Immutable Dynamics: Syria before and after the Arab Spring

The Inconsequential Role of Regime Identity in Syria’s Foreign Policy

Since the unrest began last year, commentary on whether Bashar al-Asad will meet a fate similar to his ex-colleagues Hosni Mubarak and Ben Ali, and what impact then Asad’s departure will have Syria’s position in the region has become the standard staple of the global media. Speculation is afire on what impact this will have on Syria’s role in

Lebanon and its relationship with Hezbollah, and how instability on this front-line state will affect the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Syria’s close alliance with Iran as well creates many opportunities to speculate on how the fall of the Asad would affect Iran’s cold war with the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, a topic of considerable interest at the moment as the West and Israel moves closer to launching a military strike against Iran.

All of this creates a fertile atmosphere of hyper-speculation on what’s next for Syria and the region. Understandably, Syria as a pivotal state in the region must be considered in any calculation of the balance of power in the region, and any shifts by Syria have the potential to upend the regional order.

But, putting this speculation under closer examination, consider for a moment, the larger questions that many analysts seek to answer. Will a change in regime identity change

Syria’s role in the Middle East? Will Syria play by different rules? Or, will Syria’s

1 structural position force any new regime to play by the same rules the Asads have played by?

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita has argued that leaders drive states, and leaders at the end of the day are driven purely by survival, and thus, should be considered the main unit of analysis in international relations. In his writings, he has argued that a state’s history, culture, and identity matter very little in a leader’s calculations of survival. The immediate self-interest of survival out weighs any constraints imposed by a state’s identity. Mesquita goes too far in this conclusion, but he is accurate that leaders drive states and their foreign policies, and these leaders are focused at the most basic level on survival. A leader though must be keenly aware of the environment his state is in- its history, identity, and geopolitical position- to make the best choices for the state’s survival which is interchangeable to his own survival.1

In the case of Syria, due to the state’s geopolitical position and its complex identity, all governments in Damascus are confronted by this question: how does Syria reconcile a weak geopolitical position with an insatiable irredentist identity and also, guard against the state from being ripped apart from within by its own identity? This security dilemma cannot be escaped by a mere change of regime.

This paper argues that structural factors more so than regime identity has shaped the decisions that Syria’s leaders, notably the Asads, make in terms of the conduct of Syria’s

1 For a general overview of his arguments, refer to Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2011).

2 foreign policies. In examining Syria’s foreign policy under governments before and currently, there is more consistency in terms of state identity and interests than differences. Thus, to conclude that Syria’s foreign policy under the minority Allawite regime of the Asads was a complete break from Syria’s past is wrong, and any future government will have to grapple with the same challenges and constraints.

However, Hafiz al-Asad’s legacy importantly is that he tamed and consolidated the nation-state state in Syria, and defined the limits and boundaries of Syria’s identity as a nation state within its national interests. This process of state building allowed Syria to more effectively address its interests and identity in the constraints of its strategic environment than at any time prior.

Hafiz al-Asad addressed this security dilemma by using authoritarian stability at home to allow Syria to a play a role in the region. Authoritarian stability, albeit its flaws as demonstrated by the Arab Awakenings, ensured for over three decades a leading position for Syria in the politics of the Middle East. It allowed a country largely at the mercy of its regional environment prior to the 1970s, due its geopolitical position and identity, to address its own fate better than predecessor governments who were dealing with an unconsolidated state.

Hafiz al-Asad and his successor, Bashar al-Asad importantly leveraged their country’s geopolitical position and complex identity to the advantage of Syria to address to a significant extent its long-standing security dilemma. While the Asads have had mixed

3 successes as power and peace brokers in the region and still are confronted by this security dilemma, Syria as a consolidated nation state had a prominent place in the region for over thirty years.

Notably, the Arab Spring did not bring a large percentage of the population out on the street because of Syria’s position in the region. The combination of violence, authoritarianism, and a weak economy has fueled the unrest in Syria, and the regime’s violent response to these demands for change has deepened the crisis. Witnessing the unrest in Egypt and Tunisia, Asad believed his foreign policy alone could save his regime from addressing these domestic issues. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he confidently pronounced in The Wall Street Journal on 31 January 2011, “We have more difficult circumstances than most of the Arab countries but in spite of that Syria is stable.

Why? Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people. This is the core issue.”2 Asad arguably still retains support in Syria due to the legacy of his and his father’s stewardship of Syria’s position in the region.

In the short term, Syria now confronts a position similar to it was prior to 1970 with the weakening of the regime- a return to a time before it was in a position to exercise influence and power in the Middle East, because of its domestic instability. However, the structure and experience of Syria as a consolidated nation state and the change in the regional politics since the 1970s will mean this period is different from Arab politics in

2 “Interview With Syrian President Bashar al-Asad”, 31 Jan. 2011, The Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703833204576114712441122894.html.

4 the 1950s and 1960s when the experience of Syria as a consolidated nation state was not there and the region was less consolidated.

This domestic vulnerability ensures that the regime’s internal struggle will overtake its ability to exercise any substantive role in the region. This will be the predominant focus of the state, and any new government that succeeds it. Syria’s ability to act as a power broker in the Middle East for the short-term is gone.

These short-term changes as Syria looks more inward should not be seen as a reliable guide for the future of Syria’s role in the region. If Syria descends in a full-scale civil war

(unlikely at the moment), of course, this short-term may become long-term. But, if Syria holds together as a nation state with or without the Asads, Syria’s leaders will make decisions not markedly different from their predecessors in the conduct of Syria’s foreign policy in order to survive.

This paper first examines the origins of Syria’s security dilemma; then, how authoritarian stability under the Asads managed this dilemma; and finally, the opportunities and constraints Damascus faces in its changing regional environment in addressing its security dilemma.

Origins of Syria’s Security Dilemma

5 Syria’s identity is inextricably linked with the region’s identity

Syria’s identity is inseparably tied to the post-World War I Middle East, and its creation is a pivotal story in the formation of the contemporary state system in the Middle East. Its identity uniquely shapes the region and has become defined as well by the region itself.3

Syria’s consequential role in the formation of the new Middle East began in final hours of the Ottoman Empire. To secure assistance from the Ottoman wilayahs in the Middle East during World War I, Britain promised the Hashemite family the leading role in forming the new political order in the region after the defeat of the Ottoman Turks. The Great

Arab Revolt, led by the Hashemite’s patriarch Sheriff Hussein bin Ali from 1916 to 1918, succeeded in driving the Ottoman Turks out of the region, and positioned the Hashemites as the natural successors to the Ottomans in ruling the newly independent Middle East.4

For less than two years, under the rule of Hashemite King Faisal, Syria was the centre of gravity in the new political order alive in the Arab world. Damascus served as the intellectual heart of Arab nationalism, and the focal point of the renaissance of the Arab state in the region. Unbeknownst to the Hashemites, negotiations between Paris and

London culminated in the Sykes-Picot agreement and the San Moreno Conference that robbed the region of its brief independence, and imposed on it French and British oversight. By 1921, the former wilayahs of the Levant became separated into present day

3 Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005). 4 Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Eugene Rogan, The Arabs: a History (London: Allen Lane, 2009).

