TEL AVIV - Once again, Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad is trying to project confidence.
It is becoming something of a cyclical story, with
even relatively minor details such as threats
against Syrian refugees abroad repeating. The
diverse opposition initiates a mass rally,
violence erupts, some soldiers are killed, the
army prepares for an assault, and the
international media explodes; Assad seemingly
teeters on the brink.
Then the army moves
in, information becomes even more scarce and
harder to verify than before, and the government
narrative emerges with a new strength. The
opposition appears weakened, and the regime seems
to be gaining the upper hand. Then the whole thing
repeats.
As many have predicted, the
Syrian uprising is turning into a protracted
affair, a test of endurance. Both the regime and its
opponents are surviving from
one Friday to the next - Friday being the most
propitious and widely exploited day for staging
protests in the Middle East, since most men gather
for noon prayers and can be easily be instigated
by the imams.
But test may not be the best
word. For, while both sides are waiting for the
other to blink - or tank - first, both are growing
weaker every week. What is worse, Syrian social
cohesion and the Syrian economy are rapidly giving
in. It is easy to imagine a situation where both
sides fail the test, and emerge as losers.
Evidence of just how confused and
polarizing the situation is on the ground are
discrepancies and contradictions in the accounts
of foreign officials and journalists from a recent
government-organized tour of Jisr al-Shoughour and
its surroundings. The town near the Turkish border
has been at the epicenter of an army crackdown for
the past couple of weeks, ever since state media
announced that over 120 security men had been
killed in a series of attacks by "gangs".
This is how a person on the tour described
the experience to Syria expert Joshua Landis:
The [government] story is that the
Syrian Military Intelligence garrison was
attacked and seized over the course of about 36
hours between 4 and 5 June. 500 "armed
criminals" attacked. The detachment, about 72
people, was overrun when they ran out of ammo.
The condition of the place was pretty consistent
with an armed attack, though I don't think it
lasted that long and I think the garrison likely
surrendered…. No evidence of real damage in the
rest of the town - I don't think the military
took it by force. They just rolled in…. There
are people returning - we saw a convoy of what
we were told was refugees returning from Turkey,
waving Syrian flags and photos of the President.
The city is still pretty devoid of people, but
there are some shops open and people in the
streets. They seem to get along with the
soldiers, but that could have been staged for
our benefit [1] ...
Other participants
in the tour, however, tell a story that sounds
very differently:
Western envoys and United Nations
officials taken on a government tour of Idlib, a
region close to the Turkish border, reported
seeing deserted villages and mile after mile of
abandoned fields ... The diplomatic mission
reported that the town of Jisr al-Shoughour,
where regime opponents were attacked by tanks
and helicopter gunships, was almost completely
deserted ... Officials on the trip reported
witnessing similar scenes in villages in a
25-mile radius of Jisr al-Shoughour.
[2]
Opposition reports say that elite
army units torched fields and expelled residents
of villages nearby who provided food and shelter
to refugees from Jisr al-Shoughour. The army then
deployed near the border, presumably in order to
prevent the flow of refugees into Turkey; a few
even claim that the army forcefully "drove" some
refugees back into the deserted town for the
foreign tour.
"[The truth is] probably not
somewhere 'in the middle' as one might think but
everywhere at once, at the extremes," another
source wrote to Joshua Landis. This was a
foreigner "who has lived, studied and traveled
there for years". [3]
" ...Those shown
welcoming the army are as real as those who have
fled for their lives to Turkey," wrote the source.
The two opposing narratives are thus not
only extraordinarily hard to reconcile, they are
becoming increasingly disconnected from one
another. In his third public speech on Monday
since the beginning of the unrest, Assad tried to
sound a confident note. He vowed "firmness" and
announced a general amnesty.
This is the
second such announcement in a month and the first
such promise went unfulfilled. Notably, the Syrian
president appeared less poised than before;
nevertheless, he currently appears a little
stronger than a week ago, right before the army
stormed Jisr al-Shoughour.
The rebels also
expressed confidence. "The security grip is
weakening because the protests are growing in
numbers and spreading," one of their leaders told
Reuters a few days ago. "More people are risking
their lives to demonstrate. The Syrian people
realize that this is an opportunity for liberty
that comes once in hundreds of years."
It
is hard to verify this claim. Besides, they also
face formidable challenges, of which only one is
how to keep organizing people to protest in the
face of the brutal crackdowns. By all accounts,
they are a motley crew. Most analysts divide them
into two large groups - violent and non-violent -
but various other sub-divisions and disagreements
appear to exist (Assad spoke of three groups:
criminals, legitimate protesters and extremists).
Contrary to their previous claims,
moreover, they still have not managed to achieve
significant splits inside the army, which is the
most important line of defense of the regime.
The biggest danger is that nobody will be
able to control the consequences of the conflict.
