BOOK
REVIEW In the heart of a
volcano Reviewed by Sreeram
Chaulia Buy this book
The recent Tal Afar offensive
in northern Iraq has yet again brought neighboring
Syria to the top of the US policy agenda. Long
rumored as the next target in the "war on
terrorism", Syria is under the American microscope
for sponsoring militancy, pursuing weapons of mass
destruction and repressing its own people.
A challenging "problem state" that
undermines the superpower's objectives in Iraq and
the greater Middle East, Syria has escaped drastic
action thus far because of strong internal
differences and lack of analytic consensus in the
US establishment. Flynt Everett, the Central
Intelligence Agency's senior Syria watcher in the
late 1990s and Middle East specialist for the
State Department and the National Security Council
under George W Bush, has written this actionable
portrait of Syria's young ruler, Bashar al-Asad,
to dispel the confusion. Arguing that the neo-con
penchant for forcible regime changes is deranged,
he prescribes a 'carrots-and-sticks' policy of
conditional US engagement with Syria.
Sectarian cleavages between the Sunni Arab
majority and the non-Sunni communities wrecked
Syria's social harmony for centuries. The
persistence of Salafi Islamism among Sunnis
reinforced sub-national ruptures and ensured that
the modern nation-state that emerged in 1946
lacked legitimacy. Another threat to
nation-building was the supranational identity
nurtured by politically conscious Syrians, rooted
in the Arab revolt of 1916-20. Deprived of the
cherished single state in historic Syria (Levant
or Bilad al-Sham in Arabic) that joined today's
Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and
Gaza, it viewed the creation of Israel as a
permanent obstacle to nationalist aspirations.
Syria's undistinguished economic performance after
independence completed the picture of a weak and
divided country.
Despite intrinsic
marginality, Syria's strategic location at the
heart of the Levant gave it centrality in the US
agenda. Former president Hafiz al-Asad's tenacious
assertion of Syrian interests on the regional
stage compelled American attention for the last
three decades. From Hafiz's perspective, the
rationale for US intervention in the region was to
bookend Israel's hegemonic position. His
worst-case scenario had Syria encircled by
pro-Western Iraq, Turkey and Jordan, a Lebanon
that does a separate peace deal with Israel and a
rump Palestinian entity. Fearful of never
regaining the Golan Heights lost to Israel in1967,
Hafiz was bitter toward Arab states striking
individual peace agreements with the Zionist
enemy. His skilful maneuvering guaranteed American
and Arab recognition that an Israel-Syria
settlement was a precondition for comprehensive
peace. No American administration was able to
escape Henry Kissinger's quip, "Arabs cannot make
peace without Syria." (p7)
US efforts to
broker an Israel-Syria accord aimed not only at
completing the "circle of peace" but also at
anchoring Syria in the moderate Arab camp against
the intractables. However, Hafiz's successful
domination of Lebanon and strategic alliance with
Iran hindered American designs, as did his
cultivation of "rejectionist" Palestinian groups
and Kurdish outfits. Also bothersome were
assessments that Syria's indigenous chemical
warfare program, deliverable through a ballistic
missile arsenal, was the most advanced in the
Middle East. The hereditary transition after
Hafiz's death in 2000 deepened Syria's uncertainty
factor in Washington's calculus.
Bashar
inherited from his father an enfeebled
presidential staff apparatus incapable of
formulating bold reform initiatives. Since the
succession mechanism was completely personalized,
Bashar was constrained by the need to be seen as
keeping faith with Hafiz's legacy. Industrial
monopolies that were controlled by old-guard
officials could not be broken up in the wake of an
anti-reform coalition of the mediocre fossilized
bureaucracy. The socialist economy anchored by
Hafiz was unfit for the demographic explosion of
restive Syrian youth. Capacity deficits hampered
Bashar's banking revamp and creation of special
economic zones.
The litmus test for
stabilization lay in management of Syrian domestic
politics. Leverett assesses that Bashar's
reformist impulses "are somewhat attenuated".
(p60) In his five years as president, progress was
slow and subject to setbacks and even reversals.
The emergence of a genuine civil society movement
("Damascus Spring") was short-lived, as political
"salons" dwindled to14 from 300 in two years after
a crackdown launched to silence radical calls for
multiparty democracy. Nevertheless, the state did
allow "slow expansion of social space" (p96) by
permitting operation of many non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) and private universities.
Appreciating the risk of proceeding too rapidly,
Bashar conceived of a phase-by-phase strategy -
administrative reform as a precursor to economic
reform, and social reform as an antecedent for
political reform. His personal inner circle and
kitchen cabinet comprised Western-educated
technocrats who shared these gradualist
inclinations.
In foreign policy, Bashar's
choices were governed by the conditions set by
Hafiz, viz defending Syrian hegemony in Lebanon,
"appropriate conditions" for talks with Israel,
revitalized alliances with moderate Arab states,
"strategic insurances" with Iran and Iraq and
resolving outstanding differences with the US.
Bashar's alternative advisory network for foreign
affairs, staffed with figures such as Walid
al-Mu'allim and Buthayna Sha'ban was strained by
serious changes in the geopolitical environment
that threatened to blow away Hafiz's core
principles.