6 Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, and Palestine, and were placed under de facto colonial rule.

King Faisal’s dream of a new Arab state was shattered and he was ousted from Damascus by French forces.

France formed the new state of Syria out of several Ottoman wilayahs that once encompassed the lands of Jordan, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, and the nascent state only represented a small fraction of these lands. France even ceded Alexandretta to

Turkey in 1938. The ‘historic’ boundaries of Greater Syria which extended well beyond its current borders were lost in the new political map of the Middle East.5 From its inception, Syria never considered these divisions legitimate and viewed it as a western colonial imposition that robbed Syria of its rightful independent place in the region, and left the state in a weakened and artificial position. Syria thus naturally rejected the new statist identity.

French mandatory rule only reinforced the absence of a statist identity. By ruling Syria through the manipulation of local elites, France found it easier to play the elites off of one another than to state build- no strong national institutions or centralized governance. This game of local elite manipulation only served to strengthen the sub-national identities within the state. Thus, from its independence in 1946, Syria struggled to define itself in relation to itself and the region.6

5 Daniel Pipes, Greater Syria- The history of an ambition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). 6 M. E. Yapp, The Near East Since the First World War: A History to 1995 (London: Longman, 2 ed., 1996); William L. Cleveland and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East (Boulder: Westview Press, 4th revised ed., 2009); P. S. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920-1945 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).

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Responding to this absence of a state identity, the post-independence governments chose and actively promoted the Arab nationalist identity as the identity of the new state. The governments and the army, an active force in Syrian domestic politics, were keenly aware of the loose bonds that united the new Syria. As the only legitimate identity that could unite the diverse population of the new state, its Arab identity served as a tool of state consolidation and legitimacy for the new governments. By fostering this new identity,

Syria returned again as an intellectual cauldron for Arab nationalism in the region. Syria gave birth to Ba’athism, the main post-war Arab nationalist intellectual political movement in the Arab world, in the early years of its statehood. Arab nationalist ideas dominated the active political space of the new state.7

The new states of the Levant and the eastern Arab world identified deeply with the Arab nationalist ideas emanating from Damascus that challenged the Western imposed political order of the region. A profound and burning sense of irredentism became an inherent feature of these post-colonial states, and the search for a unified wider Arab political state dominated the discourse and polices amongst and within these states up until the mid-

1970s. Even with the rise of more statist identities in the region and the departure from unity projects, the Arab nationalist identity continues to resonate today as the common

7 Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987); Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century; Malik Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996); P.S. Khoury, Urban notables and Arab Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

8 national identity in the region, even without a political unity aspect to it, and Syria serves as a focal point of this identity.8

The creation of the state of Israel in 1948 sharpened the Arab nationalist identity. To compound the imposition of these new artificial boundaries, Britain, unable to control

Palestine, handed the responsibility of the mandate to the UN, which approved the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The new Jewish homeland in the heart of the lands of the Levant, formed at the expense of the Arab people of Palestine, sent shockwaves throughout the Arab world, most noticeably in Syria. The land of Greater Syria now had a Jewish state imposed on it. The loss of Palestine, the Arab world’s Nahda, became the central political cause for the Arab world, and features as an essential aspect of this identity. Syria’s position ensures that it has a special responsibility in fighting for and promoting the rights of the Palestinians.9

Syria’s identity thus naturally and inevitably has interlinked the state with the regional environment. In the case of Syria, there is a firm organic link between identity and realism. Some scholars have viewed identity and realism as either-or in driving a state’s foreign policy, but for Syria, identity and realism are inescapable from one another. As the birthplace of the region’s identity, Syria considers itself the heart of Arab nationalism.

It could not turn its back on the region, and as a result, Syria has had to play a role within

8 Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century. 9 Avi Shlaim, Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations (London: Verso, 2010); Shlaim and Eugene Rogan, The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (London: Penguin Press, 2001); Ilan Pappé, The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947–1951 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1992); Benny Morris, 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).

9 it, which has put it at the forefront of the politics of the region. Notably, no other state has born the costs of this identity as much as Syria and no other state’s polices and behaviors have been so closely tied to this identity. While other states in the region have moved towards more statist identities, Syria continues to bear the mantle of Arab nationalism, and to champion the region’s wider identity, which inherently is its identity.

Syria’s Geopolitical position in the Middle East

No study can ignore the central place of Syria in relation to the other states of the region.

Syria’s geopolitical position alone would put it at the center of the politics of the Middle

East. Patrick Seale perceptively notes, “one is the strategic position of Syria, guarding the north-eastern approaches to Egypt, the overland route to Iraq from the Mediterranean, the head of the Arabian Peninsula and the northern frontier of the Arab world.” 10 This position ensures that any regional actor or international actor seeking to influence and control the region naturally courts Syria.11

Syria has proven to be irresistible at times to its neighbors: Jordan, Iraq, Turkey and

Israel, and the wider region, most notably, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Each of these states has sought at one time a role in the internal affairs of Syria.12 Due to the proximity and number of neighbors, problems in these states also have the potential to infect Syria. For

10 Seale, The Struggle for Syria; 11 Seale, p. 1. 12 Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq.

10 example, Beirut is only 50 or so miles from Damascus. Syria’s actions in the region must be understood within this context.13

Syria’s position is not immune to resist its neighbors’ problems: small population, no natural boundaries for protection, no large seawater harbors, and a land barren of rich natural resources. Syria’s economy, structurally weak and resource dependent, leaves the state in a disadvantaged position. 14 Critically, Syria faces a declining water table that has proven to be a serious dilemma for the government in Damascus. Having a predominantly agrarian economy and very little industrial output, water is a necessary life-line for the countryside and droughts have complicated Syria’s economic growth.15

Heavily reliant on a socialized public sector fueled economy for decades, Syria limited its own economic growth and stymied innovation. This public economy created a regime dependent middle and upper class, but limited in the process access to the economy except for through government positions and state owned industries. Attempts at economic liberalization have tended to benefit the existing beneficiaries of the economy, and have not noticeably lowered the barrier of entry into the economy. As a result, a high rate of unemployment exists amongst the growing younger generation in Syria. This has

13 David W. Lesch, The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar Al Asad and Modern Syria (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). 14 Moshe Ma’oz and Avner Yaniv, Syria under Asad: domestic constraints and regional risks (London: 1986). 15 N. Kliot, Water Resources and conflict in the Middle East (London: Routledge, 1994); M.R. Lowi, Water and Power: the Politics of a scarce resource in the Jordan River Basin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); M. Wakil., “Analysis of Future Water Crisis in Syria,” submitted for publication in Research Journal, Engineering Division, University of Aleppo, Aleppo, Syria, 1992.

