The New Arabists

hat Khaznawi, and its Hezbollah friends in Syria-occupied Lebanon The New were assassinating the state’s former premier, Rafiq Hariri. Seven years on and 18 months Arabists into the popular uprising in Syria that has killed 26,000 people, with 40,000 more missing and pre- sumed dead, Lesch has written a of the British-trained ophthalmolo- new book on Syria. Given his prior Syria: gist who abandoned his medical uncritical support for the regime, The Fall of the House of Assad career and returned to lead Syria, Syria: The Fall of the House of By David W. Lesch Lesch resolved to pen Bashar’s bi- Assad should have been an exer- Yale University Press, 288 pages ography. not surprisingly, Bashar cise in contrition. Instead, Lesch agreed to cooperate, and met with tells a story of Assad’s promise Reviewed by David Schenker the academic several times. unfulfilled, a disappointment he The resulting 2005 book, The largely attributes to a “neocon- n 2000, not long after Syrian New Lion of Damascus: Bashar al servative ideological straitjacket” dictator Hafez al-Assad died Asad and Modern Syria, set a new of Un resolutions, international and was succeeded by his son standard for obsequiousness. A few assassination inquiries, investiga- Bashar, analogies between snippets give a sense of the tenor. tions into Syria’s “alleged nuclear the Assads and the Corleone Bashar, Lesch related, was “very site,” and U.S. sanctions against the I family of The Godfather started to much the family man” and “a fa- regime bequeathed to the Obama make the rounds. While details of ther, who, as his wife mentioned, is administration by President Bush. the popular metaphor varied, the ‘on board’ . and changes diapers.” As Lesch tells it, “anti-Syria in- dominant focus of the comparison In addition to being a model dad, ertia in Washington”—rather than, was on whether Bashar represented Lesch pronounces that Bashar say, Assad’s policy of flooding Iraq Michael—Don Corleone’s youngest, with insurgents bent on killing untrained, and more conventional is basically a principled man. Americans—undermined President son—or Fredo, his weak and incom- He is very unassuming. He is, Obama’s historic “opportunity” to re- petent eldest. Where analysts came at heart, an honest and sincere pair relations. Along the same lines, down on this question largely mir- man. I believe he is essential- we are told that Assad had made the rored their assessment of Bashar ly a morally sound individual, strategic decision for peace, a dream al-Assad and the future trajectory of someone who has the best of that would have been realized if not post-Hafez Syria. intentions. People who meet for the Bush administration’s skepti- David Lesch, a professor of Mid- him usually come away struck cism and Israel’s “heavy-handed” dle East studies at Trinity Universi- by three things: his politeness, military action against Hamas in ty, was among the most prominent his humility, and his simplicity. Gaza in 2008 and 2009. American Syria-watchers subscrib- no doubt, Lesch’s elision-filled ing to the optimistic view of Bashar This was Lesch’s assessment excursion into the Bush years and as Michael. To Lesch, Bashar epito- in 2005, after Bashar had sys- discussion of the Obama adminis- mized a new-generation Middle tematically decimated Syrian civil tration’s failed attempt to engage Eastern leader dedicated to and ca- society through mass arrests of Assad is tendentious, but the re- pable of reforming the autocratic, participants in the so-called Da- mainder of his narrative is by and corrupt, terrorist-supporting, anti- mascus Spring of 2001 and 2002. large devoted to a more anodyne American regime in Damascus. So As Lesch was lavishing blandish- account of the Arab Spring in Syria. enchanted was he with the promise ments on the new Lion of Damas- Alas, these chapters also suffer cus, the leading lights of Syria’s from Lesch’s uniquely Syrian strain David Schenker is director of nascent pro-democracy movement of Stockholm syndrome. The result the Washington Institute’s Program were languishing in Assad’s dun- is a storyline in which Assad is a on Arab Politics. From 2002 to 2006, geons. Meanwhile, the regime was tragic hero opposing in vain a di- he was Levant director in the office torturing and killing prominent vided government, an entrenched of the secretary of defense. anti-Assad Kurdish cleric Shuway- bureaucracy, and a powerful secret 6 Politics & Ideas : November 2012 service conspiring against reform as an admiral in Assad’s navy, and contribution by pointing out, cor- to repress the popular uprising. his writings have long been sym- rectly, that the revolt has not yet “Wherever Assad could,” Lesch ar- pathetic to the regime. In March been hijacked by Islamic extrem- gues, “he tried.” 