Bashar tried to assuage and
contain anti-Syrian sentiment in Lebanon while
preventing a truly independent power center in
Beirut. Reduction and withdrawal of Syrian troops
was balanced by an increase in Syrian intelligence
personnel. Hezbollah's ascendance in Lebanese
polity was facilitated as a counterweight to
(former Lebanese prime minister) Rafiq Hariri's
rising profile and as a useful lever to oversee
the parliamentary arena. Bashar also built up
Hezbollah's military capabilities with Iranian
assistance as a deterrent to Israeli military
action that was apprehended after Ariel Sharon's
election in 2001. At the same time, Bashar avoided
escalation that could lead to full-fledged war
with Israel, maintaining a "call for jihad does
not imply war". (p262) He influenced Hezbollah's
periodic stand-downs for fear of getting caught on
the wrong side of the Bush administration's "war
on terror". Hezbollah, through joint training and
logistical support for Islamic Jihad and Hamas,
was also a useful instrument to raise Syrian clout
with the Palestinian Authority.
Possibilities of a Syrian peace treaty
with Israel foundered due to the Al Aqsa intifada
(uprising) and Bashar's growing anti-Semitic
rhetoric. Sharon's expansion of settlements in the
Golan Heights added to the impasse. Like his
father, Bashar's public diplomacy sapped the
American "roadmap for peace", which envisioned a
two-state solution for Israel-Palestine and
effectively ignored the Syrian angle. He also
rallied moderate Arab states to explicitly support
Syria's peace process position, though Hariri's
assassination in February put Damascus' relations
with Saudi Arabia in a bind. Leverett considers it
plausible that US pressures on Iran over its
nuclear activities and on Syria over Lebanon will
boost Tehran-Damascus strategic cooperation
further.
Deterioration of Syria's ties
with the US is the most important challenge for
Bashar, who correctly prophesized that Iraq would
be a quagmire for the Americans. US Defence
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's pot shots at Syria as
the "next target" after Iraq generated anxiety in
Damascus. Civilian officials in the Pentagon
continue to charge that the Iraqi resistance is
receiving funds and manpower through Syria.
Neo-conservatives at the office of the US vice
president oppose Syrian offers of help against
al-Qaeda, maintaining that benefiting a state
sponsor like Syria would be a reward for bad
behavior. Leverett disagrees with this line and
quotes what Bashar told him in person in 2004 -
"Syria is a state, not a charity." It is
"increasingly frustrated by US unwillingness to
bargain". (p145)
Additional sanctions and
critical rhetoric have had little success in
modifying Syrian stances for more than 25 years.
Unilateral sanctions in the era of globalization
only prompt the targeted state to diversify its
trade partners, as Syria has ably shown in the
case of American energy sector investment
prohibitions. The hawks prefer an Iraq-like
scenario where tribal and familial authorities
replace a strong secular regime in Syria, but the
post-Saddam difficulties being faced by the US
Army is a clear red-light indicator of the limits
of such "solutions". Reliance on expatriate Syrian
oppositionists (the "exile strategy") to overthrow
Bashar is another faulty and failure-ridden path.
One constructive way for Washington is to
restart the "Syrian Track" with Israel. Given
Sharon's disinterest in Syrian preconditions for
talks, the best that the US could do is to
"provide sufficient cover for Bashar" by publicly
conveying that it understands Syrian and Arab
demands for the complete return of Golan Heights.
On a parallel, Leverett wants the US to
conditionally engage with Syria in the manner that
bore fruit with Sudan and Libya. Bashar is a
"suitable subject" for engagement, not
irredeemable like the Taliban. Syrian-Iraqi trade
and Damascus' participation in post-Saddam
reconstruction can be negotiated for eliminating
the cross-border infiltration of jihadis.
Delisting Syria from the US State Sponsors of
Terrorism gallery in exchange for shutting down
paramilitary proxies would be a win-win
proposition, as Bashar's standing for internal
reforms would simultaneously improve. Leverett's
liberal carrots also include removal of the
blockades on Syria's accession to the World Trade
Organization and on the flow of official US funds
to Syrian NGOs. Free riding and failure to comply
with these quid pro quos would invite American
"hot pursuit" across the Iraqi-Syrian border and
non-restraint on Israel to retaliate massively
against Hezbollah attacks.
Though neatly
imagined, Leverett fails to nail down the basic
Arab belief, shared also by Syria, that the US
does far less than its potential to control its
proxy, Israel. Another mistake is to think that
de-proscription from the State Sponsors list is
enough for Syria to "get out of the terrorism
business". As long as the Israeli threat remains,
Bashar, who contends that Syria is "in the heart
of a volcano", will keep the paramilitaries in
tow. Creative and highly readable, this book
suffers from low cognition of the special
relationship between the US and Israel as the
center of gravity, which alone can transform the
Middle East for better or for worse.
Inheriting
Syria. Bashar's Trial By Fire, by Flynt
Leverett, Brookings Institution Press, Washington
DC, 2005. ISBN: 0-8157-5204-0. Price: US$ 27.95.
286 pages.
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rumored as the next target in the "war on
terrorism", Syria is under the American microscope
for sponsoring militancy, pursuing weapons of mass
destruction and repressing its own people.