11 resulted in a large remittance economy where Syrians must seek jobs outside of Syria to take care of their families.16

With the government seen as the primary provider of economic access and enterprise, a large burden has been placed on the government to meet its obligations. Its own declining oil resources has never adequately sustained its own public sector economy, and as such,

Syria has relied on economic aide from Saudi Arabia to fuel its economy. Its close relationship as well with the Soviet Union throughout much of its existence has prevented

Syria from benefiting from the wider American led economic globalization. The state instead has largely been reliant on regional trade for a market for its goods, and for products and services the state itself cannot provide. Syria thus has never benefited from a strong economy, which is critical for any strong geopolitical position.17

To compound these vulnerabilities, the diversity of groups in Syria open the door for other states to meddle in its internal affairs, and the potential for these groups to seek outside assistance in their own political contestation within the state. A predominantly

Sunni population with diverse minority populations of Allawites, Christians, Druze, and

Kurds, Syria has always been an ethnically rich and diverse population, but one without a natural national identity. A profound sense of vulnerability from the diversity of groups within the state remains a constant anxiety of any government in Damascus.18

16 Volker Perthes, The political economy of Syria under Asad (London: I.B. Tauris, 1995). 17 Hinnebusch, Peasant and Bureaucracy in Ba'thist Syria: The Political Economy of Rural Development (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989). 18 Fred Lawson, "Domestic Transformations and Foreign Steadfastness in Contemporary Syria," Middle East Journal (Vol. 48, Winter 1994), pp. 47-64; Hinnebusch, Syria, Revolution from Above (London: Routledge, 2000).

12 For a state, holding an identity with such deep expectations and commitments intrinsic to it, Syria naturally is not in a favorable geopolitical political position to fulfil this role. It’s domestic environment, limited by its resource weak economy and the fragility of its multi-ethnic society, combined with an often turbulent and unstable regional environment create an ever-present security dilemma for the Syrian leadership. Syria’s foreign policy must be understood within this context. It’s too limited of view to simply see Syria as a troublemaker in the region.

This gap between its inescapable identity and its geopolitical capabilities has proven to be a central dilemma for successive Syrian leadership. Flynt Leverett perceptively notes,

“Little about Syria’s natural endowments would lead an analyst to predict that it would have such a central role in Middle Eastern affairs. By most indicators of strategic importance- including size, internal cohesiveness, and wealth- Syria would seem destined to be no more than a minor player, relatively easy for greater powers inside and outside the region to marginalize and ignore.”19

This destiny has befallen Syria, and importantly, it did for almost three decades. But, from the 1970s, Syria defied these geopolitical constraints, and set a new course. This raises the pivotal question of what factors account for Syria’s emergence as a regional power despite its geopolitical limitations?20

19 Flynt Leverett, Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial by Fire (Washington: Brookings Institution, 2005), p. 1. 20 Ibid; Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Robert W. Olson, The Ba'th and Syria, 1947 to 1982: The evolution of ideology, party, and state, from the French mandate to the era of Hafiz al-Asad (Princeton: Kingston Press, 1982).

13 Leadership is at the heart of the story of modern Syria. It’s the predominant factor that explains Syria’s rise from a weak state, vulnerable to its regional environment to one that has mastered its environment. 21

The Prize of Arab Nationalism: A Period of Instability and Disorder

Prior to the rise of the modern state under Hafiz al-Asad, Syria’s absence of strong leadership ensured that it followed the path of its own geopolitical position and the risky attraction of it identity. The state lacked any political stability (more than 20 different governments rose and fell), and never had the strength to resist the allure and temptation of its identity. From 1946 to 1961, Syria served as the center stage for Arab unity projects. Syria, unable to exercise any of its own leadership in the region, became exploited by Iraq and Egypt.22

In their quest for regional hegemony, Iraq and Egypt, two of the strongest states in the region, jockeyed over who could tame the heart of Syria, the sought after prize of Arab nationalism. Both states, key proponents of Arab nationalism and influenced by the ideas born in Damascus, knew that they could never claim leadership of the Arab nationalist identity without co-opting Syria. Leadership of this identity would ensure their victor over the other and hegemony in the Arab world.23

21 Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East; Raymond Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from Above (London: Routledge, 1 ed., 2001); Moshe Ma’oz, Asad: the Sphinx of Damascus (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998). 22 Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq; Seale, The Struggle for Syria. 23 Ibid; Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century.

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Syria’s different political groups, jockeying for power in the unstable domestic political environment, helped open the space for these powers to meddle in its affairs. Cairo and

Baghdad sought domestic parties to advance their interests, and different parties, seeing unity as both an ideal and a way to advance their own political position entertained outside neighbors’ interests in the state. Notably, to a lesser degree of success, as Egypt and Iraq competed for regional hegemony, their potential spoilers, Jordan, Turkey, and

Saudi Arabia had their own political designs to counter-act Iraq and Egypt’s efforts. But, these efforts bore them little success in Syria.24

Despite this overt meddling and unity designs, prior to 1958, the governments’ remarkably insulated themselves from being taken over by Syria’s neighbors. One may have expected the opposite, but notably, Syria’s governments, once in power, adeptly used the pan-Arab projects as a way to strengthen their position within the state at the expense of their domestic opponents, and refused to enter unity projects, which put

Syria’s interests below the interests of its partner state. If Arab unity were to occur, it would have to be beneficial to Syria. To undercut the strength of the government, opposition groups, at the same time, entertained other potential partners for unity. Thus, this competition for power within the state unintentionally helped minimize this weakness and vulnerability to outside interlopers.25

24 Seale, The Struggle for Syria. 25 Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq.

15 Syria’s notable divergence, its unity with Egypt in 1958 marked the only time that

Damascus ever ceded its sovereignty to another state for the cause of Arab nationalism.