2011, he wrote that the Arab Spring ists. Overall, however, it’s difficult While Lesch’s account doesn’t would “stall in Syria.” Assad him- to get past the disappointment in entirely absolve Bashar of his re- self had so much confidence in the his friend Bashar that permeates gime’s murderous behavior even academic that in 2005 he allowed the book. in the waning pages of his book, he Landis to blog—purportedly with- Lesch is not alone among schol- does maintain that Assad did not out censorship—from Damascus. ars who premise their work on somehow start out as a pathologi- Lesch is also a big fan of Sami repressive states on access to elites. cal “bloodthirsty killer” like Libya’s Moubayed, a professor with a reli- Academics and analysts studying Muammar Qaddafi or Iraq’s Sad- ably pro-Assad column in the Asia ruthless authoritarian regimes rou- dam Hussein. “Somewhere along Times, whom he describes as one of tinely rely on inside sources to the road,” he says, “Assad lost his Syria’s “foremost commentators.” distinguish themselves from their way.” That somewhere, according Interesting, that although Lesch peers. The problem, of course, is to Lesch, occurred shortly after says he knows Moubayed “quite that the regimes keep track of the Assad’s 2007 “reelection” to the well,” he doesn’t know, or doesn’t author’s publications, and, if the presidency, the “first time,” he says, choose to highlight, that Moubayed coverage is not suitably flattering, “I felt that Bashar had begun to be- was a paid political and media future access is curtailed. lieve the sycophants—that to lead adviser to the regime—a widely A full generation of U.S. scholars the country was his destiny.” suspected relationship that was of Iraq was denied entry into the At the time, of course, one of confirmed in 2012 by hacked emails Republic of Fear for writing criti- Bashar’s leading sycophants was of senior Assad regime officials. cally about Saddam. Syria scholars, Lesch himself. Consider that even no matter. neither Lesch—nor the too—myself included—have long five years after widely discredited Carnegie Endowment for Interna- been banned from Damascus in nondemocratic polling in an au- tional Peace, where Moubayed is retribution for their articles. In- thoritarian state in which no other employed—find this of concern. deed, dictators often sponsor trips candidate appeared on the ballot, The list goes on. To Lesch, nir for experts—including meetings Lesch still pointed to the 97 per- Rosen—who was compelled to re- with the autocrats themselves— cent returns for the president as sign from a fellowship at new York with the unspoken quid pro quo evidence of the “tremendous mass University when he came under fire of subsequent good press. The support for Bashar.” This stunning after belittling Lara Logan’s brutal academic Marilyn Booth chron- misreading of the Syrian street sexual assault in Tahrir Square— icled her junket to Saddam’s Iraq may have been a reflection of who is “a widely respected journal- in the mid-1980s in an article Lesch was spending his time with ist.” Like Moubayed, Rosen also titled “When I met Saddam Hus- in Damascus (i.e., Bashar’s inner appeared prominently in hacked sein,” written on the eve of the circle and the pro-regime elites). Or regime emails, missives in which 2003 U.S. invasion. “My encounter maybe his Arabic wasn’t up to the regime officials advocated allow- with Saddam Hussein,” she wrote, task—to wit, in his two Yale Press ing the journalist privileged access “helped me to understand why he Assad books, out of a combined to traverse the state because, as of might command loyalty even from 768 total footnotes, Lesch cites a nine months into the uprising, he outside those implicated in his grand total of two Arabic-language was “writing some positive articles rule, despite his ruthlessness.” sources. on Syria” and “trying to represent Among those scholars with un- It doesn’t help that Lesch’s un- the Alawites in a good way.” paralleled access to Assad’s ruling derstanding of Syria appears to notwithstanding the legion clique was Joshua Landis. In the be largely informed by a cadre quibbles, to his credit, Lesch gets aftermath of his unprecedented ex- of English-speaking Assad-regime a few things right. His account of perience in Syria courtesy of Assad, acolytes and employees. Oklahoma developments within the hapless Landis’s pro-regime blog came to University professor Joshua Lan- Syrian opposition is detailed and be described in nPR and other me- dis, editor of the Syria Comment useful, as is his chronology of failed dia circles as “influential.” blog, is a favorite. Landis is married United nations and Arab League Former nSC staffer Flynt Lev- to a Syrian from Assad’s minority diplomatic efforts to resolve the erett also came away from his Alawite sect whose father served crisis.

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