SYRIA'S INEPT DICTATORSHIP
by Hassan Mneimneh
Benador Associates
January 4, 2006

There were no new revelations in the interview given by the Syrian former VP Abdul Halim Khaddam to the Arabic satellite news channel Al-Arabiya last Friday. Still, the possible consequences of his act of dissidence are likely to be considerable.

Khaddam merely confirmed the convictions of many observers of Bashar Assad's Syria. He depicted an image of utter corruption and abuse of power internally, with most Syrians living in poverty while regime insiders amass fortunes. His description of the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, which ended last spring, was as one of constant brutality and heavy-handed treatment. Khaddam insisted that last February's assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri—a sophisticated operation that required a high level of technical expertise and intelligence coordination—could not occur without the knowledge and consent of the complex security apparatus that Syria had created, nurtured, and controlled in Lebanon. Furthermore, he asserted, within the heavily centralized authoritarian Syrian environment, it is inconceivable that any security agency could have undertaken such a major action without the approval of the Syrian President himself. Khaddam also related the numerous threats that Bashar himself, as well as his subordinates, made against Hariri, all the way to his assassination.

With a curriculum vitae that includes more than three decades of service to the Syrian dictatorship, Khaddam may not be the ideal trustworthy witness. However, his coming-out interview makes it harder for the Damascus government to plead "not guilty" in the Hariri assassination, the investigation of which is pursued by a UN probe. It also severely tarnishes the worked-on image of the Syrian dictatorship, undoing the many cosmetic facelifts offered to it by a segment of the Western press since the accession of the young Assad to power, succeeding his father in 2000.

It was under the variable rubrics of diplomatic realism, cultural relativism, and political gradualism, that the Bashar regime was accorded the benefit of the doubt and beyond since the passing of the older Assad. A UK-educated ophthalmologist who was hastily called back home upon the accidental death of his elder brother—and then heir-apparent to the throne—to be groomed as the next leader of his father's "republic", Bashar displayed a relative refinement in speech and personal behavior in which many saw promising signs of a benign Syrian transition from authoritarianism to accountable progressive governance. Theories of an information-age aware new generation replacing the sclerotic "old guard" caught the fancy of international as well as local observers. Alas, the locals were soon to discover that it were plain wishful thinking. While both the timid economic reforms and the narrow space for free speech bestowed on Syria early on by Bashar were to recede and vanish, the new head of state was to grow comfortably in his role as a dictator, undoing effectively much of what his father has achieved to maintain the stature of his regime in tumultuous times.

The elder Assad, a long-time ally and disciple of the Soviet Union, survived the fall of the Eastern Bloc by offering his support to the US-led international coalition against the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Seeking counterweights to Saddam Hussein's Iraq—with whom Syria shared a Stalinist-patterned Ba‘th ruling party, as well as a perpetual animosity—was a constant concern for the elder Assad. His success over the subsequent years was to further leverage connections with his defeated rival Saddam, in a balancing act to ward off Western pressures. The elder Assad overall approach was one of maintaining precarious equilibriums. He forged alliances with both Iran and archrival Saudi Arabia. He sought a settlement with Israel while backing anti-Israeli groups, in the Palestinian territories as well as in the then Israeli-occupied South Lebanon. Most importantly, in his strategic asset of Lebanon, where he had exploited, maneuvered, and managed the civil conflicts, he had created a stable configuration of allies and enemies, granting his regime an economic as well as a political window to the rest of the world. For much of the rule of the elder Assad, Khaddam was a crucial node in the Syrian control of Lebanon.

The younger Assad, having overcome his flirtations with openness in governance and political culture, proved to be less than apt at perpetuating this fragile order. His inexperienced management of the assets that his father had left him transformed them into liabilities. He failed to grasp the US administration resolve to prevail in its Iraqi undertaking, providing instead a haven for a dangerous confederation of Iraqi Ba‘thists and international Jihadists on Syrian soil, despite its lethal potential to his own society and regime. In an effort not to lose relevance regionally, he persisted in backing violent factions on the Palestinian scene, sponsoring some of the most notorious terrorist acts than offering to "weigh on resistance movements" for a variable price. If Syria's stature in the Arab region did not collapse completely, it was largely due to the efforts of elder statesmen, notably Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, weary of the breakdown of the Arab political order in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein. Bashar himself did little to promote his own case in that order. He traded the older Assad's Iranian-Saudi balancing act with a more determined alliance with the clerical regime in Tehran. His major blunder, however, was to waste the "model occupation" that his father had carefully crafted in Lebanon through an intricate divide-and-rule approach, by applying instead onto the Lebanese theater his newly sharpened dictatorial skills.

Khaddam, as a dissident and former aid to authoritarian rulers, has one main message: Bashar is inept as a dictator. Exposed by an insider, Bashar will react. The actions of his regime in Lebanon, both before the military withdrawal and since, are a sample for a modus operandi that the young ruler of Damascus will expand and amplify. His "allies" in Lebanon have already been given orders to intensify the political crisis towards chaos. Terrorist actions in Iraq, Israel, and the Palestinian territories will proliferate, in the hope that powers, both regional and international, will recognize that Syria is indispensable for peace and stability in the region. And indeed it is. Its inept dictator, however, is not.

Harvard-educated Lebanese activist, Hassan Mneimneh, is a member of Benador Associates. Mr. Mneimneh just returned from Lebanon.

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