The Battle for the Arab Spring

by Lin Noueihed

  Several days later, on the anniversary of the 1967 war, Syrian state media reported that twenty-three people were killed by Israeli forces as they tried to cross into the Golan, another incident that could not have happened without the express wish of Damascus.48 Instability in the Golan, however, was less of a deterrent to foreign intervention than an effort to distract attention away from state repression and, in the process, remind Syrians of Assad's support for the Palestinian cause. That support had previously paid some dividends. In 2005, with Bashar under great international pressure over Lebanon, the Muslim Brotherhood's Bayanouni had formed an uneasy alliance with the defected vice president Abdelhalim Khaddam. But it ended in May 2009, when Bayanouni announced that he supported Syria's stance in the 2008–9 Israeli bombardment of Gaza and considered Khaddam's position to be too pro-Western.49

  Hamas, effectively the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, was another factor in Syrian-Palestinian links. Damascus had hosted the political bureau of the group since the 1980s, and its leader Khaled Meshaal since 2001, but the Sunni Islamist group found itself in a sensitive position in 2011, unable to openly back the uprising against their long-standing hosts yet unwilling to criticize a popular movement against a minority regime. In February 2012 Hamas leaders in Gaza openly turned against Assad, and reports suggested Meshaal would relocate to Tunis or Doha.

  A far more worrying prospect was Lebanon. By now, Hezbollah was not just the single most powerful military force in the country, but also part of the largest bloc in Beirut's parliament, which included other broadly pro-Syrian political groups. Lebanon, along with Algeria and Iraq, voted against the Arab League plan in November to temporarily suspend Syria unless it complied with demands to withdraw its forces from the streets. Yet Hezbollah and its allies stood to be some of the biggest losers from any major upheaval in Syria, whether that means the fall of the Assads or a conflict that threatened their supply lines into Lebanon.

  How the group responds to any imminent collapse in Syria could well depend more on the wishes of Tehran, its principal backer, rather than in Damascus. One scenario envisages the group asserting its military capabilities inside Lebanon and sparking armed clashes, or worse, if its Sunni and Christian adversaries find support from any new Syrian regime. Another sees it mounting diversionary raids on the Israeli border, with dangerous consequences. Both could be extremely messy. A further possibility sees Hezbollah adapting to the new reality, the terminal decline of the Assads persuading it to focus on domestic politics. Whatever its actions, Damascus controlled other cells in Lebanon that were more than capable of causing serious trouble, and by early 2012 the relative calm there indicated that Bashar had not yet used all the tools at his disposal. Yet tensions were running high, and it seemed inconceivable that Lebanon would escape unharmed from any unfolding civil war in Syria, or that Damascus would not retaliate inside its neighbour if it came close enough to the brink.

  Iran, which backed Assad throughout the year, presented another risk. Links between Damascus and Tehran had become closer in the wake of 2005, which saw Bashar increasingly isolated by the West, prompting a European effort in 2008 to ‘peel’ him away from the Iranian orbit. French premier Nicolas Sarkozy controversially gave the Syrian president a front row seat at the Bastille Day military parade in July, then visited Damascus later in the year, as did UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband. The diplomatic seduction achieved little, but was another example of Bashar's strategy of keeping fingers in different pies, especially as Turkish-mediated peace talks between Syria and Israel were going on at the time.

  By late 2011, the prospect of eroding Iran's influence in the Levant might have encouraged Sunni-ruled Gulf Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, to try to weaken Assad, but his links to Tehran also ensured that they stopped short of a direct military intervention for fear of exacerbating a Shi'ite-Sunni conflict that could suck in Iraq and Lebanon and destabilize the Gulf. If any uprising pushed Bashar to the brink of collapse, then Tehran's reaction would test how strong its support for its Syrian ally really was. Would it sacrifice Assad and hold back Hezbollah as a weapon in another battle, such as a US or Israeli strike on its nuclear facilities? Or would it risk everything and seek to activate Hezbollah in some way? If so, would Hezbollah's Lebanese Shi'ite fighters put their Iranian or Syrian patrons before their national interests? Could the group survive such a choice or would they irreversibly lose public support and spark a new civil war in Lebanon? It was a complex calculation that extended far beyond the borders of Syria and by early 2012 was still in flux.

