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U.S. Policy on Assad Enabling Syrian Stagnation

Trevor Westra - 4/23/2011

The violent uprisings in Syria continued this week with large demonstrations in the western city of Homs. Syria’s third largest city, Homs reflects the country’s sensitive religious diversity with a majority Arab-speaking Sunni population and contending Alawite, Shia, Syriac and Greek Orthodox Christian minorities. Yet against the repeated threat of violence from state security forces -including the use of live ammunition- residents have gathered together in the city’s Clock Square to demand democratic reform.



Since the Syrian revolts began precipitously more that two months ago, President Bashar al-Assad’s strategies to counter the rebellion have been stubborn and conflicting. While at first he pandered to the country’s large and conservative Sunni religious base, promising to close the nation’s lone casino and lift a country-wide ban on face veils in schools, he then appealed to the historically persecuted, stateless Kurds, promising them a future of full Syrian citizenship. When those concessions didn’t help quiet diversifying unrest, he hired the Shabbiha gangs -Syria’s equivalent of the Mexican cartel type- hoping they might scare protesters into just going home.



But with reports now suggesting the killing of literally hundreds of protesters in cold blood, one wonders how long the White House can continue to avoid engaging the Assad regime diplomatically. To date, the Obama administration has failed to even recall its Syrian ambassador, preferring to instead maintain its policy strategy of passivity, now is bordering on neglect. To the additional detriment of his administration’s credibility internationally, and in what was one of the most embarrassing foreign policy blunders of recent memory, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton also termed Syria’s Assad a “reformer” during an appearance on CBS’s Face The Nation in March.



Obviously this analysis couldn’t be further from both present and historical realities. As Iran’s closely Arab ally, Syria has helped sponsor Hezbollah and Hamas militants for years. Additionally, the Assad regime is a provider of transport routes for insurgents travelling to Iraq and is believed to have worked closely with North Korea during the research and building of a planned nuclear-capacity weapons facility that was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in 2007. Yet amidst reports that many Syrian state security forces are now taking orders from Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG) commanders, Assad has announced that he is considering signing off on legislation that would lift the county’s 50-year state of martial law.



This reveals only that instability in Syria is as much a public relations crisis for Assad as it is a political one. Long gone are the days of the past decade when wider dissent could be curtailed simply by repressing the educated, intellectual members of Syria’s Civil Society Movement. The current protest movement embroiders a broad social fabric that has denied Assad any clear dichotomy -sectarian, ethnic, or otherwise- that he can easily and politically exploit.



What’s missing from Assad’s repeated attempts to quiet Syrian dissent, and what is therefore likely to continue to drive instability in Syria, is his failure to commit to any real political reforms. To this degree it is not surprisingly that he has entirely ignored calls to amend the country’s 8th constitutional article, which guarantees his ruling Ba’th Party its unchecked power. But at present, reliable news in Syria is scarce and rumor widely substitutes for better information. In this climate, fear rules psychological attitudes on the streets, as Christian, Druze, Kurds, Shia, Alawites, and Sunnis all anticipate sectarian score settling as the inevitable outcome of the political chaos that would follow Assad’s complete toppling.



This is perhaps one of the major reasons why the maximum outcome of regime change -not in the explicit demands of many Syrians- will likely fail to materialize. And until there is some evidence of an increase in the Obama Administration’s appetite for bold new strategies aimed at pressuring rather than appeasing Syria’s Assad, the political stagnation suffocating its people and the broader region will only continue.