Regardless of the fate of the House of Assad, Syria as the world has known it for the last four decades no longer exists. The unfolding and still very uncertain outcome of the uprising that started in March 2011 has put an end to over 40 years of stability under authoritarian rule. It has also unleashed powerful and antagonistic indigenous forces and dynamics that already contend to control and shape the new Syrian polity. Indeed, the country's ethnic, sectarian and political diversity, long kept in check by a minority regime through repression, co-optation and pan-Arab secular Ba'athist ideology, is asserting itself in unprecedented ways. The ability of the Assad regime to contain this tide, let alone reverse it, is limited.
Since the spring of 2011, when the instruments of control and mentality of fear that subdued society began eroding, Syria has stepped into the unknown. Its once-peaceful, upbeat revolution – an expression of profound discontent at the decay, corruption, predation and brutality of the Syrian state – has morphed into a civil war with growing sectarian undertones. Organised state violence and communal mobilisation along sectarian and ethnic lines, largely the by-product of the relentless repression of the Assad regime, have now been augmented by the perceived necessity of self-defence and the rise of violent political ideologies, including Salafi-jihadism.
Syria finds itself at the intersection of profound societal, political and strategic trends that extend across the Middle East. Indeed, the Arab world's five most critical fault lines run through Syria. The first is the breakdown of the social contract between government and society, which led to the various Arab revolts. The second is the intensifying struggle over regional dominance between Iran and several Arab states, most notably Saudi Arabia. The third is the growing Sunni-Shia divide, notably in Iraq and Lebanon, the repercussions of which are increasingly felt inside neighbouring Syria. The fourth is the rise of political Islamism and its implications for the identity of Arab states and for secular and non-Muslim groups. The final one is the balance between ethnic groups within multi-ethnic Levantine societies, whereby minorities, once marginalised by the Arab majority, seek to assert their identity. More than anywhere else, the depth and potency of these fault lines threatens Syria's social cohesion and viability as a unified state.
The already bloody struggle over Syria looks likely to be long and multifaceted as it grows in complexity and magnitude, and as sectarianism increases. At the time of writing, it still pits Assad forces against disparate rebel groups, each backed by significant segments of the population. The resilience of the Assad regime has confounded many, driving up the human, physical and societal cost of the conflict. But the demise of the regime, should it happen, would be only a chapter of an already convoluted succession of internal realignments, exacerbated by regional and international interests. The emergence of long-contained fracture lines and grievances guarantees ferocious competition between, on one hand, groups that seek to preserve their standing, interests and security and, on the other hand, groups that seek redress, retribution and power. The fragmentation and militarisation of the opposition suggests potentially violent rivalry to come over territory, resources, politics, foreign patronage and ideology, among both rebel groups and remnants of the Assad regime.
Whether the initial yearning for better political representation and governance, which inspired the original popular mobilisation and peaceful protests, can survive this cycle of violence and contribute to reconciliation within Syrian society is highly uncertain. The resilience of the population is already being tested by state erosion, urban warfare, radicalisation, rising communal violence, humanitarian dislocation, economic deprivation and very low expectations for a quick resolution. At the time of writing, the prospects for a sustainable power-sharing agreement or a settlement, which would enshrine democratic principles while protecting individual and minority rights, are indeed thin. As with other revolutions, those who inspired and spearheaded Syria's are unlikely to emerge as victors. As with most civil wars, those who will emerge empowered from the turmoil will likely be those who, having accumulated power through force but also ideological and sectarian mobilisation, will be most reluctant to cede it.
The regional and international dimensions of Syria's revolution
Syria's abrupt transformation from a significant regional player into an arena in which a multitude of local and foreign players compete will profoundly influence the future of the Levant. Historically, Syria's political importance paled in comparison to other Arab states with similar ambitions and self-image. Under Assad rule since 1970, however, Syria became a more influential regional player than its intrinsic attributes of power should have allowed. This happened by virtue of the pan-Arab Ba'athist ideology the Assad family purported to uphold, the stability it imposed onto this previously fractious polity, its manipulative and shrewd statecraft, the regional alliance it struck with Iran, its interventions in Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine and its ambition to be an actor in crises across the Middle East. The speed with which this accomplishment floundered is a testament to the weak structural foundations of Syrian power under Assad rule. The Assad regime had turned Syria's difficult geography into an asset: it had perfected the art of helping resolve crises it initiated or exacerbated in neighbouring countries to create the perception of power. Yet, as the regime weakens, Syria's geography is becoming a major threat again.
