Syria’s abysmal descent

By S P SETH

The Arab Spring has turned into a bloody autumn in Syria. What started as anti-regime graffiti by a bunch of kids in a remote town is now a full-scale assault by the Syrian regime on its own people. These kids were arrested and reportedly tortured, making it a trigger for the popular uprising that followed. President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has, however, portrayed the people’s revolt as the work of thugs and armed rebels supported by foreign powers. This doesn’t gel with the facts. First, if it were an armed rebellion with foreign involvement and backing, it wouldn’t have started with a bunch of kids writing graffiti seeking the change of regime. By most accounts, the people’s revolt has been largely peaceful. But the government’s response has been brutally violent with the deployment and use of tanks, heavy weaponry and the cordoning of towns and streets suspected of harboring rebels, with the denial of public utilities like water, electricity and supply of food. From the images on social websites as the main source of information (with the press denied access), the Syrian landscape in several places was like a ghost town after killings by the army. The death toll from the army’s operation is rising steadily to about 3000 people, with many more seriously injured.

Second: without the widespread use of massive force and fear of worse to come, people don’t run for safety and shelter across the country’s borders. Fearing the regime’s terror, many Syrians have fled across the borders into Turkey and Lebanon. They are now sheltering in camps set up by the Turkish government. Prime Minister Erdogan’s government had earlier enjoyed good relations with the Assad regime. But when it sought to impress the need for political reforms on the Assad regime the relationship turned sour. Damascus now suspects Turkey’s hand behind its troubles.

Third: even though the Assad regime might complain of a foreign plot, there is no credible evidence to support this assertion. Fourth: until recently, even the United States sought to refrain from any intervention on behalf of the protesters. The recent public appearance of the US and French ambassadors in the town of Hama was designed to lend moral support to the protesters, as well as a political tactic to cultivate a growing popular constituency in Syria. Of course, there have been sanctions against some key figures of the regime. But Bashar al-Assad was initially not targeted for sanctions because the US and its Western allies apparently hoped that, as a likely moderate, he might opt for a peaceful democratic transition. But this didn’t happen, and the sanctions were also extended to include President Assad. Therefore, the regime’s contention that it is facing an armed rebellion from thugs with foreign involvement is absolute nonsense. It is this kind of mindset that has brought trouble on the regime--- a failure to understand that the Arab world is in flux and that the authoritarian Assad dynasty, ruling in its own interest, do not have a special dispensation.

It would appear that President Bashar al-Assad is following in the footsteps of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who had the town of Hama bombarded in 1982 to quell an uprising by the Muslim Brotherhood. The estimates of civilian carnage from this brutal crackdown vary between 17,000 and 40,000. It shell-shocked the Syrian people, enabling Hafez al-Assad to rule unchallenged for nearly 30 years. That is until March of this year when, encouraged by popular revolt in Tunisia and Egypt, the Syrians too rose up to peacefully challenge the now President Assad who inherited his presidency from his late-father. His response was to do what his father did in an earlier era. Which is: to use overwhelming force to crush the people’s movement and spread fear to preempt another challenge to his power.

Will it work? It doesn’t seem to have worked so far. But the regime hasn’t given up. Nor have the people seeking a democratic change, provoking the regime into more killings and so it goes on. Even if the regime were able to restore some sort of order based on pervasive fear, it would have completely lost its legitimacy. It will not be business as usual and the government will simply be looking over its shoulder smelling danger everywhere. With thousands of its citizens forced into seeking safety and shelter across the borders into Lebanon and Turkey, the nucleus of a movement to challenge the regime from outside is already emerging. The refugee camps in Turkey are becoming the nerve centre of an anti-regime movement with support networks inside Syria. The popular peaceful movement for democratic reform, if handled with tact, finesse and accommodation of reasonable demands, might have been amenable to a democratic deal with the Assad regime. Now that so much blood has been spilled, they simply want the Assad regime to go. Indeed this could all have been avoided if the government had shown some understanding of its people.

The Arab Spring came a little later in Syria, which led the government to believe that it was a case apart from other unpopular regimes. It believed that the Syrian people were happy with their rulers and the system. But it didn’t take long to shatter that illusion. But the government is refusing to see what is apparent to most people. Which is that the Assad regime has lost its legitimacy to the point where people are prepared to risk their lives to challenge its rule. The government, though, still seems to have the backing of the armed forces, commanded by trusted officers with family and communal ties. This close-knit political, military and economic cabal has a lot to lose if forced into giving up control and power.

In other words, the government still has the firepower on its side to inflict maximum fatalities on its people. Despite this, the people are standing their ground everyday in the face of overwhelming use of force. There are, however, some sketchy signs of unrest among army ranks, particularly in areas where they were ordered to fire on peaceful civilians in their own towns and regions. While the military command seems loyal to the regime, their ranks might baulk at following such orders all the time. It has already happened in some units when ordered to fire in their townships. Some of these soldiers have now fled across the border into Turkey to escape reprisals for refusing orders. And if this were to spread to more units, the government might lose its most potent advantage over the rebels.

The Syrian government has handled the situation abysmally, considering that they had some advantages other Arab regimes didn’t. First, they had the support of about 20 per cent of the population, as well as the passivity of many others. For instance, the Assad regime enjoyed the support of its own Alawite (Shia) minority of about 13 per cent, controlling the levers of power all around. Besides, it also had the backing of other minorities to include Christians and minor sects and communities. These minorities weren’t too keen on the resurrection of a Sunni-led political order to include Muslim Brotherhood. At the same time, the major cities like Damascus and Aleppo were largely free of anti-regime fervor. Syria’s trading class didn’t want chaos and instability that might result from revolutionary fervor and change. But the Assad regime made such a hash of things with overkill (literally) that the popular revolt now covers now all the country. In other words, instead of establishing an orderly democratic transition, the government is now dealing with bushfires of revolt everywhere. Some minorities and other elements of the population, who backed the government, are not sure where it is all leading the country.

Second: much of the international community was initially not keen on instigating or encouraging the popular revolt in Syria. They hoped the regime might be able to preside over an orderly democratic transition. There was fear that the unraveling of Syria might trigger unpredictable regional consequences affecting its neighbors. Above all, the United States and its allies have neither the money nor the political will to undertake more military commitments. All these considerations seemed to insulate Syria from a concerted international action against the regime.

The Assad regime, however, opted for brutal force to deal with an internal problem, better tackled through a peaceful solution. In whatever way the problem is finally resolved, the danger is that the country might descend into the sectarian chaos of greater bloodshed between the Sunnis and the ruling community of Alawite (Shia), further adding to an already complex situation in the Arab world.