  While Bashar had not burnt his international cards by the end of the year, he had certainly lost support. The Turkish government, which had previously cultivated friendlier ties with Damascus, had progressively hardened its stance as the violence escalated. ‘For the welfare of your own people and the region, just leave that seat,’ said prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in November, reminding Assad of Gaddafi's recent fate. Turkey also mooted the idea of creating humanitarian corridors or ‘buffer zones’ to protect civilians, though by the close of the year there was no evidence that it was arming any Syrian opposition groups. Ankara also needed to take into account the Kurdish population in both Turkey and Syria, whose dislike of Assad was at least matched by their dislike of the Turkish government.

  Qatar, another former ally, had initiated the Arab isolation of Assad as part of its surprisingly proactive role in the Arab Spring. In July, Doha withdrew its ambassador and closed its embassy in Damascus after it said it had been attacked by regime-hired thugs.50 Riyadh pulled out its envoy a few weeks later, and Bahrain and Kuwait quickly followed suit. An emergency meeting of the Arab League in November voted to temporarily suspend Syria from its meetings and ordered it to withdraw its troops from the streets. Some observers saw in this an increased Arab intolerance for state brutality against citizens. In reality, the tightening pressure on Bashar aimed to weaken his regime and in turn tilt the balance of power against the Gulf Arab countries’ own declared nemesis, Iran.

  Waiting for Assad

  Whether it took six weeks, six months or six years, by early 2012 it had become widely predicted that it was only a matter of time before the Assads fell from power. During three decades under Hafez al-Assad and a decade under his son, the Syrian regime had constructed a protective web of external allies and domestic pillars. By the time the Tunisians were celebrating the first anniversary of their revolution, that web still kept Bashar in power and in possession of several unused cards, but the odds against his regime's survival, certainly in its current form, were mounting. The crucial point was that Bashar had lost popular legitimacy. Even though large domestic constituencies had too much to lose to protest against him, they would not lift a finger to defend his regime. By the close of the year, Syrian businessmen were relocating to the Gulf. Middle- and upper-class Syrians who had second homes abroad or could find jobs in the Gulf, Europe or the United States had left or were planning to leave. Many were not primarily concerned about their safety or worried about a civil war, but about their business interests.

  Several different scenarios were possible. One was an internal coup within Assad's inner circle by hardliners who had become convinced that Bashar was too soft or too discredited to see the fight through. Indeed, towards the end of 2011 intermittent rumours had spread about a power struggle at the very top. Some questioned whether Bashar was calling the shots or had simply been retained as a figurehead. A coup could also come from within broader Alawite circles, if some decided that the community's long-term survival would be best served by effectively joining the uprising and disavowing Assad and his crackdown. Such a strategy, assuming it was even possible, could reduce the risk of mass retribution against Alawites than if the regime fell at the end of a long and bloody war.

  Foreign intervention was a possibility, though direct, decisive military action was unlikely for the reasons explained above. There would be no Libya-style intervention to remove Assad, but neit
her would there be a Bahrain-style intervention to defend him. More likely was a scenario in which regional powers like Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, Iran or Saudi Arabia decided to arm and supply proxies in Syria, leading to an increasingly confused and violent situation. Libya had apparently already taken that route in late 2011, reportedly sending weapons and fighters into Turkey to assist the Free Syrian Army.51 There were also claims by anti-regime groups that Shi'ite fighters had been crossing from Iraq to help Assad's military.52 That trend could easily intensify and provide enough guns to oil the engines of internal conflict if and when the Assads do fall.

