Tag: Syria
Getting to post-Assad Syria
By Adam Lewis, Editor & Webmaster at Peacefare.net
Today a Middle East Institute panel entitled “Syria on the Verge: Implications for a Nation in Revolt” stirred hopes for the revolt there to succeed.
The four panelists featured were Radwan Ziadeh (Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University and a member of Syria’s “opposition in exile”), Ausama Monajed (Executive Director of the London-based Strategic Research Communication Centre), Andrew J. Tabler (a Next Generation fellow at the Washington Institute) and former U.S. Ambassador to Syria Theodore Kattouf. While offering different perspectives, there were a few key points on which they agreed: The collapse of the Assad regime has become inevitable.
- The Obama administration announcement that President Bashar al Assad must step down will have positive effects.
- There are still major obstacles to overcome on the road to a democratic Syria. Most worrisome is that the regime continues to maintain almost uniform loyalty among the security and military forces.
- To facilitate the collapse of the Assad regime and the peaceful emergence of a new Syrian government, the U.S. should lead in international efforts to isolate the regime. This will require sanctions and diplomatic pressure while at the same time offering “lifelines” (or incentives to defect) to key regime supporters: senior military commanders, Allawite community leaders, and members of the Sunni business elite.
Through this combination of carrots and sticks the international community can convey to the regime loyalists that they have a great deal to lose by going down with the Assad ship and alternatively have the option to be part of a brighter future for Syria.
Radwan Ziadeh
The Assad regime’s Ramadan offensive has not impeded the gathering momentum of the Syrian opposition. It is a mistake to overestimate the role that religion is playing in the uprising. Ramadan, and specifically the Friday prayers, have provided a gathering place where protesters organize. It is difficult for the regime to prevent such gatherings.
Prominent Allawites are beginning to speak up against the regime. By doing so, they are undermining the regime’s attempts to present the Allawite community as an unconditional supporter and are diffusing sectarian tension. In fact, many Allawites have not done particularly well under the regime.
More forceful U.S. and global condemnation of the regime would give Syrian protesters greater momentum while also encouraging wider-scale defections within the regime. But Ankara should take the diplomatic lead in international efforts as Syrians view Turkey more favorably and with less suspicion than the U.S.
Ausama Monajed
While the growing movement has created a vast proliferation of opposition groups, committees and factions (each city or small town has its own), it should not be understood as divided. All of these various factions share a similar vision for a post-Assad Syria and have a similar set of core principles that guide their activity. On any given day, 70% of the slogans protesters use are shared across Syria.
The international community should not worry about a non-democratic outcome. Syrian protesters are experiencing a form of democracy as they build a broad coalition. Many of the larger opposition groups are already discussing the formation of political parties as well as the drafting of a new constitution.
International efforts can be most helpful if they:
- help Syrian opposition groups both inside and outside the country coalesce. The outsiders have a stronger grasp of foreign policy and can help the domestic Syrian movement develop a leadership core that can effectively engage internationals;
- convince the Sunni business elite to abandon the regime. This can be accomplished by pairing sanctions that undermine any benefits that come from working with the regime with assurances that those who jump ship now can avoid prosecution. If this group can be won over, Damascus and Aleppo will succumb to protest and the regime will crumble.
Andrew Tabler
The Syrian regime is not immune to international economic and diplomatic pressure. It has anticipated this movement for a long time. Since 1980 Syria has been one of the twenty fastest growing countries in the world, and the regime has recognized the economic challenges that its now burgeoning population poses. The Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon in 2005 is an example of how international pressure caused the regime to change policy. The international community’s best leverage is energy export sanctions. Oil proceeds account for about 25-33% of Syria’s revenue and if eliminated could cripple the regime without decimating society (as occurred with oil sanctions in Iraq).
The opposition’s lack of a clear leadership group is both its greatest weakness and greatest strength. While it has not offered the international community an effective negotiating partner, it has also avoided a hierarchical structure that the Syrian security forces could decapitate.
A coup is an alternative to either the regime maintaining power or the opposition winning outright. The lack of government control in Eastern Syria, as well as the growing Saudi support for opposition elements in that area, could lead to the creation of a Benghazi-type opposition stronghold.
Theodore Kattouf
Since talks in Geneva broke down in 2000 there has been general confusion about how the U.S. government should approach the Syrian regime. The aftermath of the Hariri assassination in Lebanon in 2005 shook Bashar al Assad. Since then, however, Assad has become smug and overconfident.