In the short to medium term, Syria's neighbours, and more broadly the allies and foes of the Assad regime, will have to decide whether and how to promote their interests. While many countries have already aligned with or against the Assad regime and opted for indirect involvement, most have remained cautious, assessing that the strategic and political costs of direct action are considerable and currently outweigh any benefit. However, that calculation could change in light of the rapidly climbing humanitarian toll, destabilising contagion, the use of chemical weapons, the direct involvement of another state, an accidental escalation, the spread of jihadism and ethnic separatism.
The importance of Syria on the Middle Eastern landscape, coupled with an emerging power vacuum, have already turned it into a regional battlefield. Much will depend on the repercussions of the civil war outside Syria's borders, in terms of contagion effects, refugee flows, foul play by the Assad regime and regional competition. At the time of writing, the Syrian crisis has already had a greater regional and strategic impact than the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and its ensuing civil war, both in terms of spillover and as an arena of rivalry. The Assad regime has mobilised its allies to provide assistance and strategic depth, while its foes have joined in an alliance aimed at bringing it down. Small and vulnerable countries like Lebanon and Jordan have had to balance fragile domestic politics with outside pressures. Larger countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran have come to equate their regional power with the outcome of the struggle in Syria.
In the long term, the state and strategic orientation of Syria, which borders both regional powers and fragile states, will matter greatly to the overall Middle Eastern balance of power. The region had become accustomed to a relatively assertive and Machiavellian, but largely predictable, Syria. The unfolding civil war has already shaken delicate regional relationships. Israel, for example, enjoyed a relatively stable relationship with a comparatively weak and easy to deter Syria. Adapting to a new Syria, whether fractured or strong, will require complex recalibrations by its neighbours.
An unpredictable uprising?
The fact that Syria was affected by the contagious wave of popular discontent that gripped the Arab world in 2011 came as an enormous surprise to almost everyone, Syrians and nonSyrians, policymakers and analysts alike. A relatively smooth father-to-son succession at the helm of the Syrian state in 2000, the weathering of severe foreign-policy crises in the previous decade and the internal consolidation of power had convinced many, including within the regime itself, that Assad was safe from any domestic threat. The success of the Assad regime in quashing previous internal challenges to its rule (including the 1982 destruction of the city of Hama that ended an Islamist insurrection), the strength of the mukhabarat security system, the lack of a unified domestic opposition and the assumed weakness of the Muslim Brotherhood also contributed to a widely-held assessment that no substantive challenge could be mounted from within.
Among Syria's friends and foes, the focus was on its regional role and ambitions: its alliance with Iran, Hizbullah and rejectionist Palestinian groups; its role in Lebanon and Iraq; its complex dance with the West; and its new relationships, especially with Turkey. The essence of the debate that animated Western and Arab officials and analysts came down to whether the regime should be isolated or engaged, to what purpose and at what cost.
As a result, Syria was rarely analysed as a complex polity. In the post-George W. Bush era, during which the costs of aggressive intervention were plainly demonstrated, the appetite of Western powers to push the Assad regime for substantive political and human rights reforms was close to nil. Rival Arab states were more concerned by Syria's strategic choices than its management of the economy or its treatment of its citizens. Steady economic growth, limited economic reforms and the appearance of growing wealth in major cities, complemented by statements of commitment and good intentions by government modernisers, created the sense that Syria was progressing. As with Egypt and Tunisia, little attention was devoted to deepening inequalities, growing corruption, the unmanaged consequences of the flawed liberalisation of the economy and the neglect of rural areas.
Syria's deteriorating internal situation arguably received less attention than was warranted, and it was certainly a difficult country to navigate. Access was restricted and granted on a preferential basis, while information and hard data were difficult to come by and often unreliable. The few researchers who had access to senior officials focused primarily on the regime's inner dynamics and regional statecraft, as they sought to influence Western policymaking. However, power often resided with inaccessible regime figures while internal struggles and debates were defined by their opacity.
Predictably then, observers did not envisage, in early 2011, that the unexpected revolutions that shook Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in the winter of 2010–11 would reach Syria. Yet, only weeks after boasting to foreign journalists that his foreign-policy credentials and personal connection to his people had immunised his authority against a popular uprising, President Bashar al-Assad found himself facing an existential challenge – greater than any faced by the House of Assad. ‘If you did not see the need for reform before what happened in Egypt and in Tunisia, it is too late to do any reform,’ a confident Assad told The Wall Street Journal in late January, asserting that Syria had already started the reforms that met popular demands.Footnote1
However, what started as scattered, peaceful protests against the rapacity and brutality of the state snowballed into a massive, nationwide uprising that took diverse and complex forms. The depth and nature of dissatisfaction with the regime varied widely across Syria's multiple fracture lines. If the first, rapidly contained pro-democracy demonstration in the souk of Damascus in February 2011 did not burgeon into a wider movement, the cruelty and lack of accountability of the security forces in the peripheral southern city of Deraa in dealing with schoolchildren, who had painted anti-regime slogans on walls, inflamed the country's rural areas a month later.
