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The end of Asad

The Daily Mail, admittedly not my favorite source, reports that Syrian President Bashar al Asad is in Latakia, as the Washington Post’s Liz Sly also confirmed this morning, and that his wife Asma has fled to Russia.  If true, we are close to the end of the Asad regime, which is not going to be able to hold Syria from the hinterlands of its fifth largest city.  Even there, the urban population is majority Sunni.  Only its rural districts are majority Alawite.

But that does not mean Syria is at the end of its travails.  Disorder, even chaos and sectarian war, could make what we’ve seen so far pale.  Refugees are reportedly pouring across Syria’s borders.  The country is broke.  Its army and paramilitaries are bristling with arms and lashing out against their opponents.  Rumors that the regime is about to use chemical weapons are unsettling, even if untrue.  If true, the results could be catastrophic and precipitate an abrupt international military effort.  The Syrian state could crumble and fragment even as its territory is divided among religious and ethnic groups.

Neither the Syrian opposition nor the international community seems well-prepared for the moment.  The Syrian National Council lacks a clear vision.  The Free Syrian Army, while claiming the bombing that killed the defense minister and other Asad regime luminaries, is not a single, coherent force but an agglomeration of franchisees.  The UN Security Council has been unable for weeks to come up a unified reaction to the Asad regime’s blatant violations of the Annan plan, despite ample testimony from the UN observer team on the ground in Syria.  Russian support for Asad has been faltering, but Moscow has been unwilling to tell him he has to step down.  The Americans have offered rhetorical and covert support to the revolution but have stopped short of bucking the Russians with overt military intervention.

There are two places to watch today:  New York and Damascus.

The Security Council has an opportunity to mend its rift and speak with a single voice in favor of a political transition that begins with Bashar al Asad stepping down.  Sanctions should be stiffened, with a clear commitment to ending them quickly if a democratic transition is begun.  The UN observers should be authorized to stay and a commitment made to increasing their number if conditions permit.  The Secretariat should be asked to begin preparations for a possible peace keeping operation.

In Damascus, the issue is whether the regime will hold or implode.  If it implodes, the Free Syria Army should show its mettle by restoring order quickly.  They won’t be able to prevent a big celebration, but they should try to get the city back to something like normal in a day or two, without the revenge killing and sectarian cleansing that some will want to indulge in.  If the regime holds in Damascus despite the odds, we are in for an unpleasant siege that could leave many thousands of Syrians dead and wounded before order is restored, who knows how.

The odds of an even remotely orderly transition in Syria are low.  But best to try.

Things can still get worse in Syria

David Case, senior editor at GlobalPost, caught up with me as I headed out yesterday to give a talk to Marine Corps officers.  Here is his edited version of what I said, with a few minor editorial amendments of my own (I know, it needs more, but I hesitate…):

GlobalPost: How would you characterize today’s bombing? Does this mark a turning point in the civil war? Is this the beginning of the end for the Assad government? Or is this merely a temporary setback?

Daniel Serwer: A lot of people will tell you this is the beginning of the end for the Assad government, but they’ve been saying that for 6 months and in some cases for a year.

It could also be the beginning of a transition to democracy, or a temporary setback for Assad, though it’s very difficult for me to picture how he’s going to re-impose order even on Damascus, never mind beyond. But that doesn’t mean Assad is coming down.  It just means it’s going to be a chaotic situation.

The attack appears to be highly sophisticated, succeeding in taking down several key figures at once. What does this tell us about the rebels, their ability to infiltrate the regime?

Certainly someone was able to infiltrate rather well. Who it is and how they did it is still unclear, but that they were able to infiltrate the very inner circle of the regime is quite clear. I’m not sure I would necessarily describe that as highly sophisticated, but it does suggest some weaknesses in the regime structure.

Will the loss of these key people make it much more difficult for Assad to run Syria?

Yes. These are experienced people who are at the top of the hierarchy. Yet it would be foolish to imagine that there won’t be deputies who will step into their places, that he won’t find someone else. He’s not really running Syria anyway at this point. He’s running his side of the civil war and there are enough people who believe their lives are at stake that he’s going to find people who will fight this war for him.

Both the Free Syrian Army and the Islamist rebel group Liwa al-Islam are claiming responsibility for the attack. If it was indeed the Islamists who staged the bombing, is this cause for concern for the West?

Yes, it’s cause for concern. I think the real concern has to be about what happens after the Assad regime goes. If it falls to an Islamist group that is not oriented towards the democratic transition, that’s going to be quite different than if it falls to relatively democratically oriented people in the Syrian National Council. I think it’s very unclear what the post-Assad direction of Syria is likely to be.

If Syria fell to Islamists, what would be the most significant concern?

Let’s not talk about Islamists. The Syrian National Council has lots of Islamists — the Muslim Brotherhood is well represented there.

The real question is, if it falls to extremists and they are able to exert control, you could end up with a group in charge of Syria that is highly intolerant of its several minorities — Christian, Alawite, Druse and Kurds. You’d be living with a very serious risk of a post-Assad Syria that is not a liberal democracy.

According to live feeds from Damascus, Syrians are quite fired up about the bombing. What will this do to rebel morale?

I would imaging that it will heighten morale significantly, but morale is not the only factor behind who wins in warfare. The fact that the rebels are crowing at the moment should not blind us to the very real possibility that there lie ahead some very bad days, even for the rebellion in Syria.

The day after the Assad regime is a very dangerous at which many lives are at risk. We need to ask ourselves whether the international community is really ready for that day.

How should the international community respond?

I think a Security Council resolution that reiterates the need for a democratic transition in Syria is in order, additional sanctions are in order, but I also think that the international observers should be renewed, because an international presence in Syria if the Assad regime comes down will be necessary. And if it doesn’t come down, it’s also necessary, in order to maintain a level of transparency.

The observers haven’t been able to do what we would like them to do — which is to arrange a peaceful transition. But they have been able to give us some transparency about what’s happening in Syria. They’ve assigned responsibility for some of the atrocities, and that’s a very positive factor in keeping the international community informed.

I may be the only guy on earth who thinks the international observers are useful, but I think they have been.

You mentioned that the day after an Assad fall would be a particularly dangerous one. Can you elaborate on that, and contrast it to post-Gaddafi Libya, which hasn’t been flawless but they did manage to pull off elections.

Right. They’ve been doing quite nicely in Libya.

The short answer is that, first of all, Syria’s conflict has been very violent. Second, the Syrians are much less united against the regime than the Libyans were. And the Syrians don’t just lack military unity, but also political unity. The Syrian National Council has found it very difficult to put forth a vision for the future of Syria that everyone can share. And Syria is a much more diverse society in terms of ethnicity and sects. It has very significant minorities, a number of which are strong supporters of the Assad regime.