The formation of the United Arab Republic represented the first and only time two Arab states united as one, and symbolized importantly, the strength and commitment of Syria’s

Arab nationalist identity, and Egypt’s victory over Iraq. For Nasser, this union marked the first step in uniting the whole region. For Syria’s Ba’ath party, this unity initially represented an opportunity to advance and achieve the long-held aspirations and dreams of Syria’s highly irredentist identity. The Ba’ath party also hoped this unity would mark the consolidation of its authority over the chaotic political space in Syria.26

Nasser’s preeminence in the Arab world thrust Syria directly into the milieu of the region. Tied to Nasser’s Egypt from 1958 to 1961, Syria remained at the forefront of

Arab politics, and at the heart of the Arab Cold War between conservative states aligned with the West and irredentist socialist states aligned with the Soviet Union.27 Syria’s willingness to cede its state sovereignty for Arab nationalism solidified its credentials as one of the most ardent, legitimate, and symbolic supporters of Arab nationalism. It also symbolized the first marked departure from its own geographically ordained path. Instead of becoming a leading state in the region, Syria tethered itself to a leading state.

26 Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century; James P. Jankowski, Nasser's Egypt, Arab nationalism, and the United Arab Republic (Boulder, Co: Lynne Rienner, 2002); Anthony Nutting, Nasser, (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1972); Eberhand Kienle, Ba’th versus Ba’th: The conflict between Syria and Iraq, 1968-1989 (London: I.B Tauris, 1991). 27 Malcom H. Kerr, The Arab Cold War: Gamel 'Abd Al-Nasir and His Rivals, 1958-70 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3rd ed., 1972).

16 The unity with Egypt broke in 1961 with Syria’s increasing recognition that its position as a junior partner to Egypt was no longer sustainable both economically and politically.

The rupture of this union did not dampen though Syria’s strong identity with its Arab nationalist identity. Attempts were made to unite with the Ba’ath party in Iraq but they failed due to differences over the conception of an Arab unity and leadership differences.

Unity, not on its own terms, proved to be too high of cost for Syria. No longer tethered to a strong state, Syria was forced to confront again its profound vulnerability and weakness in the region.28

The Rescue of the Nation State: State maximization and leveraging under Hafiz al-

Asad

The instability of the 1960’s, culminating in the devastating defeat in the Six-Day War and the loss of the Golan Heights, created an opportunity for Syria to chart a new course.

Unlike at other times, when instability in Syria only produced further instability, a senior

Ba’ath army officer, Hafiz al-Asad, seized the opportunity to bring fundamental change to Syria. Tired of the radical politics that dominated the Ba’ath party since it came to

28 Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century; Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan- Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq; James P. Jankowski, Nasser's Egypt, Arab nationalism, and the United Arab Republic; Monte Palmer, “The United Arab Republic: An Assessment of Its Failure”, Middle East Journal, (vol. 20, 1966), pp. 50–67;, Elie Podeh, The Decline of Arab Unity: The Rise And Fall of the United Arab Republic (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1999); Robert Stephens, Nasser: A Political Biography, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1971).

17 power in 1963, Asad seized control in a military coup and fully consolidated his position within the Ba’ath party by 1971.29

Asad brought leadership and a vision to Syria that had been absent in the decades following the state’s independence. In understanding contemporary Syria, the state must be understood in the context and legacy of Hafiz al-Asad. He personally transformed

Syria from an impaired, vulnerable, and weak state to a modern nation state that has remained stable at home and able to advance its interests abroad.

Importantly, Asad’s leadership did not rest solely on strong leadership, but on iron-fisted authoritarian leadership. Asad’s one-man rule of Syria brought the state stability it had lacked in the decades after independence. Asad became the state, and his rule sustained it.

Regardless of what one thinks of the strongman model for governance, Syria emerged as a predominant state in its environment through this leadership.

Centralizing authority around him, Asad, transformed Syria’s unstable political system into a one party state that is fully subordinate to presidential rule. In full command of the army and the security services, he cleansed the Ba’ath party of the divisions that had destabilized it for much of its history, and transformed the party into the political force of his rule. The new constitution, the first permanent constitution in almost a decade, banned all political participation except for through the Ba’ath party. Integrating the state bureaucracy with the Ba’ath party, Asad made the Party the entry point into positions

29 Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East; Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from Above; Ma’oz, Asad: the Sphinx of Damascus.

18 within state institutions, and the Party became responsible for directly implementing his will and carrying out the administration of the country.

The army and the affiliated security services, which always had a degree of senior membership in the Ba’ath party, became interlinked as well with the Ba’ath party, and ensured the security of his rule. Asad extensively built up the security services in his state, and used the emergency law of 1963 to liberally suppress any dissent. Senior military officers hold top posts in the party, and the party formed a symbiotic relationship with the army and the security services. To further entrench his loyalty within the army and the security services, members of his Allawite sect received top posts. He also gave the army access to the economy, and their political loyalty in turn brought them wealth.30

To consolidate his popular support base and co-opt Syria’s diverse groups under the rule of a President from a minority sect, Hafiz al-Asad implemented a socialized economy, with some private enterprise, which guaranteed that the state holds the keys to economic and social progress. In order for Syria’s diverse groups to prosper, they had to seek favor from the regime in Damascus. Oil subsidies from the Gulf further re-enforced the state’s ability to spread economic patronage. Membership in the Ba’ath party ensured economic patronage and access to this economy, and as a result, the party served as a large unifying support network for Syria’s diverse population.31

30 Ibid; Leverett, Inheriting Syria, chp. 2; Hinnebusch, Authoritarian Power in Ba'thist Syria: Army, Party and Peasant (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990); Itamar Rabinovich, Syria under the Ba’th 1963-1966: The Army-Party symbiosis (Jerusalem: Israeli Universities Press, 1972). 31 Hinnebusch, Syria: Revolution from above; Volker Perthes, The political economy of Syria under Asad; Steven Heydeman, Authoritarianism in Syria: institutions and social conflict, 1946- 1970 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999).

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Hafiz al-Asad thus controlled all access to power and prosperity in Syria. The state became Asad, and Asad, to a large degree embodied, the state. Asad’s institutional overhaul of the state gave him the space to break with Syria’s past interactions with the region and the world. Syria transformed from merely a passive and weak state to a transformative actor in regional politics.32

Hafiz al-Asad used this strengthened and stable position at home to bring more order, control, and rationality to Syria’s foreign policy. Asad understood deeply the art of power politics and the complexity of Syria’s position in the region. He identified with his state’s

Arab nationalist identity, but understood, as well the limitations and costs of this identity.

This identity charged foreign policy had led to costly wars, economic ruin, and the exploitation of Syria by regional powers. The interests of the Syrian people were often sacrificed in the process, and the Syrian people wanted change.33

Prior to Asad, foreign-policymaking in Syria did not involve any clear strategic thinking.