The disconnects are growing within Syrian society
itself, and the basic social fabric in Syria,
under severe strain for months, is starting to
unravel.
Following Assad's speech,
pro-government and anti-government supporters on
rival demonstrations clashed in three cities on
Tuesday. The army intervened (presumably on the
side of the pro-government demonstrators) and at
least seven casualties were reported. The incident
is worrying because it seems to be the first of
its kind - where civilians fight one another.
According to the second Landis source
quoted above, the second-largest city of Aleppo is
a "bubble" where residents try to isolate
themselves from the unrest. Yet even there
protests deaths were reported last week. [4] We
can assume that more affluent neighborhoods in
other big cities are trying to isolate themselves
from the unrest.
At the same time,
however, tens of thousands of Syrians (perhaps
hundreds of thousands) have been turned into
refugees by the clashes and the government
crackdown. Conditions are reportedly appalling,
and the only thing that is not lacking is arms.
Powerful smuggling networks have taken root,
especially in the border areas that have seen some
of the worst unrest.
Desperate people
armed with weapons do not mix well with more
affluent people living in denial; this is,
ironically, what Assad is counting on to solidify
his support base among the middle- and
upper-middle classes. But Syria has been a hotbed
of sectarian unrest for decades. The situation can
easily spiral out of control down the road, and
Assad's promise of security might turn just as
empty as that of reforms has been so far. This
would spell his end.
The Syrian regime has
clearly weakened in the past weeks, and part of
the reason for this is increased foreign pressure.
Amid intense and so far unproductive debates at
the United Nations Security Council, even Russian
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, widely seen as an
Assad ally, called for increased pressure on the
Syrian regime on Tuesday.
Turkey is
becoming ever more involved in the unrest. The
much-hated president's cousin Rami "Mr Ten
Percent" Makhlouf (who reportedly owns much of
Syria's economy) announced last week his
resignation from business dealings and his
intention to dedicate himself to "charity".
This was seen as a humiliating concession
by Assad, and reports have it that it was done
under pressure from Ankara. Other reports claim
that Turkey is pressing Assad to fire also his
brother, Maher al-Assad, who is in charge of the
crack troops of the regime and has been deeply
involved in the suppression of dissent. [5] So
far, the president has resisted any such pressure.
Turkey also reportedly sent helicopters
into Syria last week, on missions to provide
humanitarian relief to refugees near the Turkish
border. If confirmed, this would be a big blow to
Assad and would support speculation that Turkey
may be planning to send its army in Syrian areas
near the border, in order to protect the refugees
and to provide the opposition with a safe haven.
Just how much Turkey is concerned with
Syria is evident by a reported warming of
Israeli-Turkish ties. In the past days,
information surfaced that the two countries had
been holding secret talks on improving their
relations. One of the reasons stated is shared
concern about Syria. "The situation in Syria
creates big problems for both Turkey and Israel,
and they have a joint interest in solving the
problems between us," a senior Turkish Foreign
Ministry official told Israeli daily Ha'aretz. [6]
On the opposite side of the international
meddling into the Syrian unrest stand Iran and
Hezbollah, both of which have been widely accused
of sending forces and equipment to help Assad. The
rebels claim that the Shi'ite foreigners are often
used as snipers on rooftops, and that they cans be
distinguished from the Syrian army by the long
beards many of them have (beards are forbidden in
the regular army).
Other countries with
vested interests in the region are also on edge:
Saudi Arabia and the United States stand out.
Reports have it that there is a growing fleet of
American naval ships in the Mediterranean, close
to Syrian shores.
In the immediate future,
a Western-Turkish intervention in Syria, similar
to what is going on in Libya, seems out of
question; the military buildup seems designed to
send a message rather than to enforce it. As long
as the Syrian army is united and has at its
disposal massive amounts of missiles armed with
chemical warheads, it is hard to imagine anybody
bombing Damascus.
However, it is hard to
say what will happen beyond a few weeks from now.
The Syrian economy is in shambles, [7] and the
social glue of the country seems to be going that
way as well. If things go seriously south, limited
operations, for example near the Turkish border
and in select opposition-dominated areas, are not
out of the question.
And should the Syrian
army lose control over an area and a foreign power
sends troops there, it is also unlikely that Assad
will unleash the missiles first. His regular
forces, on the other hand, are no match for North
Atlantic Treaty Organization armies.
For
now, nevertheless, both sides, along with their
international supporters, are waiting. Each Friday
reveals, more or less, the week that has past and
sets the stage for the next week. Thus, we would
best be able to infer on Friday if Assad's
attempts to project confidence have any grounding.
But we can also assume, with relative
safety, that more Fridays are in store, and more
twists and turns to the intrigue that has become
Syria. We should not be misled into expecting some
kind of a decisive resolution of the conflict: in
the foreseeable future, at least, that seems like
waiting for Samuel Becket's Godot, only more
bloody and less abstract.
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