In a matter of weeks, it became evident that the regime had neither the willingness nor the tools to manage this crisis peacefully. Forty-two years of investment in the security forces and a mindset that prioritised family interests and regime survival over all other considerations determined the course that the regime pursued. The other Arab uprisings led regime deciders to believe that concessions would only embolden protesters, although lone voices inside the government seem to have recommended compromise. Ultimately, the regime formulated a security-heavy response and propagated a conspiracy-laden narrative alongside cosmetic and ultimately unconvincing reforms. This uncompromising strategy proved to be the regime's undoing. It was met with growing popular opposition, which quickly spread to most areas across the country, with the notable exceptions of Aleppo, its largest city and commercial centre, the capital Damascus and Alawite areas.
The fate of the House of Assad looks, at the time of writing, bleak. Its legitimacy is irrevocably undermined, its territorial hold badly contested, its resources eroding, its loyal forces overstretched and its external allies few. Still, the regime has demonstrated resilience and a capacity to adapt. It has outlived the regimes of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Muammar Gadhafi in Libya, two strongmen who built structures of control that were similar in intent if different in design.Footnote2 Moreover, Assad managed to mobilise key social groups by equating his regime's survival with the security and standing of Alawite and other minorities, as well as by portraying the opposition as armed, radical, Islamist, foreign-backed and seeking to change the very fabric of Syrian society. It secured regional and international cover to check decisive external action in support of the opposition, and also obtained foreign resources, resupply and expertise to offset its shrinking means and capabilities.
Still, neither side has been able to defeat the other on the battlefield decisively. Over time, the regime shed any pretense of being a state, capable of governing and enforcing control over the population, and behaved increasingly as a militia – out of necessity but also as a reflection of a mindset that puts its survival above all else. Yet, its superior firepower has not been able to compensate for force depletion and desertions, recover lost ground and regain the trust of major segments of the population. Rebel forces, unequally equipped and organised, remain too disparate and too diverse in their loyalties, ideologies and objectives, and increasingly independent from any structured civilian leadership. As time has passed, they have asserted themselves over civilian activists thanks to superior funding, organisation and through force. The militarisation and radicalisation of many rebel groups, and the lack of decisive political control over their activities, bodes ill for a smooth transition to inclusive civilian rule.
Between them sit many Syrian citizens and key social groups as disillusioned by or opposed to Assad rule as they are fearful about the massive costs of the political transformation, the potential for chaos and state failure and the opposition's fragmentation, abuses and ideological leanings. As a result, many Syrians, primarily concerned with survival, have resorted to detachment and hedging. This is why the struggle to gain the population's support remains, first and foremost, political and psychological in nature. Military victories and setbacks are likely to matter less than the ability to maintain or gain the loyalty of key groups – namely, minorities and the middle and upper classes.
Meanwhile, options for a negotiated transition have shrunk, with the regime's intransigence and brutality and the opposition's disunity and underperformance. Intense regional and international competition has further exacerbated domestic Syrian dynamics. Ominously, the slow-motion collapse of the regime could well intensify the regionalisation of the conflict, the proliferation of weapons and the radicalisation of the opposition.
Syria's complex terrain
Syrian society is comprised of groups with widely differing grievances, interests and loyalties. The Alawite minority, from which the ruling clique hails, represents between 10 and 12% of the 22-million-strong Syrian population; the Christian community 10%; the mostly Sunni Kurdish community around 10%; the Sunni Arab majority close to 65%; Ismaili, Druze, Shia and other minorities account for the remainder.Footnote3 Their geographic distribution adds complexity: significant minority populations cohabit with Sunnis across the country and no region is fully homogenous. While Kurds and Alawites are concentrated in the northeast and northwest respectively, there are substantial numbers spread throughout the country. Syria's main cities reflect this rich mixture, while its many small towns and rural areas, the hotbeds of the uprising, tend to be more uniform and segregated.
The Assad regime had managed to contain and manipulate this diversity through sophisticated strategies. Political activity was channeled through the Ba'ath Party, while the rest of society was apoliticised and dissent forcefully combated. Given the conservative nature of Syrian society and its sectarian demographics, secularism became an ideological instrument to justify and perpetuate Assad rule. As a way to balance the Sunni majority, the regime tied minority groups to its rule, though often in subaltern positions. It reached out to Sunni and Christian merchant elites to lock them in a bargain that secured their fortunes in exchange for loyalty. It portrayed itself as a rampart against Islamic extremism to reassure the large proportion of moderate Syrians worried about the rise of Islamism across the region. To co-opt pious Sunnis, it empowered official networks of Sunni clerics obedient to the state. It used the Ba'ath Party to build a local and national bureaucracy that was loyal to the regime and acted as a local mediator.