  In early February the United States expressed its disgust over the Russian and Chinese veto of a draft UN Security Council resolution that would have condemned Assad's crackdown. Almost immediately after the vote, army forces launched the fiercest assault yet on rebel fighters, encircling and shelling entire districts of Homs and, by all accounts, killing hundreds of civilians as the conflict moved into what looked like a new, even grimmer phase. The Arab League then pledged to tighten sanctions and offer all forms of ‘political and material support’ for the opposition, as well as calling for a joint UN-Arab peacekeeping force. Most evidence pointed once more to the likelihood of Syria becoming a bloody proxy battleground for competing regional and global interests.

  A low-level civil conflict of the type that had developed in late 2011 could persist for years. Negotiations between the opposition and the regime, still off the table by early 2012, may eventually take place if all sides become worn down, but that still seemed a long way off almost one year on. Parts of Syria had already fallen out of central government control and more remote provinces could be turned into humanitarian buffer zones by outside parties if the violence worsened. But Bashar could equally maintain control of the two largest cities, Damascus and Aleppo, as well as strategic assets like ports, airports and border crossings. Notwithstanding a sudden coup or an external intervention, this looked like the most likely scenario by early 2012.

  With international sanctions clearly beginning to bite, money has played a role too. In November, the oil ministry asked Total and Shell, who had joint ventures with the government, to cut back production because the crude they pumped could not be sold on the international market.53 State revenues were plummeting and foreign currency reserves were running down. One US dollar was worth around 62 Syrian pounds by December 2011, compared to less than 50 a year earlier. A government decision in September to restrict imports with a customs duty above 5 per cent, intended to stem the depletion of foreign currency reserves, was hastily reversed just a couple of weeks later after a backlash from the business community.

  Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi had survived their years of isolation largely thanks to oil, a luxury which Bashar does not have in an economy which has come, due to his own reforms, to be dominated by the private sector. His ability to hold out may ultimately come down to how much cash the regime can generate through illicit activities like smuggling, or can receive from its supporters outside the country, especially Tehran. Unless they are backed up with military force, any economic sanctions will have limited impact on the flow of goods because of Syria's porous borders, particularly with Iraq and Lebanon, and because it would severely disrupt transit trade from Turkey destined for the Arabian Peninsula.

  Syria's future also partly hinges on the strength and strategy of the emerging opposition groups. Some were exiled in Europe, others were based in Lebanon, others still worked on the ground inside the country. By early 2012 they neither spoke with a single voice, nor agreed on tactics, nor adhered to a coherent future vision. The Free Syrian Army, the group of defected soldiers that had staged the attack on the Air Force Intelligence building in November, had declared no longer-term goal beyond removing the Assads, but their control over the myriad armed opposition cells was questionable. Other central areas of disagreement among the political opposition were over the prospect of foreign military intervention and the possibility of dialogue with Bashar.

  The most high-profile group that emerged in 2011 was the Syrian National Council, officially launched from Istanbul in early October with Burhan Ghalioun, a Paris-based secular Sunni academic, as its chairman. The SNC did not claim to represent the entire Syrian people, but portrayed itself as a temporary body to help coordinate the transition process. Ghalioun, who had left Syria shortly after Hafez al-Assad took power but returned briefly during the Damascus Spring of 2000, gave a well-received speech on 6 November in which he adopted a presidential tone. Later in the month the SNC released a short document that set out the main points of its vision for a future Syria.54

  The SNC might have been the most representative of the new groups, but it was not universally popular. Its initial political programme failed to mention and therefore reassure the Alawites that they would not be persecuted in a post-Assad Syria, while several major Kurdish parties were opposed to the council or preferred to channel their opposition through their own Kurdish coalition. They were also irked by comments made by Ghalioun in October, which suggested that Kurds were in fact Arabs, and by the perceived links between the SNC and the Turkish government. Trust was fragile and in short supply.

  The SNC had garnered some Western support, with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé calling it the ‘legitimate partner which we want to work with’, and hinting that a ‘securitized zone for the protection of civilians’ could be set up.55 But unlike Libya's interim body, whose recognition by France paved the way for intervention, the SNC did not control any territory inside Syria and many of its members were based abroad.