It reflected the foreign policy of a weak, instable, highly penetrated state. The multiple governments were too insecure at home to have the opportunity to focus on Syria’s role and interests in the world, and often used foreign policy as a tool of competition with other political interests within the state. Thus, foreign policymaking was often

32 Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East; Moshe Ma’oz, Joseph Ginat, and Onn Winckler (eds.), Modern Syria: From Ottoman Rule to Pivotal Role in the Middle East (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1999). 33 Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East; Hinnebusch, “The Foreign Policy of Syria”, Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehteshami, The Foreign Policies of Middle East States,

20 reactionary to political events in Syria. Political ideology ruled over pragmatism in decision-making, and this led to disastrous results for Syria.34

The new President sought to bring stability to Syria’s foreign policy, and understood that

Syria’s interests could only be achieved through the pragmatic use of power. Asad recognized that any change in Syria’s foreign policy direction had to be framed in the discourse of the state’s Arab nationalist identity. Even though one-man rule predominated the politics of the state, Asad recognized the deep awareness of Syria’s identity within the state and the fundamental role it played in providing domestic legitimacy to his rule. No leader, even in the Arab world, has ever been completely insulated from public opinion, and the Arab nationalist image of his party served as a key link between his regime and the identity of the state. Asad thus had to balance identity and interests in his foreign policy decision-making.

The vulnerability of the state never escaped his mind and the President sought to use

Syria’s strengthened position to ensure that its neighbors’ remain at bay, and at the same time, prevent instability in neighboring states from spreading to Syria. Even with the consolidation of the state, as I argued elsewhere, this awareness of Syria’s security dilemma has been a constant factor in the psychology of Syria’s ruling elite.35

Syria’s emergence under Hafiz al-Asad, the Lion of Damascus, importantly shook the region. From the 1970s onwards, Syria has had the potential and the ability to influence

34 Mufti, Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq; Seale, The Struggle for Syria. 35 Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East.

21 and shape the politics of the region. Arguably, the 1970s marked the beginning of the modern political order in the Middle East, and the October War of 1973, unlike 1967, unveiled Syria as a predominant power in the region.36 No longer merely, a secondary partner of a stronger regional state, the dynamics of the region were fundamentally changed and a more multi-polar regional order was unveiled with the reemergence of

Syria. The Levant, in particular, experienced the most with the re-balancing of power in the Middle East. Asad charted Syria on a new independent course to lead the region, instead of follow other powers in the Arab world.37

The Centrality of Alliances

Hafiz al-Asad keenly understood that Syria’s natural limitations could be addressed through the leveraging of the regional and international order to its advantage. From the

1970s, Syria has been an adept player of power politics both internationally and regionally. The construction of alliances became a critical aspect of Syria’s new foreign policy and a key source of its strength.38

During the Cold War, Syria manipulated the bipolarity of the international system to strengthen its position in the Middle East.39 Syria’s Ba’ath credentials made it an attractive state from which Moscow could cultivate its position in the region. Moscow’s strong support of Syria through economic and military aid proved invaluable for Asad

36 Kenneth W. Stein, Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, Begin and the Quest for Arab- Israeli Peace (London: Routledge, 1999). 37 Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East. 38 Hinnebusch, “The Foreign Policy of Syria”; Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East. 39 Moshe Ma’oz, Asad: the Sphinx of Damascus (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998).

22 who sought to defensively balance against Israel and contain its influence in the Levant.

Soviet support transformed Asad’s military into one of the strongest armed forces in the region, and this proved decisive for Syria’s ambitions in the region.

The backing of the Soviet Union also gave the state a level of standing both regionally and with the United States, and ensured that Syria could negotiate from a strengthened position. By 1973, with the loss of Egypt, Syria was the Soviet Union’s most important ally in the region. This relationship though was not always stable and at times, led to periods of disagreement between the small state and the super power.

Asad importantly never confined himself to one outside relationship, and this gave him leverage in his other relationships. But, it cost him largely the trust of a stable consistent external partner, most notably with the Soviet Union. Syria’s alliance formation preferences proved to be driven more by interests than identity, and the Soviet Union, a long-time ally prior to Asad, experienced the shift the starkest with the rise of Asad.

Under his predecessors, common identity kept the two stare together much more so than interests, and as a result, the Soviet Union had more leverage to set the terms of the relationship.40

Asad recognized that he could manipulate his relationship his relations with the Soviet

Union to achieve his desired outcomes when the Soviet Union proved reluctant. Asad had no issue with playing on the Soviet’s fears that Syria may move closer to the United

40 Efraim Karsh, Soviet Policy Towards Syria Since 1970 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1991); Yevgeny Primakov, Russia and the Arabs (New York: Basic Books, 2009).

23 States. But, at the same time, Asad recognized that the Soviet Union proved indispensible to his active foreign policy in the region. The Soviet Union, aware of this dance, knew that Syria was the only remaining strong state in the Middle East it had any influence in.

Thus, both sides, driven by shared interests, used the relationship for their own benefit despite their own reservations about one another.41

Syria’s relationship with the United States has proved crucial at times, but also, the most difficult. Unlike the relationship between Syria and the Soviet Union which had a history of aligned interests and ideological affinity, the relationship with the United States, prior to 1973, was practically non-existent. But, Syria, recognizing its disadvantaged position in the region after the 1973 war, made the critical strategic choice of engaging the United

States to achieve its interests in the region. Putting aside ideological divisions, Asad, unlike his predecessors, recognized that real politick often forced Syria to have unexpected bed fellows. By engaging both super powers, Asad understood that Syria’s interests could best be advanced through the careful management and manipulation of alliances to his state’s own advantage. Syria could never again become a pawn of another power, and this careful game of real politick ensured his state’s independence.42

On the regional level, during the Cold War, Syria largely had weak relations with its neighbors in the Arab world. It’s newly emerged position in the region and its ability to leverage aide from the Soviet Union and the United States decreased Syria’s reliance and

41 Ibid. 42 Seale, The Struggle for Syria; Robert G. Rabil, Syria, the United States, and the War on Terror in the Middle East (Westport: Praeger Security, 2006); William B. Quandt, Peace Process: American diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1967 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).