The Obama administration has been right to be cautious, even if it was overly optimistic early on that the protests could inspire Assad to implement meaningful reforms. The administration recognized at the beginning of the conflict it simply did not have the leverage to take effective action without Arab League or UN Security Council support. It thus avoided taking ownership over the outcome of the conflict. The Syrian opposition generally endorsed this approach, as it did not seek international intervention.
The U.S. is now in a much stronger position. It can and should push the UNSC to apply sanctions against Syria as well as encourage Turkey and the EU to help it further Syria’s economic isolation. The Syrian security forces still appear fiercely loyal to Assad. These forces will have to be stretched much further before they break. If sanctions can trigger an economic collapse that prevents the regime from paying the troops, loyalties could shift quickly.
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Anyone still think it was the downgrade?
Yesterday’s sharp bump upwards on the stock market following the Fed’s announcement that it would keep interest rates low for two years demonstrates all too clearly that the sharp falls the previous two days were not reactions to the S&P downgrade of U.S. government debt. I shouldn’t say it, but I will: I told you so.
The press this morning attributes the Fed action to concern about growth, which is surely in part true. But it also reflects concern about banks and the financial system, which are always close to the Fed’s heart. Low interest rates have helped to save the banks for several years now–their profits are soaring–and will continue to help in the future, as a result of the Fed’s commitment.
Does this change the picture for foreign policy? Is the Federal budget under any less pressure? The short answer is “no.” If Congress sticks with the debt deal, it still has to cut expenditures sharply starting in fiscal year 2013. All the Fed has done is to make monetary policy carry the burden of adjustment until then.
The longer answer is a bit more nuanced. Certainly U.S. government borrowing costs for the next two years will continue to be unusually low, unless the markets really do lose confidence in the dollar or inflation rears its you know what. Low interest rates will ease the government’s fiscal situation. I confess to relief about this, but it does not reduce the need for triage on foreign policy.
Nina Hachigian, who was overly optimistic about the American role in the world a few years ago, is overly pessimistic now. America is no less indispensable today that it was last week, but it is likely to be less available in the future. People who have grown to rely on the United States to help them out of the deep holes they dig for themselves–from the Balkans to Israel/Palestine to Iraq and Afghanistan–are going to find us preoccupied elsewhere, with our own top national security risks.
This is not a bad thing–most of them will discover their own capacities to manage are greater than they had imagined. And it is high time some of America’s burdens shifted to Europe and the Arab League, even if the former has financial problems of its own and the latter lots of money but little experience. Far more often than in the past, the message from America will be handle it on your own, or figure out a cheap way to get it done.
What we need to be careful about is cheap shortcuts that end up of creating expensive longterm problems. In the Balkans, that expensive delusion comes from those who advocate rearranging borders to accommodate ethnic differences, a sure formula for instability if not war. In the Middle East, it comes from those who resist defining clearly the borders of the Palestinian state or want to turn a blind eye to the Arab spring, ignoring Egypt and Tunisia because the revolutions there have been “successful.” Backing a revolution doesn’t necessarily mean paying for it or bombing a regime into submission, as Robert Ford (our man in Damascus) has demonstrated with his deft visits to protesters in Hama.
Diplomacy is not inherently expensive. Military action is. In tight financial times, we’ll do better with a foreign policy that relies less on deployed forces and more on alert diplomats.
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Making Bashar al Assad history
As Marc Lynch points out in a tweet this morning, the region is belatedly beginning to react to regime violence against protesters in Syria. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have denounced it and have withdrawn their ambassadors, along with Qatar and Kuwait. Turkey is sending its foreign minister to Damascus tomorrow with a “final warning.” The Arab League has expressed “growing concern.”
Blake Hounshell at Foreign Policy is predicting the downfall not only of Bashar al Assad but of the whole regime:
The whole Baathist system has to come down, and it probably will. The only questions now are how long it will take, and how much more innocent blood will be shed in the process.
I hope he is correct, but it won’t happen unless the pressure builds.
Let’s leave aside the remarkable hypocrisy of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia denouncing violence against demonstrators. They are more than welcome to join the international chorus against it in Syria, even if they jointly repressed the demonstrations this spring in Bahrain. The denunciations already make some difference, as they are necessarily the first step on the road to more vigorous action. What more can Syria’s neighbors do that will make a difference?