  Everyone walked on an ethnic, religious and geopolitical tightrope that highlighted the sensitivities around Syria's future. As in Egypt or Tunisia, which had similarly suppressed political Islam, it is likely that politics in a more democratic Syria will be far more coloured by Islamism. That may be anathema to many Syrians, not only minorities like the Christians or Alawites, but also the more secular Sunni population. It will also see a tussle over economic policy. Were Bashar's technocrats essentially on the right track, opening up the economy, liberalizing trade and trying to reposition state finances for the future? Or did they practise a discredited Western import that widened inequalities, hurt the provinces and invited elite corruption? As the final section of this book argues, Syria will not be alone in having to make such decisions.

  Any new government in Damascus will also raise the question of whether peace with Israel would be more or less likely. That all depends on what kind of political structure might emerge. A representative government that derives its legitimacy from democratic elections would not necessarily require the Assad-style ‘no peace, no war’ approach to Israel as a source of legitimacy and self-justification. Any prospect of a peace deal between Syria and Israel would still have to contend with the thorny details of the Golan Heights, which caused the breakdown of talks in 2000, and with the status of the approximately 475,000 registered Palestinian refugees in Syria.

  By early 2012 much was uncertain, but some things were not. The Assads would not go down without a fight that had the potential to get extremely messy. They could unleash an even bloodier round of terror to quell the domestic uprising. They could plunge Lebanon into yet more internal strife. They could destabilize the border with Israel. They could draw in foreign powers like Iran or Saudi Arabia and escalate the conflict into something far graver. Syria is still fighting the first round of a battle that Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen completed in 2011. Bashar has no obvious successor or deputy to hand over power to, and the next presidential election is due in 2014. Even if the president can hold on that long, the election will automatically trigger a new crisis of legitimacy.

  But when the second round comes, it will again be the battle over religion that defines the change that takes place. Will Syria retain a secular identity that protects its ethnic and religious minorities? Or will it be dominated by an Islamist party that seeks to sideline those communities? There are many religiously con
servative elements in Syrian society, but also many moderate ones, and whose voices are loudest remains to be seen.

  Unlike Egypt or Tunisia, that second round also has the potential to resolve wider issues and redraw the political map of the Middle East. A change in Damascus would be a blow to Iran, a strong supporter of the Assads, and a boon for its main rival Saudi Arabia, potentially altering the regional balance of powers. It could bring a lasting peace with Israel and allow Lebanon to do the same. It might rob Hezbollah of an ally but also resolve the issue of its status within the country. The resurgence of Kurdish nationalism in Syria could spell trouble for Turkey, struggling with its own Kurdish minority. It could unleash Syria's own undoubted economic potential and allow it to regain its 1950s status as the financial capital of the Middle East. It will keep the battle for the Arab Spring burning long beyond 2012 and will itself be shaped by the more ominous tussles in the region, some of which involved Gulf monarchies that had not escaped unscathed from the upheavals elsewhere.

  PART 3

  THE NEW ARAB POLITICS

  CHAPTER 10

  The Kings’ Dilemma

  Unless we ourselves take a hand now, they will foist a republic on us. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.

  – Prince Tancredi Falconieri, in Giuseppi Lampedusa's Il Gattopardo

  In the winter of 2006, the United Arab Emirates was gearing up for its first ever elections. It would be wrong to call them free or universal because, of the 403,000 Emiratis aged twenty or older, less than 2 per cent would be given the privilege of a vote, and all of them would be chosen by the rulers of each emirate.1 In fact, less than 0.25 per cent of the entire 3 million-strong population of UAE residents aged over twenty, including both Emiratis and foreigners, would be going to the ballot box.2 And they would elect half the members to the Federal National Council, an assembly whose role was not to legislate but to advise an existing council of ruling sheikhs that hold ultimate policy-making power in this energy-rich federation on the Gulf Arab coast.