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Anew Us Policy for Syria KAPLAN: A NEW U.S. POLICY FOR SYRIA A NEW U.S. POLICY FOR SYRIA: FOSTERING POLITICAL CHANGE IN A DIVIDED STATE Seth Kaplan Mr. Kaplan is a business consultant to companies in developing countries as well as a foreign-policy analyst. His book Fixing Fragile States: A New Paradigm for Development (2008), critiques Western policies in places such as Pakistan, Somalia, Congo (Kinshasa) and West Africa, and lays out a new approach to overcoming the problems they face (sethkaplan.org). he American foreign-policy well as sticks employed to persuade Syria establishment seems deeply of the benefits of a more cooperative divided over how to deal with relationship with its neighbors and the West TSyria. No one in Washington and of more democracy at home? doubts that Damascus plays a pivotal role This debate seems set to run indefi- in the Middle East, helping to shape events nitely, with each of the two main presiden- in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine while tial candidates lining up behind a different influencing calculations in Jerusalem, the option. But there is one thing that both capital of its principal foe, and Tehran, the schools of thought, and both McCain and capital of its principal ally. But there is Obama, can agree on: Syria needs to considerable disagreement within Wash- change, and, ideally, to change not only its ington on how to approach Damascus. policies but also its political system. Should Syria be isolated until its economy Not surprisingly, perhaps, this recogni- and its leadership crack under the strain, tion of the need for some sort of change is as the Bush administration has long shared by many Syrians. More surprisingly, favored? Should it, to use fashionable this realization extends even to Bashar al- parlance, be forced into a “hard landing” Asad. As Bashar is well aware, a weaken- — bullied into abandoning its disruptive ing economic base, a deteriorating system behavior on the regional stage and soften- of social control, and an awakening of ing its internal political complexion? Or identity conflicts in the aftermath of the should the United States help Syria U.S. invasion of Iraq could threaten his achieve a soft landing, as many commen- hold on power. Recent episodes of religious tators outside the White House now and ethnic discord suggest that the propose? Should engagement with Presi- government’s time to reform is running dent Bashar al-Asad’s authoritarian regime short. be the order of the day, with carrots as © 2008, The Authors Journal Compilation © 2008, Middle East Policy Council 107 MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. XV, NO. 3, FALL 2008 But how should it reform? The A FRAGMENTED SOCIETY changes with which Bashar has tinkered Syria is a state both young and old, since he succeeded his father as president divided by conflicting interpretations of its in 2000 are far too modest to address the past. The modern state — an artificial multifarious problems confronting the creation that dates only to the Anglo- country. Meanwhile, the Iraq experience French partition of the region following has vividly shown that attempts to intro- World War I — has inherited a unique duce sweeping political and economic blend of geographical, ethnic, religious and reform can easily awaken savage identity ideological heterogeneity that complicates conflicts, conflicts that haunt almost every all efforts to construct a cohesive whole Arab state. Like Iraq (and many other from its disparate parts. Middle East states), Syria is a divided A brief recital of the history of what polity with weak formal institutions that “Syria” has been illustrates the diversity of have little history behind them and that are the modern state’s inheritance. Syria has stable only to the degree that they are been the home of historic pan-Arab backed by a formidable security apparatus. nationalism,1 where the first short-lived If Syria does experience a hard landing, modern Arab state was based; of Greater social unrest is a certainty and sectarian Syria, the ancient bilad al-sham (literally, violence a high probability. “the land of the left hand”2) that encom- Is there, however, a middle path passed the whole Levant for centuries; of between Bashar’s piecemeal reforms and some of the world’s oldest cities, with Bush’s preference for abrupt political longstanding ties to international trade transformations, a third way that can routes but little connection to nearby rural satisfy powerbrokers in both Washington economies; of peoples conquered and and Damascus? This essay argues that converted by the great monotheistic there is. Moreover, it contends that a religions, then abandoned and left to middle path may well be the only realistic fracture into an ungodly number of sects; option if Syria is to overcome its worsening of a complex mosaic of almost two dozen economic and sociopolitical situation, distinct religious and ethnic groups that maintain long-term stability, and move were