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Governing Syria

I am writing from Gaziantep in southern Turkey, where I’ve enjoyed a week’s worth of meetings over the last three days. I came to have an upclose look at the Syrian Interim Government (SIG) and some of the rest of the Syrian exile presence in this bustling city of 1.5 million located 60 kilometers or so north of the border, including both nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and a couple of quangos (quasi-nongovernmental organizations). That is what I would call the Local Administration Council Unit (LACU) and the Assistance Coordination Unit (ACU), which are creations of the Syrian Opposition Council that predate the SIG.

Sorry for the acronyms. War generates them. It’s not only the Pentagon.

It is easy enough sitting in Washington to hear the worst about the SIG, SOC, LACU and ACU. President Obama himself has several times stated baldly that the Syrian opposition is incapable of taking over the country. The Syrian NGOs and quangos also come in for a great deal of disdain, as they are heavily dependent on US and European funding.

I can’t say the skeptics are entirely wrong. But they are definitely focusing on the empty part of the glass. What I’ve happily found here are serious people doing serious things with minimal resources and a great deal of commitment and optimism, despite the vagaries of international support.

Let me start with the SIG. It was created by the Syrian Opposition Coalition, a quasi-legislative body recognized by the US and other governments as the political (as distinct from the legal) representative of the Syrian people. The SIG looks like a government in exile: it has a prime minister, a deputy prime minister and ten ministries.

Some of these ministries have impact on the ground inside Syria. The education ministry approves curriculum and administers school examinations in “liberated” areas. The health ministry is said to have mobilized thousands of volunteers inside Syria. If you are an ordinary Syrian unable or unwilling to leave, it is no small thing that your kids are still going to school (even if not likely in a school building, as the regime has bombed most of those). And getting them vaccinated against polio is a big deal since the outbreak in eastern Syria a couple of years ago.

But the SIG has little traction with the armed groups fighting both the Assad regime and extremist groups like Jabhat al Nusra (an Al Qaeda affiliate) and the Islamic State. No one I met pretends that the Defense Ministry plays much of a role in the ongoing warfare. Located outside Syria without a defined and stable relationship with the fighting groups, the SIG looks to some like a Potemkin government sketched on flimsy paper with little governing authority.

I found at the top of the SIG a strong desire–even commitment–to move inside Syria, an ambition that has existed however for years without being realized. I was told an order to relocate the Education Ministry into an opposition-controlled area of northern Syria is already in effect. The best prospect for moving the rest of the SIG into Syria–until the Russians entered the war in recent days–was an area Turkey calls “the rectangle,” a 98-kilometer stretch of its border about 60-70 kilometers deep into Syria that the SIG was expecting to see cleared of its current IS rulers and protected from air and ground bombardment by the regime.

Civilians in Gaziantep, both Syrians and internationals, have been actively planning to move quickly into this area, once IS is cleared from it, with the essentials of post-war reconstruction: security, rule of law, governance, economic activities and humanitarian relief. Local councils for the main population centers already operate outside the “rectangle” but inside Syria. Plans for local police forces and border control are being drawn up. The SIG is surveying public facilities and potential economic activities in the area as well as planning to build accommodations for returning refugees on state-owned land. The Americans have hosted a “table top” simulation for civilian agencies to identify needs and capabilities, Syrian and international. Europeans are hoping that liberating the “rectangle” will help to stem the flow of Syrians out of Turkey into the Union.

No one yet knows whether the Russian air attacks will cancel these plans, but at the very least they are complicating the situation. How can the “rectangle” be protected from Russian attacks, which have focussed not on IS but on the Free Syrian Army? The Russian bombardment is driving younger Syrian fighters towards the Islamic State rather than away from it.

Moderate opposition Syrians are dismayed. In their eyes, what Putin has done merits a strong reaction. He is attacking the people America has said it supports. While they nod knowingly at President Obama’s assertion that Syria will be a quagmire for the Russians, Syrians think American failure to respond looks weak and vacillating. It will lengthen the war. I find it hard to disagree.

The Syrians I spoke with are also concerned about UN envoy De Mistura’s effort to set up four working groups to discuss issues that would have to be resolved in any peace settlement. They question the composition of the working groups and view the effort as a step backwards from the UN’s own Geneva 1 communique, which called for a mutually agreeable transitional governing body with full executive authority.

Few in the opposition would agree to any transition in which Bashar al Assad is not deprived of presidential powers early in the game.  Most believe opposition fighters, especially but not only the more extremist ones, will continue the war if Bashar remains in place. The SOC is considering withdrawing from the UN effort, though it will come under a lot of international community pressure to participate. Many Syrians here want a negotiated solution, but not one that perpetuates the dictatorship and denies the country’s citizens the right to govern themselves.

Next up: the local administrative councils, the assistance coordination unit and the nascent Free Syria University,  which represent perhaps the best the Syrian opposition has to offer.