24 need for strong stable relationships with its neighbors. Unlike during the 1950s and

1960s, when Syria aligned with Egypt, to defensively balance against Israel, Syria after the 1973 war felt confident to chart its own course in the Levant.43

Beginning in the 1970s, the Syrian-Egyptian relation turned cold and at times, hostile after Egypt’s shift away from the Soviet Union and its engagement with Israel. Hafiz al-

Asad felt personally betrayed by Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat.44 His country’s relationship with Jordan was never stable, but Jordan largely maintained tacit relations with Syria due to its neighbor’s influential position with the Palestinians and its hegemony in the Levant. Jordan’s structural weakness could not afford it poor relations with Damascus.45

Syria though did not completely turn away from regional alliances. Its relationship with

Saudi Arabia, which has been fraught at times, has been a necessary source of economic aide, in the form of petro aid. Damascus and Riyadh have cooperated at times on issues related to Lebanon.46

The other pivotal regional relationship has been its relationship with Iran, which did not emerge until the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Prior to the Revolution, the Pahlavi regime, aligned closely with the United States, had fraught relations with Asad regime. The

43 Moshe Ma’oz, Asad: the Sphinx of Damascus (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998).

44 Kenneth W. Stein, Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, Begin and the Quest for Arab- Israeli Peace. 45 Seale, The Struggle for Syria. 46 Sonoko Sunayama, Syria and Saudi Arabia: Collaboration and Conflicts in the Oil Era (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007).

25 Revolution transformed this relationship. Its cooperation with Iran in fostering, financing, and training Hezbollah in Lebanon has brought them together against their common enemy, Israel, and has helped contain Israeli influence in the Levant beginning in the

1980s.47

Some studies have argued that this relationship is also formed around the two states’ common minority identity in the larger Sunni Middle East, but this common affiliation has been over-exaggerated, and shared strategic interests primarily are the driver for this relationship. The Iranian-Syrian relationship has been essential for Syria in balancing against Israel, and ensuring that Syria still has a credible bargaining position in relation to the United States.48

Beginning in the 1970s, Syria largely relied on its manipulation of the bipolar condition of the international system to achieve its aims without the need to rely on regional alliances as it did in the past. It was not until the 1980s, as Syria found it more difficult to leverage the bipolar competition between the US and the Soviet Union that it began to rely more on regional alliances to confront its security dilemma.

Power and Peace Broker: Opportunities and Challenges

47 Jubin M. Goodarzi, Syria and Iran: Diplomatic Alliance and Power Politics in the Middle East (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009); Augustus Richard Norton, Hezbollah: A Short History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009); Ehteshami and Hinnebusch, Syria and Iran : Middle Powers in a Penetrated Regional System (London: Routledge, 1997). 48 Ibid; Goodarzi, Syria and Iran: Diplomatic Alliance and Power Politics in the Middle East.

26 Syria’s role as a power and peace broker in the Middle East is fundamental to its primary national interest, ensuring its domestic and international security, and its leaders’ survival. Located at the center of a highly penetrated, conflicted, and changing region,

Syria has primarily sought to ensure its own security, and limit its own vulnerability.49

This state, despite popular imagination, is not a state that in its history has sought to be a regional hegemon, and does not have expansionist ambitions even with a highly irredentist identity. The leadership in Damascus’ pragmatism has confined Syria’s Arab nationalist identity to largely interests related to Syria, and has not sought leadership of the Arab world through the union of other states, but through the championing of Arab nationalist causes.50

Syria has attempted to use its position to maintain stability and security in the region which ensures directly its own position. Syria could never abdicate this responsibility. If

Syria avoided this responsibility, it likely may face its own complete isolation and a precarious security environment which could cost Syria its survival. As the leader of

Arab nationalism, Syria has always considered itself as having special responsibilities, which it cannot turn its back on, and its leadership position could only be maintained if it took an active role in the region.51

49 Leverett, Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial by Fire; Lesch, The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar Al Asad and Modern Syria; Hinnebusch, The International Politics of the Middle East (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003). 50 Lesch, The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar Al Asad and Modern Syria; Leverett, Inheriting Syria; Rabil, Syria, the United States, and the War on Terror in the Middle East 51 Michael Eisenstadt, “Arming for Peace? Syria’s Elusive Quest for Strategic Parity”, Washington Institute for Near East Policy (no. 31, 1993); Hinnebusch, “Does Syria Want Peace?

27

Syria has both advantages and disadvantages in confronting its regional and international environment. Its advantages rest primarily in its structural power and its soft power. Syria has the material power to ensure its own domestic security, and also, to confront the security challenges of its immediate regional environment- the perpetual instability of

Lebanon, and its primary enemy, Israel. Syria has also proven to be strategically flexible in responding to the challenges facing the state, and this has enabled the state to weather changes in its regional environment.52

Its soft power rests in its leadership in Arab nationalist causes- the independence of the

Arab world and the securing of the rights of the Palestinians. Syria as a result benefits from both domestic and regional legitimacy both in terms of receiving aide and in its ability to influence the region’s affairs through its discourse. Its soft power thus reinforces its material power.53

Its disadvantages lie in its vulnerability to the regional environment. As the lone neighboring state that challenges Israel after Egypt’s disengagement, Syria has never had the luxury of being a status quo power, and as a result, has always faced a region that largely has moved away from its position.54

Syrian Policy in the Syrian-Israeli Peace Negotiations”, Journal of Palestine Studies ( 26:1, autumn 1996), pp. 42-58. 52 Hinnebusch, “The Foreign Policy of Syria”; Leverett, Inheriting Syria. 53 Ma’oz, Asad: the Sphinx of Damascus (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998).

54 Fred H. Lawson, Why Syria Goes to War: Thirty Years of Confrontation (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell, University Press, 1996).

28 Syria has had a mixed record in changing the status quo to its favor. Syria’s position as

Israel’s northern neighbor has guaranteed it a central and permanent place in the Arab-

Israeli conflict. Unlike other states such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq who have a degree of geographical distance, Syria could never isolate itself from the struggle against Israel.

The War for Independence in 1948, the Six-Day War of 1967, and the October War of

1973 all inevitably required Syria’s participation. Without Syria’s participation, Israel’s neighbors could never launch a war against the state of Israel. Even though Syria can no longer wage a successful war against Israel without Egypt, Syria still holds the keys to a negotiated peace settlement. As the only neighboring state, which does not have normal relations with Israel and its direct support of Palestinian groups ensures that no real lasting peace can ever be achieved without Damascus’ participation.

