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Crown Family Director Professor of Politics Shai Feldman Senior Executive Director Professor of the Practice in Politics Why Hasn’t the Asad Regime Collapsed? Gary Samore Lessons Learned from Syria’s History of Associate Director Kristina Cherniahivsky Tyranny Charles (Corky) Goodman Professor of Middle East History Associate Director for Research Daniel Neep Naghmeh Sohrabi Myra and Robert Kraft Professor of Arab Politics hen the Syrian revolution broke out in 2011, Eva Bellin Wgovernment officials, commentators, and foreign Henry J. Leir Professor of the policy pundits were quick to speculate that the Asad regime Economics of the Middle East Nader Habibi would soon collapse. Many of their analyses described Syria as an inherently artificial state, its governments as historically Renée and Lester Crown Professor of Modern Middle East Studies unstable, and the current minority-led regime as particularly Pascal Menoret fragile. And yet, eight years later, the Asad regime has not Senior Fellows Abdel Monem Said Aly, PhD only maintained a high degree of internal solidarity, but Kanan Makiya, Professor Emeritus has retained or regained territorial control over much of the Goldman Senior Fellow country. How did the Syrian regime find a winning formula Khalil Shikaki, PhD that would allow it to emerge, transformed yet intact, from Research Fellow years of brutal warfare? David Siddhartha Patel, PhD Sabbatical Fellows In this Brief, I argue that the Asad regime survived by avoiding mistakes made Hanan Hammad, PhD by previous leaders of Syria and that it has built a regime more networked, Daniel Neep, PhD more dispersed, and more sprawling—and consequently more resilient— Harold Grinspoon Junior Research Fellow than many experts and policy makers realized. Between independence in Hind Ahmed Zaki, PhD 1946 and Hafiz al-Asad’s rise to power in 1970, Syria witnessed a bewildering Neubauer Junior Research Fellow array of coups, putsches, and regime shifts as the rising tide of left-leaning Yazan Doughan, PhD and nationalist forces battled for supremacy, first with the old established Junior Research Fellows families of the cities and then with each another. Time after time during those Hayal Akarsu, PhD years, a succession of would-be dictators tried to consolidate a regime to keep Maryam Alemzadeh, PhD themselves in power. Each of them failed, albeit in a unique way. I argue that Syria’s overlooked history of tyranny can tell us much about why the regime June 2019 has survived for so long. Both Hafiz (1970–2000) and Bashar al-Asad (2000– No. 128 present) avoided the mistakes of their predecessors: excessive dependence on a narrow base, the perils of personal rule, and the pitfalls of centralized power. The Asads realized that Syria could not be ruled by one man, one sword, or even one sect. The Puzzle of Survival From the earliest days of the uprising in Syria, many commentators were convinced that the fragile regime of the Asads would soon crumble. Several arguments were advanced to support this thesis. A common theme was that Syria was doomed to instability by its own history. The Syrian state’s having been created by the colonial powers after World War I, its inherent artificiality, some commentators suggested, lent it a fragility such that it would inevitably one day be shattered. Other analysts noted the inherent instability of polities run by minority religious groups that—like Syria’s Alawis—constitute only a small proportion of the general population. And a third line of argument predicted that the pressures of civil war would slowly unravel the careful balance of coercion and co-optation that had kept the Asad regime in power, leading to the country’s fragmentation into a handful of self-governing ethno-sectarian statelets. The received wisdom of the time was neatly summed up by Obama administration advisor Frederic Hof, who famously commented in 2011 that “this regime is the equivalent of [a] dead man walking.”1 The surprising survival of the Asad regime is sometimes explained as a Daniel Neep is a Sabbatical consequence of military support from Iran and Russia since 2015. Of course, extra bodies and additional airpower have made all the difference on the front line, Fellow at the Crown where they reinvigorated or replaced the eviscerated forces of the Syrian Arab Center and an Assistant Army. But this recent boost to the military and coercive capabilities of the regime Professor in Arab Politics does not help explain how the regime survived to that point in the first place. in the Walsh School Scholars have studied the survival of authoritarian regimes since the 2010-11 Arab uprisings in terms of their adopting counter-revolutionary strategies successfully of Foreign Service at pioneered in neighboring states.2 This Brief argues that the Asad regime achieved Georgetown University. authoritarian resilience not only from learning from its contemporaries elsewhere in the region, but also by avoiding the mistakes made throughout Syria’s earlier history of failed