July’s stunning blows to the Assad regime—a bomb attack that killed several key members of his inner circle and a massive rebel offensive in areas across the country—have prompted redoubled efforts to plan for its collapse. Calls for intervention grow louder, and the United States reportedly has abandoned its diplomatic campaign against Assad in favor of preparing for, and hastening, his fall. The word “endgame” is spread liberally over editorial pages and magazine covers. However, as any chess player will tell you, sometimes the endgame is just the beginning—and sometimes the endgame doesn’t end with a win.
Much outside thought about the Syrian conflict has relied upon a liberation narrative: Assad is the oppressor; the people are the oppressed; they are rising to overthrow him. The story is presumed to end with Assad’s fall. There is no doubt that Assad is a loathsome dictator, but the truth is messier.
A unified Syrian people does not exist—the society is shot through with sectarian and ethnic divisions which would make stable governance difficult in any context, and the current conflict is making that all but impossible. Syria’s non-Sunni peoples have long feared that Sunni Islamists will overthrow the secular government and oppress them. This fear has led to crackdowns on Sunnis, the most famous being the destruction of the city of Hama in 1982. Alawites in the intelligence services and upper echelons of the military have overseen a campaign that began with mass arrests and torture but now has shells falling on cities and tanks in the streets. Alawite men of the Shabiha, common criminals in peacetime but militiamen in war, have committed truly unspeakable acts. Young men in cities the regime has conquered are often killed, regardless of their political affiliation. Their bodies are sometimes dismembered and burned. Captured opposition fighters face a similar grim fate.
Despite protestations that they are inclusive and nonsectarian, it is difficult to imagine opposition fighters completely resisting the temptation to seek revenge for these horrendous acts to which they and their kinsmen have been subjected. There already have been reports of abuses by the opposition, including kidnappings, forced confessions and executions. This will feed the fears of Alawites and Christians. So will reports of Islamist fighters operating in parallel to the Free Army; some reportedly are better armed and better funded than the non-Islamist forces. We should not discount the danger of another situation such as the one in Mali’s breakaway Azawad region, where a similar imbalance between local rebels and internationally funded extremists has led to the formation of a terrorist haven.
The Assad regime has stoked sectarian fears eagerly to challenge the liberation narrative, reportedly paying Alawite government employees to put up anti-Alawite and anti-Christian graffiti and depicting the entire rebellion as Islamist: rebels have complained that the state trumpets images of bearded fighters as proof of fundamentalism, even though for some fighters the beard is proof of the inconvenience of shaving in the field. One young guerilla joked to the L.A. Times, “We're going to start fighting with a bottle of whiskey in our hand, just so the world sees we're not Al Qaeda.” Extremist or not, rebels entering Alawite and Christian communities will be seen as harbingers of tyranny and massacre, not freedom.
Comments
Excellent Article. It is must be crystal clear that what is going on in syria is not pro-democracy protest. There is an intra-Islamic war, a sectarian, fundamentalist Sunni vs. fundamentalist Shiite war that is going on in the ME. Syria is one of the fronts.Shiites are a minority in the Muslim world--—approximately one sixth of Muslims controlling 3-4 states out of 56 Muslim states—and Sunnis are the majority. When Assad falls, Sunnis will gain and band-wagoning rather than balancing will be the result. Then, a ring of Sunni Muslim brotherhood (Egypt, Ghaza, Syria, possibly in the future Jordan also) with very close ties to Turkey will be the new geopolitical reality in the Middle East. This jeopardizes the safety of non-Sunni Muslim Arabs in the region. That also jeopardizes vital US interests. Therefore, maintaining the Sunni-Shiite balance is vital. Only then, can America maintain the ability to shape events in the ME.If the balance is upset, America will be forced to look after it interests in much more hostile environments and without the levers it had to garner regional support. Where as if the balance is maintained each party will need external support against the other and that will give ample room for the best positioned power to interfere, ie the USA.Inside Syria, Alewites, Christians, and Druz are supporting Assad because their existence will be threatened under his opponents. They know this as they have been living in these areas for centuries and were subjected to various kinds of discrimination and were treated as inferiors by the majority. They do not buy the talks of a democratic Syria because they know better than westerners. The Kurds are unrecognized and prosecuted by the successive regimes in Syria. The opposition (SNC) also, so far, marginalizes the Kurds and sidelines them. So, a successful strategy must focus on making the groups that support Bashar Al-Assad feel safe to stop supporting the status quo and accept change. Therefore, self-determination must be a pillar of any strategy dealing with the revolutions in the ME in general and in Syria in particular given Syria’s diversity if, long term stability is what we seek. Therefore, to provide a better future for Syrians, to maintain the balance of power in the ME, and to promote meaningful pluralism in Syria, the issue must be compartmentalized. The Kurds must be recognized and given an autonomous region. Then, at least a group of Syrians is emancipated and that is an improvement. The Alewites must also have an autonomous region. That will alleviate Alewite concerns and reassure them. This should mitigate the Alewites’ fears and ease their existential concerns. Other minorities, judging by where they stand today, will chose to live with the Alewites. Both alewites and kurds could be allies of the US and, they could even be allies of Israel to balance against their newly found enemies. As a bonus, this will also keep Syrians occupied and, will prevent them from stirring problems.