THE SYriaN OPPOSITION’S LEADERSHip PROBLEM Yezid Sayigh APRIL 2013 THE SYRIAN OPPOSITIOn’S LEADERSHIP PROBLEM Yezid Sayigh APRIL 2013 © 2013 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. All rights reserved. The Carnegie Endowment does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented here are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Endowment, its staff, or its trustees. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the Carnegie Endowment. Please direct inquiries to: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Publications Department 1779 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20036 Tel: +1 202-483-7600 Fax: +1 202-483-1840 www.CarnegieEndowment.org Carnegie Middle East Center Lazarieh Tower, 5th floor Bldg. No. 2026 1210, Emir Bechir Street P.O. Box 11-1061 Riad El Solh Beirut Lebanon www.Carnegie-Mec.org This publication can be downloaded at no cost at www.CarnegieEndowment.org/pubs. CMEC 39 Contents Summary 1 The Opposition’s Missing Leadership 3 An Overview 4 Thrust Into the Spotlight 5 The Syrian National Council 7 The National Coalition: A Brief Interlude? 14 Meeting the Challenges 16 Humanitarian Relief 19 Alternative Leadership on the Ground? 22 The Necessary Shift Inside Syria 27 What Comes After the National Coalition? 29 Notes 33 About the Author 37 Carnegie Middle East Center 38 Summary Syria’s opposition still lacks political leadership two years after the start of the country’s uprising. In exile, the Syrian National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (National Coalition) professes to provide a representa- tive framework for diverse civilian councils and rebel groups operating within Syria’s borders, but it does not lead them. It must empower the grassroots structures to become the opposition’s real political leadership inside Syria and shift its focus to frankly engage key political constituencies and state institu- tions to split them from the regime if it hopes to bring about lasting, demo- cratic change. Key Themes • The opposition’s first representative framework in exile, the Syrian National Council (SNC), reacted to diplomatic initiatives rather than shaping them, espoused militarization without being able to direct or sup- port it, and failed to incorporate local leaders inside Syria. • Expecting funding and political recognition from the international com- munity, opposition figures and factions in exile competed for status and resources rather than uniting under a common banner. • The National Coalition, which has supplanted the SNC, has proved no more effective in providing strategic political leadership, empowering local civil administration, asserting credible authority over armed rebels, delivering humanitarian relief, and devising a political strategy to split the regime. The resignation of National Coalition Chairman Moaz al-Khatib on March 24, 2013, placed its future in doubt. • Local civilian and military councils inside Syria cannot assert effective authority on the ground in the absence of credible political leadership. • Competing rebel groups and Islamist militants have filled the void, addressing growing needs for security, dispute resolution, food and fuel supply, and shelter. Recommendations for the National Coalition Exercise political leadership of military operations. The National Coalition must stake out a clear position on the conduct of major combat operations in Syria’s cities, especially the looming battle for Damascus, in order to assert political direction and authority over military decisionmaking. 1 2 | The Syrian Opposition’s Leadership Problem Govern the liberated areas and empower local political leadership. The coalition should empower the provisional government it has announced in lib- erated areas to make strategic policy decisions. Otherwise the government will fail to deliver effective administration, services, and humanitarian assistance or to assert civilian control over the armed rebels. Devise a political strategy and prepare for negotiations. The coalition leadership should propose a concrete framework that offers principal political and institutional actors currently supporting the regime, other than President Bashar al-Assad and his inner core, the opportunity to play a direct, formal role in negotiating Syria’s democratic transition. The Opposition’s Missing Leadership Two years after the start of the Syrian uprising, the opposition still lacks effec- tive political leadership. The principal opposition umbrella frameworks, the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the National Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces (National Coalition), enjoy considerable domestic legitimacy and widespread international recognition. But they represent rather than lead. They have articulated the political ethos and goals of the uprising authentically, but neither has effectively set the uprising’s agenda, determined strategy on the ground, or taken decisions on critically important issues of war and peace. They remain based in exile and lack an organizational base inside Syria—a serious additional obstacle. The lack of leadership has impeded the consolidation of initiatives under- taken by “insiders”—civilian activists and rebel officers inside Syria. It has dashed hopes of replicating successful models of organization throughout the country, leaving functioning structures localized, vulnerable, and even revers- ible. And it has enhanced the role of de facto or “traditional” social construc- tions—based on ethnicity, confession, and tribe or clan—that in turn bear heavily on political agendas and modes of action, at times dominating them. The potential for a significant shift in dynamics appeared on March 18, 2013, when the National Coalition appointed U.S.-based information tech- nology expert and activist Ghassan Hitto to head a provisional government located primarily in liberated areas of Syria. The government faces the task of binding local grassroots structures into an effective governing system and of asserting meaningful authority over a majority of the rebel groups on the ground. To do so, it must be empowered to take strategic policy decisions, rather than act solely as an administrative adjunct to the National Coalition. Should it succeed, the provisional government will become the opposition’s de facto political leadership. This would be a major success, but its potential as a contender for political leadership is exactly what the National Coalition fears. The coalition, which only announced the provisional government with great reluctance after com- ing under severe pressure from its Arab backers to do so, went to great lengths to stress its “technocratic” nature. The ten candidates competing for the post of prime minister had lived in exile for many years, almost as many had been engaged in nonpolitical white-collar professions until the 2011 uprising, and the government’s central task was defined narrowly as overseeing services in liberated areas. By enfeebling the provisional government politically, the National Coalition placed both its administrative role and its moral authority 3 4 | The Syrian Opposition’s Leadership Problem at risk, complicating the challenges facing the grassroots movement and tak- ing the opposition back to square one. The vista is not open-ended. Consolidation of the grassroots structures has been partial and hesitating, amid competing trends toward greater fragmenta- tion, sectarian polarization, and routinization of violence. The provisional gov- ernment could transform the picture, but it was hobbled from birth. Although he later retracted it, the resignation of National Coalition Chairman Moaz al- Khatib on March 24, 2013, placed the coalition’s own future in serious doubt. It may limp on, but unless the opposition resolves its leadership problem in the course of 2013, the rebellion may fragment into rival armed cantons and the deeper revolutionary transformation now under way in Syrian society could stall. An Overview The opposition’s problems run deep. Decades of authoritarian rule had all but eliminated autonomous political and social activity in Syria by 2011. Opponents of President Bashar al-Assad were thus denied the preexisting organizational networks and a ready pool of experienced members able to seize the revolutionary moment created by the spontaneous uprising in March 2011 and build on it rapidly. As a result, the coalition of disparate opposition groups, independent figures, and grassroots activists who formed the SNC in October 2011 could not gain traction on the ground, pushing it into a reactive stance from the outset. The SNC took up whatever positions seemed to have popular support among demonstrators and activists inside Syria and did not provide political leadership. The SNC failed repeatedly over the next year to anticipate developments on the ground in Syria as well as in the diplomatic domain, let alone influence their direction. It moreover struggled to assert its author- ity over the constantly proliferating rebel brigades, bat- The SNC missed every opportunity to talions, and military councils that emerged as the armed develop and incorporate local leaders rebellion gained momentum in the course of 2012. And inside Syria into its fold, making the it missed every opportunity to develop and incorporate local leaders inside Syria into its fold, making the oppo- opposition’s internal struggles over status sition’s internal struggles over status and representation