At the same time though, Syria has sat in a state of paralysis. Since 1973, the status quo has not changed, and its efforts to challenge Israel have born it little dividends in terms of peace and the return of the Golan Heights. Negotiations have been largely stalled since the 1970s, and with full American relations conditionally tied to a peace settlement with

Israel, Syria feels sharply the lack of peace with Israel. 55

The Palestinian question as well remains unsolved. Syria has a large Palestinian refugee population within the state, and as a result, faces a constant reminder of this stateless

55 E.L. Knudsen, “The Syrian-Israeli Political Impasse: A Study in Conflict, War and Mistrust”, Diplomacy and Statecraft (12:1, March 2001), pp 213-232; Rabinovich, Brink of Peace: The Israeli-Syrian Negotiations (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997); Ma`oz, Syria and Israel from War to Peace-Making (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

29 political dilemma.56 Syria’s support for the Palestinians only goes though to a certain extent. The resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while interlinked with its identity, does not preclude Syria from making an initial peace with Israel to regain the

Golan Heights.57

Closely connected with the wider Arab-Israeli conflict, Syria has involved itself the most in the affairs of Lebanon, its southern neighbor. Driven by security interests and a shared identity, Syria views Lebanon as a highly volatile, instable, and polarized state that unless managed runs the risk of destabilizing Syria and the Levant. A volatile Lebanon, rife with confessional conflict, could embolden and divide groups within Syria, and thus, break the

Asad family’s hold of power within Syria. The likelihood of Lebanon also becoming a satellite state of one of its enemies cannot be discounted. Fear that Israel with support of the Maronite community could transform Lebanon into an Israeli satellite state is a constant anxiety. Such a state directly along its southern border along with the occupied

Golan Heights would put Israel in a geographically advantageous position over Syria.

Hegemony over Lebanon thus is the only guarantee that it can maintain its own security.

From the 1970s, Syria has experienced its influence rise and fall in Lebanon enough to know that its position is never fully secure in the state. On the whole, Lebanon remains an enduring security challenge. Peace with Israel would lessen the fear of Lebanon becoming a satellite state of Israel, but the confessional instability always holds the risk

56 Netherlands, The: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Country Report on Palestinians in Syria, 22 March 2002, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/467006c22.html; Charles D. Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2001). 57 Muhammad Muslih, Golan: The Road to Occupation (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2000).

30 of potential problems spilling into and tearing Syria apart. Syria thus has been required to involve itself in the affairs of its southern neighbor out of its own necessity for security.58

Syria’s most consistent success as a power and peace broker in the Middle East has been its ability, in concert at times with Turkey, to keep the Kurds from becoming a destabilizing factor to Syria, Turkey, and the region. As an internal group within Syria, it’s in Damascus’ interests to keep the Kurds in check and under control, to prevent sectarian instability within Syria. 59

Despite the challenges Syria faces in its regional environment and its mixed results, Syria importantly cannot be ignored. For a state to achieve a positive balance of power in the region, Syria must be considered in any state’s alliance calculations. Thus, a state’s quest for hegemony in the region, particularly in the Levant, rests to a significant degree on the taming of Syria. Nasser’s quest for regional hegemony fell apart when he lost Syria, and any post-1973 state alliance without Syria has failed to achieve hegemony over the region and a positive balance of power. Arguably, the region’s lack of stability from the 1970s rests to a significant degree on the failure for states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and

Israel to effectively balance against Syria. The United States’ interests in the region

58 Rabil, Embattled Neighbors: Syria, Israel and Lebanon (Boulder, CO: Lynne Riener, 2003); Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon: 1970-1985 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985); David Hirst, Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East (New York: Nation Books, 2010); Fred H. Lawson, “Syria's intervention in the Lebanese civil war, 1976: a domestic conflict explanation”, International Organization (v. 38, 1984), pp. 451-480; Naomi Joy Weinberger, Syrian Intervention in Lebanon (London: Oxford University Press, 1986). 59 Gareth Stansfield and Robert Lowe (eds,), The Kurdish Policy Imperative (London: Chatham House, 2010); Robert Olson, “Turkey-Syria Relations Since the Gulf War: Kurds and Water”, Middle East Policy (Vol. 5, 1997).

31 cannot be guaranteed without better relations with Syria. Syria thus must be part of any solution, even if it alone cannot provide that solution.60

Overcoming Syria’s Security Dilemma

Syria thus emerged in the 1970s as a state emboldened by its newfound stability and strength, but limited by the realities of the regional environment. While Syria aptly won its own internal struggle by 1970, its external struggle for the security of its own position in the region began in the 1970s.

Hafiz al-Asad’s adept authoritarian leadership leveraged the mainsprings of Syria’s ascendency: it’s identity, its newfound stability and increased strength at home, and its construction of alliance to bolster Syria’s position in the region. Syria’s emergence in the region during the 1970s importantly reshaped the politics of the region, and introduced new dynamics to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and to the status of Lebanon. With Egypt’s disengagement from the Arab-Israeli conflict, Syria became the central state that contested Israel’s position in the region. Its military engagements in Lebanon, beginning in 1976, importantly indicated that Damascus would continue to challenge Israel’s position in the Middle East.

The Middle East from the 1970s thus reflected a region characteristically different from the one in the 1950s and 1960s. This decade marked a shift in regional politics from the

60 Rabinovich, The Brink of Peace: Israel and Syria, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999); Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004).

32 predominance of Arab nationalist unity schemes and direct hot wars with Israel to the rise of more state focused foreign policies accompanied by a cold peace with Israel and proxy conflicts and conflagrations in Lebanon.

Syria has had limited success in using its new position since the 1970s to address its over- riding security dilemma. It’s struggle for the Levant only has produced limited victories.

While Syria has acted consequentially as a power and peace broker, Damascus has often been confronted by the reality that its initial victories are often short-lived, and as a result, its regional environment has consumed the state and its security is never ensured.61

Confronted by this persistent security dilemma, the status quo for Syria has often been better than change, and Syria has sat in a state of paralysis since the 1970s. Syria’s peace engagements with Israel have been stalled since 1975, and its position in Lebanon since

1976 has been tenuously unstable. Damascus has found that the best way to manage this uncertainty is to remain involved in them to ensure its own security, even if the state’s security is never ensured.62

Syria’s authoritarian leadership facilitated its ascent in the region by the 1970s, and its survival as a state, but the lack of vision since the 1970s on how to move forward Syria’s position in the region, beyond ensuring the state’s immediate survival has shown the limits of Hafiz al-Asad’s leadership and his son’s. The Asad family has gone farther than

61 Lesch, The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar Al Asad and Modern Syria; Leverett, Inheriting Syria; Rabil, Syria, the United States, and the War on Terror in the Middle East. 62 Lawson, Why Syria Goes to War: Thirty Years of Confrontation.

33 any previous ruling elite in managing Syria’s security dilemma, but has failed to tame its regional environment.63

Syria’s emergence in the 1970s as an important power broker in the Levant altered the balance of power in the region, but its rise did not tip the balance of power in its direction. Syria has attempted to use its newfound power to shape the events in the region its favor but has had limited successes. As a result, its external security dilemma remains a prevalent concern for the Asad family.

