] Recently, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was also indicted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. A NATO military campaign against him and his regime has gone on for over three months now.
Yet the parallels with Libya - where, it is worth mentioning, Gaddafi is still holding out - are not complete. Some influential analysts, for example the chief of Israel's military intelligence Major-General Aviv Kochavi, think that Assad still has a chance. "We must not belittle the reform package Assad has begun to promote," General Kochavi told the Israeli news site Ynetnews. "These reforms regard the improvement of wages, subsidies, and the opening up of more jobs." [3]
Israeli analyst Zvi Bar'el points out several key rifts and failures of the Syrian opposition:
The opposition and protest movements are finding it hard to unite their struggle. Despite their common goal of establishing a democratic state which advocates human rights, there are many divisions among opponents of the regime both within Syria and among the Syrian emigrants, and the representatives of Syrian factions who advance differing agendas. An example of this division is in the harsh criticism against the gathering of intellectuals in Damascus that took place last week, who requested to establish a dialogue with the regime and apply deepening reforms without demanding Assad's departure. In contrast, Syrian emigrants united by the loose framework of the Local Coordination Committee, a group that has been tracking the protests in Syria, believe there is not room to engage in further dialogue with the regime and that the regime must be overthrown.
[4] Syrian blogger Yazan Badran argues that the uprising, as well as the government, has failed in several different "narratives and struggles," and has not been able either to conduct a successful class struggle or to bridge sectarian divides. [5]
Bassam Alcadi, the president of the Syrian Women Observatory, also voices a nuanced opinion. Reforms are necessary, he asserts, but those reforms must be achieved in a non-violent way and would take some time to implement. "Any ... elections will not be 'free' in a meaningful way until the anticipated new democratic laws (Party Law, Media Law, and Free Assembly Law) have been in effect for at least a full year," he writes. "Anything less and elections would be limited to only the blindly pro-regime and the blindly anti-regime camps."
He also lashed out against the meddling of the international community in Syria:
I object to describing what the West is doing (especially the US, French, British, and German governments) as "close follow up". On the contrary, their intervention is a deliberate provocation of the crisis with one goal, and that is to coerce the Syrian People to adopt the Libyan Scenario, or to force the regime to surrender to the West's political agenda. They [the West] have not only ignored facts on the ground, but have recently started exerting open pressure on the Syrian People, by punishing state-owned institutions and companies that tens of thousands of Syrian families depend on for their livelihood. [6]
What emerges is a very complex and nuanced picture. There is the government, and its repression. There are those who are vehemently against the government, and are prepared to use arms to overthrow it. Then there are those who are critical of both sides, and although they may occasionally come out to protest, they have not yet thrown their weight behind either. These people generally constitute what scholars of peace and conflict call "the middle ground". There is reason to believe that despite the highly charged narratives that reach us from the conflict, there is still a considerable portion of the Syrian population that occupies this middle ground.
Thus, the extremists have yet to pose a very realistic danger to the Syrian regime, it seems. Technically speaking, Assad does not face an imminent internal threat: the main pillars of his rule, such as the military and the unity of his family and sect, still stand.
The threat comes from elsewhere. There are powerful internal and external factors fueling the instability, and it seems reasonable to assume that only a part of the people who participated in last week's protests sympathized with the radical opposition.
Sectarian politics, conducted both by the opposition and the government, stand prominent among those factors. There is a real danger that the Syrian social fabric might start to unravel in the near future.
The economic situation in the country is also extremely worrying, and has received comparatively little attention.
"[I]n the Syrian capital of commerce [Aleppo], no one is making money anymore, threatening to undermine the key pillar of a long established pact between Aleppo's Sunni merchant class and the imposed stability of the Alawite-led regime," an al-Jazeera report points out. "Massive layoffs [are] imminent." [7]
The same applies to much of Syria's economy, according to numerous sources. The situation in the country is already dire, and a long-time crisis and famine were among the factors contributing to the start of the unrest. The longer the instability continues, the worse the economic crisis will become. Eventually, this could shift the division lines from political to economic, and could bring down the Syrian government in a way very different, and much more catastrophic, from what the opposition is currently trying to do.
Arguably, Syria has become a battle ground between Iran and its Western and Arab opponents, and this conflict threatens to overshadow the internal one. Unrest fueled by economic discontent, particularly around Aleppo (on the Turkish border) could well escalate the interference
"If Aleppo were to rise up, it would mean that one of the metrics by which the West is charting the fall of the Assad regime would have been met," Andrew Tabler, an expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told al-Jazeera.
The American secretary of state may just be right. Assad must act fast in order to save himself.
Asia Times
posted by madtom at 10:58 PM
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