An Arab revolt in Syria

The international community’s res­ponse to the current turmoil in the Arab world has largely focused on Libya, and this is understandable considering the particularly brutal manner in which Muammar Gaddafi has responded to a popular revolt against his regime.

This focus must continue, and hopefully increased air strikes together with a unified Nato stand, further support for the opposition, the introduction of an oil embargo on the regime, and behind-the-scenes efforts to encourage more senior members of the Libyan inner circle to defect will bring about Gaddafi’s departure.

Getting rid of Gaddafi won’t be easy but I believe it can be achieved as long as there exists the political will to do so.

There is only one other Arab country whose regime is as repressive as Libya’s, and that is Syria, which is now facing its own turmoil.

Syria’s geopolitical position is more strategic than Libya’s and Damascus has close ties to Iran and Hezbollah. The country’s ethnic and religious composition could be another complication if the country dissolves into chaos.

So far, at least 200 Syrian protesters have been killed by the security forces, and President Bashar al-Assad has shown no restraint in dealing with demonstrators, nor has he introduced any significant political reforms.

Assad’s speech to the so-called Syrian Parliament two-and-a-half weeks ago, shortly after the troubles began, stunned his people, who were expecting a major policy change declaration. Instead, the President struck a defiant tone and claimed that “conspiracies” were behind the anti-regime protests.

Assad has so far made only a few token gestures, such as replacing his Cabinet, granting citizenship to thousands of stateless Syrian Kurds, releasing a few detainees who were arrested for protesting and, in order to appease some Muslim conservatives, lifting the ban on the full-face veil.

Radwan Ziadeh, a Washington-based Syrian human rights activist, said Syrian opposition figures were in agreement on several key demands, namely a new democratic constitution, ending the state of emergency, the release of all political prisoners, a new political parties law, the reform of media laws, a new elections law, the formation of a truth and reconciliation committee to investigate past human rights abuses, the granting of full political rights to Syrian Kurds and the restructuring of the security and intelligence apparatus.

So far, none of these demands have been agreed to.

The main characteristic of the Syrian Baathist regime is the fact that it is controlled by the Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam, who represent only about 11 per cent of the population.

It is thanks to Alawite control of the armed forces and intelligence services that the regime has managed to remain in power.

Assad’s father, President Hafez al-Assad, who died in 2000, made sure that every large army combat unit was under the command of an Alawite officer, and this practice continues today.

The Syrian army, therefore, has been tasked with keeping the ruling Alawites in power, and we should not expect the military to act on similar lines as in Egypt and Tunisia where the generals told their President it was time to move on.

If this had to happen in Syria, the Alawite sect would lose everything, unless, of course, the army had to make a deal with the opposition which guaranteed some sort of influence for the Alawites, but somehow I have my doubts.

To understand how far the military and the ruling Alawites would go to maintain the status quo, one need only look at what happened in Syria’s fourth largest city, Hama, in 1982, where a revolt by the Muslim Brotherhood was taking place.

Assad’s father ordered the army to brutally suppress the insurrection and consequently 20,000 people were killed. The town was first shelled with artillery and then attacked by military and special forces; one third of Hama was completely destroyed.

For the west, dealing with unrest in Syria is more complicated than revolts in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia. Unlike Egypt and Tunisia, the regime is not close to the West and therefore cannot be influenced by it. Nor is the military respected as a servant of the state rather than the ruling elite.

Like Libya, the regime is particularly nasty, and unlikely to go without a fight, but the country’s ethnic and religious make-up as well as its geographical location and its allies in the region are an added complication.

Comparisons have sometimes been made with Iraq, and while this is probably an exaggeration, it is worth taking into consideration what happened to Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, even though this came about as a result of a US-led invasion.

Syria is 74 per cent Sunni Muslim, 11 per cent Alawite (the ruling elite), 10 per cent Christian and five per cent Druze. It is also 90 per cent Arab and 10 per cent Kurdish and Armenian. Syria is very close to Iran and Hizbolloh in Lebanon, and one wonders how these two allies would react should Assad’s regime start to look threatened.

Robert Baer, a former CIA operative in the Middle East, wrote recently in the Financial Times: “If Hama is any guide, the potential for violence in Syria makes Libya and Yemen look mild. Moreover, chances are good that chaos in Syria risks spilling into neighbouring countries – notably Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, and maybe even the Arab side of the Gulf, which is already riven by sectarian divisions. This is a worst case scenario, but the point is if it comes about, there will be no way the west could just stand by and hope for the best.”

Dealing with Libya looks easy compared to how the situation in Syria could develop.