Andrew Tabler and David Schenker discussed the options early in July. Those that have not been tried yet include depriving Bashar al Assad of revenue by blocking oil exports, expanding sanctions on his businessman cronies, referring him to the International Criminal Court, and encouraging Syrian army defections. Most of the rest of what they recommend has already been tried, including denunciation by UN human rights experts, enhanced relations with the opposition and more vocal alignment with the Syrian people.
The brutal fact is that whether Bashar al Assad falls, and how long it takes, depends more on the wisdom and fortitude of the Syrians than on anything else. So far, they have been remarkable. A journalist who has been there and talked with the protesters recently has assured me that they look even better up close.
The two key “pillars of the regime” remain the army and the business communities in Aleppo and Damascus. If one or both of these crumbles, Bashar al Assad is history.
PS: The LA Times put up this video, allegedly recorded in Idlib yesterday:
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Half a loaf isn’t really enough
OK, this isn’t the most stirring announcement this month from the White House, but Michael Abramowitz is right to call attention to it. The full statement is worth a read.
What it does is to put the emphasis on anticipating mass atrocities and preventing them. This isn’t as hard as it sounds–those contemplating mass murder often announce their intentions, as Gaddafi did in preparing to take Benghazi and Hutu power advocates did in Rwanda. But it is difficult for a bureaucracy to focus on anticipating problems when it has a full plate already on the table. The Atrocities Prevention Board is an attempt to prioritize prevention.
Just as important is “the full toolbox”:
The President rejects the idea that, in the face of mass atrocity, our options are “limited to either sending in the military or standing by and doing nothing.” He instructs his Administration to undertake a 100-day review – to take an “inventory” of the full range of economic, diplomatic, and other tools available to U.S. policymakers; to develop the appropriate governmental organization to try to ensure early and less costly preventive action; to improve the collection and processing of indicators of mass atrocity; to provide a channel for dissent to be raised during a crisis; and to appropriately train and prepare our diplomats, armed services, development professionals, and others.
It would be easy to mock this as half a loaf, but I prefer to think it sounds like the beginning of a serious effort. I think we can rely on Samantha Power and others in the White House to make sure there is some real result. Too often, we’ve “missed the story,” in Roy Gutman’s journalistic but profound phrase.
The trouble is that history doesn’t wait for 100-day reviews. As misfortune would have it, atrocities have already reached truly alarming levels in Syria. The new ban on admissibility to the United States that the policy vaunts looks like a thin reed in the face of real horror. Are Bashar al Assad’s cronies going to behave differently because they miss their vacation in Florida?
Let’s get that old-fashioned oil embargo out of the tool box, with a UN Security Council resolution to back it up multilaterally. That would have a real impact. And let’s not wait for that 100-day review.
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Crouching tiger, hidden dragon
Now that the UN Security Council has at least condemned the regime violence in Syria, everybody is looking for President Obama to amp up calls for Bashar al Assad to step aside. The Administration, I am assured, knows perfectly well that an orderly transition to a less autocratic regime in Damascus would be a big improvement from the U.S. perspective.
But what if the President says Bashar has to go, and then he doesn’t? The U.S. hasn’t got lots of leverage, as it did over an Egyptian army that was heavily dependent on U.S. money, training and equipment. The most vulnerable sector in Syria is energy, where European rather than American companies are the critical players. Posing the President as a crouching tiger is better than exposing him as a paper tiger, especially after the week he has just gotten himself through.
And what if the transition is not orderly, but breaks down into sectarian and ethnic violence, with the risk of overflow into Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey? That could be a big mess, one we would regret for many years into the future.
The problem with this argument is that it suggests a quicker transition would be far better for the U.S. than one that drags on . Those who know Syria well are saying Aleppo and Damascus will turn against Bashar sooner rather than later. Sami Moubayed says unemployment, lack of moderate community leaders willing to calm the situation, and the influx of people from all over Syria into the two largest Syrian cities will ensure that the revolution eventually spreads there. In the meanwhile, the demonstrators are straining the security forces and beginning to bend them at the edges.
While Juan Cole is correctly disappointed in the wording and lack of teeth in the UN Security Council statement, I’m more philosophical about it. I see it as a necessary step along the way to ratcheting up pressure on Bashar. Its significance is that it happened at all, not the specific wording.