It is certain that not all Syrians identify themselves primarily according to religion or ethnicity. The civil war, however, has empowered sectarian and ethnic entrepreneurs to mobilise society along communalistic lines. The regime's own strategy and propaganda, and the perception that it has allied with Iran – a foreign, non-Arab power – out of sectarian affinity, as well as the involvement of Sunni Gulf powers, will facilitate this process. Syria's predisposition towards sectarian violence is amplified by its proximity to countries of similar make-up and by exposure to their troubled histories. The course and legacy of sectarian competition in Lebanon and Iraq will likely inform the two countries' behaviour towards Syria; they also provide useful analytical tools to chart Syria's communal meltdown and potential outcomes.
The rise of Islamism affects the position and preferences of minorities and non-Islamist Sunnis. Indeed, Syria's heterogeneous nature contrasts with the relative homogeneity of Egypt or Libya. In Syria, these segments of society are torn between the diminishing returns of their bargain with the Assad regime and the fear of chaos, loss of standing, retribution and Islamist governance. As fence-sitters, they expect credible guarantees and incentives to shift their loyalty, but fear of Islamism, validated for example by the fate of the Christian communities of Iraq and Egypt, makes many more inclined towards the status quo than political change.
Other fracture lines have been exposed by the crisis. The spread and vigour of the uprising has differed along regional and class lines. Rural and peripheral areas were the first to join the revolution, while the two largest cities, Aleppo and Damascus, were hit last. This can be largely explained by the government's neglect of rural areas, previously a backbone of the regime, in favour of urban-centred development. Indeed, the overall deterioration of the agricultural industry, the lack of public policies to help rural workers adapt to new market conditions, and the devastating effects and public mismanagement of a drought that affected millions of farming families from 2006–2011 are among the causes of rural discontent with the regime.
A complex set of factors explains why certain cities joined the uprising early, while others stood by the regime. Hama, where the memory of the 1982 massacre remained vivid, and Homs, the theatre of significant urban re-engineering by the regime, rose early and hard.Footnote4 Class also played a role, as the perception among many members of the urban middle and upper classes that the revolution was led by the rural working classes or Islamists, bent on taking Syria backwards, contributed to relative apathy in certain areas. Meanwhile, urban discontent often raged in poor outer districts, where rural families settled as a result of migration – neighbourhoods in and around Damascus like Daraya. An examination of the political geography of the uprising leads to a striking conclusion: keen to hold Damascus, Assad has ended up losing Syria.
Loyalty to the regime or unwillingness to part with it can also be explained by other factors. State bureaucrats worry about their fate under a new structure of power, as do Ba'ath Party adherents; members of the much-feared security services have been implicated in massive violence and could suffer retribution; those who have benefitted from the regime's generosity and flawed economic reforms stand much to lose. But each of these groups has also experienced significant defections, out of sympathy for the revolution or out of anticipation that the regime will eventually fall. Minorities such as the Druze and the Kurds, but also tribes, have made complex calculations based on their own assessments of the regime's prospects but also on their perception of the vision, or lack thereof, of the emerging Syrian opposition.
Notes
‘Interview with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’, The Wall Street Journal, 31 January 2011, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703833204576114712441122894.html.
In Libya, Gadhafi purposely weakened the regular military and relied on disparate security services and tribal groups that shared little beyond loyalty to him. In Egypt, the military retained a degree of autonomy and grew estranged from the Mubarak regime, which explain its decision not to defend the autocrat. In Syria however, the army and security services remained organically linked to the regime, with key members of the ruling clique occupying senior positions. For an informed comparison of the structures of power in Egypt and Syria, see: Joshua Stacher, Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt and Syria (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012).
These are mainstream estimations. The demographer Youssef Courbage calculated that the size of the various minorities is actually smaller. Arab Sunnis represent 73% while minorities total 27% only: Alawites 10%; Druze, Ismailis and Shia 2.5%; Kurds 8%; and Christians 5%. Youssef Courbage, ‘Ce que la démographie nous dit du conflit syrien, Slate.fr, 15 October 2012, http://www.slate.fr/story/62969/syrie-guerre-demographie-minorites.
‘Governor Iyad Ghazal outlines his “Dream of Homs”’, US Embassy Diplomatic Cable, Wikileaks, 1 February 2010, available at: http://dazzlepod.com/cable/10DAMASCUS93/.