dictatorships. Importantly, the Asad regime has ensured that the institutions of the Syrian state still provide the services, salaries, and certifications that are essential to civilian life in rebel-held as well as regime-held territories. The continuing functioning of these institutions allows the regime to emphasize its importance as the sole provider of stability for all Syrians, regardless of their background.3 At the same time, those institutions are riven by informal networks of patronage and corruption that constitute an alternative power-generating circuit for the regime. Rather than closing ranks to hunker down, the regime has proven adaptive and co-opted new members. Little-known crony capitalists have edged out loyalist business leaders of the 2000s (who are now hobbled by international sanctions), and a new class of petty warlords has been entrusted with security checkpoints, which are operated by hybrid militia-mafias.4 In effect, the Asad regime has simultaneously pursued parallel strategies of both hierarchical political The opinions and findings expressed centralization and accommodation with a highly diverse array of local actors. The in this Brief belong to the author result is a regime that resembles not a static command-and-control structure, but exclusively and do not reflect those of the a fluid, amorphous, and dynamic political ecology. Crown Center or Brandeis University. 2 By constructing this kind of regime, the Asads managed up support for himself and his political coterie. to avoid the mistakes made by the earlier political Factionalism and petty bickering were rife among Syria’s experiments in Syria carried out by three men: Shukri al- parliamentarians, a circumstance that Quwwatli skillfully Quwwatli (1946–49), Husni al-Za’im (1949), and Gamal exploited to his advantage. “It was in the nature of the Abdel Nasser (1958–61). As we shall see, each of these president to sow the seeds of competition and mutual episodes respectively illustrates the dangers of excessive loathing among political figures,” observed Khalid al- dependence on a narrow base, the perils of personal rule, ‘Azm, who became Quwwatli’s Prime Minister in 1948, “so and the pitfalls of centralized power. that they would not join forces against him. This meant he alone would always remain in control of the situation.”7 Quwwatli also successfully extended his time in office by Shukri al-Quwwatli (1946–49): The pushing through a constitutional amendment allowing Weakness of Elite Networks him to serve a second term as president. Quwwatli’s divide-and-rule tactics may have been The first president of independent Syria, Shukri al- successful in controlling the old urban elites of Damascus Quwwatli, came from one of the well-established, high- and Aleppo, who dominated urban parliamentary politics, society families of landowners that had dominated but their reach did not extend into the provinces; Syria’s Damascus and Aleppo since the late nineteenth century. rural elites were simply too autonomous to be recruited These families formed the backbone of the nationalist into Quwwatli’s networks. In the Druze Mountain political elite that had negotiated for independence from ( , better known today as the governorate France, and that gave rise to the first pioneers of modern Jabal al-Duruz of Suwayda), Quwwatli channeled arms and funding industry in Syria. Once independence had been achieved to a popular uprising against the leading Druze family, in 1946, however, Quwwatli’s presidency quickly revealed the Atrash, which kept the region in such turmoil that the problems of limiting political and economic power to the Atrash had no time to challenge Damascus’s claim a narrow sector of a population, one that lacked social and to authority.8 In the coastal mountains, the leaders of geographical diversity. several fractious Alawi tribes had taken advantage of the departure of French colonial forces to impose their Syria’s first years of independence were characterized by own “taxes” on local farmers and passers-by. Lacking any a noticeable tolerance for graft. Ministers gave relatives leverage to apply pressure to the fragmented social fabric positions for which they were unqualified; civil servants of the coastal mountains, Quwwatli bloodily repressed pilfered from government budgets; state property was the revolt using the gendarmerie,9 which he had built used for private ends; and public appointments were up at the expense of the national army—whose recruits decided on political rather than professional grounds.5 came mainly from the lower classes and from rural Quwwatli himself was not above this common practice. areas, and whose capacity for political action Quwwatli The respected intellectual Muhammad Kurd Ali accused consequently underestimated. That miscalculation the president of filling the ministries with incompetent soon came back to haunt him. The lack of investment sycophants whose only qualification was their political and military preparation that led to Syria’s ignominious loyalty.

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