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Immutable Dynamics: Syria Before and After the Arab Spring

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Immutable Dynamics: Syria Before and After the Arab Spring 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).
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