traditionally so highly autonomous towards a more open and accountable and self-administering that the government system of governance. Effecting a pro- of the Ottoman Empire was limited to gram of significant reform, however, will simple tax collecting. So rich and varied a demand three things: the patience to history is not an unalloyed blessing. The introduce change gradually, incrementally state’s very diversity dominates its political and cautiously, so as to avoid instability; dynamics, limiting policy options, inhibiting the flexibility to alter Western-style democ- risk-taking, and making any government racy and development to fit Syrian condi- highly defensive. Decades of stability have tions; and the readiness to work with, not only partly compensated for the sectarian against, Bashar or some other leading handicaps that hinder its capacity to figures within the regime. develop a lasting identity. Syria’s 19 million people are divided into Sunni Arabs (65 percent), Alawis (12 108 KAPLAN: A NEW U.S. POLICY FOR SYRIA percent), Christians (10 percent), Kurds (9 Lebanon and historical unwillingness to percent), Druze (3 percent),3 Bedouin, recognize a number of the borders that Ismailis, Turcomans, Circassians and separate the state from its neighbors. The Assyrians. This demographic mosaic is weakness of Syria’s sense of national further complicated by divisions within identity makes at least some Syrians many of these groups. The Christians, for receptive to the self-confident call of example, are divided into eleven main Islamic fundamentalism; in fact, between sects, including the Greek Orthodox, 1976 and 1982 the country experienced the Melkite, Syrian, Maronite, Chaldean, region’s first modern Islamist uprising. Armenian and Catholic denominations. The Fears over the ability of outsiders to stir Sunni Arabs range from the highly pious to domestic religious discontent are part of the very secular and are divided between the reason for the regime’s longstanding an urban elite and the rural masses that alliance with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas. traditionally have had diverging political loyalties. Of all the groups, the Kurds and The Hafez al-Asad Legacy the Sunni Islamists are the greatest threats Syria struggled mightily after its to the Syrian state. Their political move- independence in 1946 to overcome its ments have the cohesion, established difficult heritage. It had 20 different agendas, outside support and sense of cabinets and four separate constitutions grievance to drive them to challenge during its first ten years. It merged with central authority. The country’s dearth of Egypt in 1958, only to withdraw from that Shiites, however, makes the situation union less than four years later. It lost the potentially less explosive than that in Golan Heights to Israel in the 1967 war. In neighboring Lebanon and Iraq. all, it suffered 20 military-backed coups or Conscious of their country’s history as coup attempts between 1949 and 1970 and the center of a closely knit region of was arguably the most unstable state in the commanding size and stature, many Middle East.4 All this changed after Hafez Syrians have also repeatedly sought an al-Asad seized power in 1970. identity in pan-Arab, Greater Syrian or Although founded on a narrow com- Islamic causes, further impeding any munal basis (the most sensitive intelligence attempt to construct a nation-state on and military positions were held by mem- Syrian territory. Loyalty to Arab national- bers of Hafez’s Alawi Qalbiyya tribe),5 the ism — which continues to be an article of Asad regime systematically broadened its faith for many Syrians even though it has base of support by judiciously using the long since fallen out of favor with Arabs powers and spoils of government to co-opt elsewhere — is enshrined in the first important factions when possible and to article of the country’s constitution and crack down on them when necessary. One explains Syria’s generosity to other Arabs of Hafez’s greatest political achievements whenever a crisis creates a new wave of was the construction of a quasi-corporatist refugees. The desire to reconstitute itself system that aligned the interests of most as some version of Greater Syria (today’s social groups with his government, effec- Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel) helps tively buying their loyalty with state em- explain the country’s preoccupation with ployment, education, and various social 109 MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. XV, NO. 3, FALL 2008 benefits in a “containment system,” as one glomeration of the elites of most, if not all, Damascus analyst puts it.6 The socialist of Syria’s communal groups. Increasing Baath ideology — the party had been in intermarriage within the elites over the past power since 1963 and Hafez was one of its generation reinforces these views; two of leaders before he took control — was well Hafez’s sons, including Bashar, have suited to this program.
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