Yes, Virginia, there is a Syrian opposition

A colleague writes in reaction to the news of Syrian rebel groups abandoning the exile Syrian Coalition in favor an alliance with Islamist extremists:

Can it get any worse for the opposition?  Can anyone provide a serious, authoritative read out on the opposition?  Is there any ‘there there’?

Authoritative, no, but I’ve met with quite a few Syrian opposition people over the past couple of years.  And I’ve supervised an effort to begin mapping Syrian civil society, which is varied, sincere and energetic if not robust.

There is a there there.  Secular Syrian civil activists started the rebellion against Bashar al Asad and they have continued it, even as violence engulfs them.  They have thought long and hard about the “day after.” They have examined options for governing Syria.  They have formed political parties, councils and coalitions.  They have lobbied for stronger US and other Western support.  They have formed a Supreme Military Council and a political Coalition.

But these Syrians are not the ones who are today controlling the situation.  Violence is not good to non-violent civil society activists and their intellectual backers, or to secular fighters unable to arm and equip themselves adequately.  Syria is now thoroughly polarized between a homicidal regime and a violent, increasingly radicalized, Islamist response.  Power in such a situation grows from the barrel of a gun, not from the number of people you can mobilize with high-minded words or text messages to take to the streets.

President Obama spared only a few words of backhanded support for the Syrian opposition in his UN General Assembly speech:

…those of us who continue to support the moderate opposition must persuade them that the Syrian people cannot afford a collapse of state institutions, and that a political settlement cannot be reached without addressing the legitimate fears of Alawites and other minorities.

True enough, but certainly lacking in enthusiasm for the cause of getting rid of Bashar.  President Obama is not so much rooting for the opposition to win as he is trying to steer Syria toward an increasingly unlikely soft landing, known as a negotiated solution, that somehow prevents state collapse and keeps Syria free of extremists.   That puts the American administration in the same ballpark with the Russians, who more than anything else fear Syria will fall into the hands of a Sunni extremist regime willing to export violence to the Caucasus.

But let’s be realistic.  The moderate opposition is today nowhere near able to negotiate a soft landing.  It is highly fragmented, unable to field effective fighting forces, and incapable of implementing an agreement with the regime even if one could be reached.  What the Syrian opposition needs is time to get its act together and far stronger leadership than it has been graced with in the past.

Time it will get.  Implementation of the agreement on destroying Syria’s chemical weapons capabilities requires that Bashar al Asad stay in place for at least a year.  While trying to appear cooperative, he will also try to provide reasons why it will take even longer.  In the meanwhile, he’ll make every effort to portray his antagonists as extremists and terrorists, ignoring the moderates of the mostly exile Coalition in favor of negotiating with groups inside Syria that don’t demand he step aside immediately but instead call for reform.

The right response to this maneuver is two-pronged:

1. Unify as much of the non-extremist armed and unarmed opposition as possible in a single negotiating/planning team capable of putting forward a coherent vision and detailed plan for the future;
2. Convince the Americans, Europeans and even the Russians that anything less than an end to the Asad regime will mean encouragement to extremists and likely state collapse, with regional implications.

Neither of these goals is unattainable,  but both are far off from where the opposition is now.

Also crticial is the international context.  The war in Syria is increasingly a proxy war between Gulf states and Iran.  Some sort of modus vivendi between Tehran and Riyadh is no more likely than the consortium between Zagreb and Belgrade that brought an end to the Bosnian war in 1995.  With Tehran eager to be rid of sanctions, Washington has leverage it should use not only to get a nuclear agreement but also to pry Iran away from its alliance with Bashar al Asad.

In the absence of a serious effort to end the fighting in Syria, the risks to the region are great.  Threats to state structures in the Levant arise from many directions:

• aspirations for Kurdish unity,
• Turkish support for jihadist attacks on extremist Kurds inside Syria,
• Sunni/Shia conflict in Lebanon,
• state weakness in Jordan,
• Sunni extremists flowing surreptitiously but freely in and out of Iraq, and
• Baghdad’s increasing official alignment with Iran’s support for Bashar.

Robin Wright may imagine a remapped Middle East, but it won’t happen peacefully.  Continued fighting in Syria will only make things worse.

But things could get worse with an end to the fighting too.  A regime victory will embolden Bashar and Hizbollah, spelling risk for both Lebanon and Israel.  A jihadist victory would make Syria a center of Sunni extremism for export in many directions:  Russia, Israel, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and ultimately the United States as well.

Serious, consistent and committed support to the non-extremist opposition in Syria is a small price to pay if it helps avoid the consequences of continued war or an unsatisfactory outcome.