I wish we could wave a magic wand and make the Syrian army turn into pussycats, but we can’t. Only the demonstrators can make that trick work, by maintaining their nonviolent discipline and convincing some of the soldiers and police that their interests will be better served if they embrace the revolution rather than fight it.
While not often mentioned, it is important to keep an eye on the Chinese, who could either save the Syrian regime with cash for oil contracts or sink it by permitting more action in the Security Council and lining up with the Americans and Europeans. Syria doesn’t have enough oil to be of great interest to the Chinese, and a lot more of it is likely to flow once Bashar is gone. The hidden dragon may well be the deciding factor against the regime.
Meanwhile, the Syrian army has punched into the center of Hama, killing a few dozen more of its own citizens and making an orderly transition less likely. Bashar seems to have decided that he prefers to resist the inevitable, like Gaddafi in Libya and Saleh in Yemen, than give in like Mubarak in Egypt or Ben Ali in Tunisia. Yesterday’s scenes of Mubarak caged in a Cairo courtroom will not have encouraged him to rethink.
PS: AJ English continues to do a good job, with a lot of help from courageous friends at Shaam:
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Three blind mice
I first used this title 15 years ago in a piece for the Secretary of State’s Morning Summary about Presidents Tudjman, Milosevic and Izetbegovic. It drew a personal word of interest and praise from President Clinton. That doesn’t happen often, so a lowly office director tends to remember when it does. And maybe resurrect the charmed title at an appropriate moment.
Today’s three blind mice are chiefs of state Bashar al Assad, Muammar Gaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Syria, Libya and Yemen, respectively. While it is easy now to imagine that things will get worse in these three countries before they get better, it is clear enough that they would be better now if their chiefs had stepped aside long ago to allow orderly transitions. Sunday the Syrian armed forces made a clear summer day in Hama sound like this:
Bashar al Assad therefore rates a word of particular opprobrium: he and his brother Maher are showing themselves heirs to the blood-shedding tradition of their father Hafez. This should not surprise, but people have come to think Bashar is somehow better than the rest of his homicidal family. It just isn’t so.
Things are arguably worse in Libya and Yemen. A kind of multi-faceted tribal, regional and sectarian chaos reigns in the latter, on top of a popular protest movement that remains vigorous and terrorist bands who harbor in the hinterlands. In Libya, the killing by we know not whom of General Abdel Fatah Younes, a rebel military leader who came over from the Gaddafi regime, has raised lots of questions about the Transitional National Council (TNC) that leads the rebellion, which apparently had to fight off Gaddafi forces inside Benghazi over the weekend.
These three Middle Eastern potentates are blind not just to the interests of their countries but also to their own. A few months ago it would have been possible to arrange a decent exit for these embattled chiefs of state. Now the International Criminal Court has indicted Gaddafi, Saleh is nursing wounds in Saudi Arabia and Bashar al Assad cannot hope to escape responsibility for several thousand deaths of peaceful demonstrators. Only Saleh can hope to live out a peaceful old age, and only if he gives up on his ambition to return to Yemen.
What we are lacking here is the farmer’s wife, who is supposed to cut off their tails with a carving knife. By this I mean some international party that can persuade chiefs of state who have lost the consent of the people they govern to step aside. In the midst of this Arab spring Ban Ki Moon was reelected as United Nations Secretary General, but he has not been empowered to negotiate what the international community clearly seeks: abdication of these chiefs of state. He has a clear mandate only with respect to Gaddafi, and that is for a ceasefire and withdrawal rather than abdication.
Several “mediators” have sought compromise solutions. The African Union and Turkey have tried with Libya, Turkey has tried with Syria, and the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia and its wealthy monarchy friends) has tried with Yemen. None of this has worked so far. What we are witnessing is a failure of diplomacy, which should make us think harder about how to strengthen international norms and institutions that can deliver results more effectively.
That is precisely what is not happening, though I happily credit U.S. ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford (who testifies this week in Congress) for his courageous display of support to the demonstrators. Instead, the U.S. Congress is considering budgets that would slice diplomacy to the bone and limit contributions to international organization. I can’t really say there are 535 blind mice, since some members of Congress understand better than I do what is needed. But the collective decision is likely to disarm the farmer’s wife, leaving her standing there without even a carving knife to discipline the unruly despots of the 21st century.
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