The Arab Spring

Starting in the spring of 2011, this security dilemma has been compounded by the breakdown of the stability that underpinned the Asad’s rule domestically. Facing the largest domestic challenge to their rule since they came to power in 1970, Bashar Al-

Asad and has family have so far failed to find a way to bring Syria out of months of blood letting and destruction.

The accomplishments of Hafez who rescued the nation-state in Syria, albeit through authoritarian methods, and forged a Syrian identity amidst its strong Arab nationalist persona and his son, Bashar, who began to liberalize the burdened economy and tactfully ensured Syria’s position in the face of the American intervention in Iraq and Syria’s

63 Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East; Lesch, The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar Al Asad and Modern Syria.

34 pressured military withdrawal from Lebanon, in the early days of his rule lie in the rubble of the state.64

Unfortunately, what remains is even worse- a debilitating conflict between the Asad family and significant portions of the population, as a large portion of the population sits in the shadows in Aleppo and Damascus and watches as their country is torn asunder.

To compound the insecurity of the total war that has engulfed the state, the Asad family is finding itself increasingly isolated in the Arab world. The Asads once claimed to be the leaders of the Arab identity. The GCC and Arab Leagues sanctions, accompanied by the withdrawal of many of their ambassadors has sent a clear message to the President and his family that the Arab world has broken with the Asad regime.

To the north, the once strong relationship with Turkey is broken. One of the significant accomplishments of Bashar’s tenure as President was to rebrand and strengthen

Damascus’ relationship with Ankara. But as the state violence is forcing Turkey to absorb

Syrian refugees, Erdogan has reached the conclusion that the Asad family can no longer steward Syria if they continue down this path of violence.

Its neighbours to the east, both Jordan and Iraq are dependent on their trade links with

Syria, but are reluctant to show support for the Assad regime. Its relationship with

Lebanon is quite limited at the moment due to the internal unrest, but Hezbollah continues to back the Assad regime.

64 David Lesch, The New Lion of Damascus: Bashar al-Asad and Modern Syria (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005).

35 With sanctions by the United States and the EU, this lonely neighbourhood leaves Syria only with one last friend, Iran. But both Iran and Syria have found themselves to be the losers of the Arab Spring. The populist resistance image that these states used to hype up has fallen flat as they have opened fire on their own people. Even Hezbollah finds its image sullied and embattled by the STL indictments without Damascus in any position to help. Hamas has announced its leaving Damascus, and has no interest in remaining aligned with Iran and Syria.

This two-front onslaught, both internal and external, leaves the Asad regime alone in

Damascus, one of the few areas of calm in the sea of unrest in Syria as it battles for its survival. It’s legacy in rubble, and its future uncertain. Isolated in the Arab world, the

Asads will find it very hard to keep Syria relevant and influential in the areas of the region it once dominated, most notably, Lebanon. But, this outcome expected when its leadership’s only vision is its own immediate survival, not the country’s future.

Scenarios for the Future

Syria is at the weakest position it has been in 30 years, and the Asad regime is in no position at the present to address foreign challenges when the state is in the midst of internal strife. But, when looking at all the main possible scenarios facing Syria’s future

(except for a prolonged period of civil war), any government in Damascus will likely face the same constraints and opportunities as their predecessors had.

36 A conservative scenario sees Bashar al-Asad staying in power: weakened and pre- occupied at home, but more indebted than at any time to his ally in Tehran. Damascus will be harder pressed to play as active role in Lebanon due to its preoccupation with its own internal security dilemma. But, Lebanon importantly could become an avenue for the Asad regime to distract regional and domestic attention from the problems in Syria.

Bashar al-Asad is no stranger to international isolation, but has never faced to this extent the level of regional isolation or a complete cut off from its economic relationship with

Europe. However, his alliances with Russia, China, and Iran, and his neighbors, Lebanon,

Jordan, and Iraq’s dependence on trade with Syria will make this international isolation not as pronounced.

Another scenario is the army splitting up and the country falling further apart on a combination of sectarian and economic lines. A civil war could emerge that would effectively remove any single person from leading Syria, and the introduction of Syria’s neighbors, friends, and foes in and outside of the region into an increasingly debilitating conflict which could last for years and potentially pull the region into a larger conflict.

Such a scenario would eventually be felt in both Lebanon and Turkey in terms of refugees, but in the case of Lebanon, such events could spur sectarian tensions in

Lebanon that often catches the illnesses of the region.

A less violent scenario is an Allawite officer coup or a hand over of power to a member of the Asad regime who can act as a diffuser of the conflict. Would this change Syria’s foreign policy all together? It’s highly unlikely that a government of transition or one made up of the old guard would address the state’s security dilemna any different. Take

37 Egypt as an example: even with Mubarak gone and more active Islamist politics in Egypt, the military still guides Egypt’s security interests.

For the opposition, the best scenario would be similar to Libya where a transnational council made up of those who defeated the ancien regime would form a government.

This new government would likely be weak in the short-term as it builds a democratic process, and ensures a transition to an elected government. Would a Saudi financed,

Sunni government share as close of relationship with Tehran? Not on first glance, but would this new government stop supporting Hezbollah or Hamas or completely break from relying on Iran and Russia for its arms? Would a state with a strong national identity want to cede its position and interests as a leader of the Arab nationalism to the bayat of

Saudi Arabia? It’s unlikely that due to Syria’s complex geopolitical position and identity, it could easily re-orientate its current foreign policy.

All these scenarios point to the relative inconsequential role regime identity plays in formulating Syria’s foreign policy. A dictatorship or a democracy will behave in a similar manner in terms of the pursuit of Damascus’ interests in the region in order to survive.

Similarly, an Allawite dominated regime or a Sunni dominated regime will be forced to grapple with the same challenges and constraints that the Asads dealt with, and will likely pursue a similar foreign policy.

Conclusion

This assessment may be one that disappointments those who have hoped that the change of the regime’s identity will result in a Syria behaving differently in the Middle East, but

38 its important to draw attention to the immutable dynamics that govern the conduct of

Syria’s foreign policy in order to have a better understanding of the politics of the Arab world and assess the long term implications of the Arab Spring on the Middle East.

As long as Syria faces its permanent security dilemma, Damascus will continue to be a state that plays a consequential, but controversial role in the Middle East. It’s relations with regional states such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon, and with external states such as the United States, France, and Britain will continue to be governed within the context of this security dilemma. Only once Syria can resolve larger questions such as its relations with Israel, then Syria may be able to play a different role and have different alliances in the Middle East. The Arab Spring’s long-term effects thus must be viewed in this context.

39