WASHINGTON — At face value, the Kofi Annan plan for Syria — aimed at ending the bloodshed and potentially initiating a political solution for the 13-month-old uprising and crackdown — has succeeded in “engaging” the Bashar al-Assad regime. Damascus has pledged cooperation, even while it has yet to abide by any of its terms. A process is thus presumably in place to either ensure compliance and usher a new phase of peaceful deliberations out of the quagmire in Syria, or to convince international skeptics (Russia, China) that more forceful measures are necessary.

A cynical, albeit unfortunately popular, way of assessing these “successful” first steps is that the Annan plan merely provides an unwilling and/or incapable West with a thin cover of rhetoric consistency while allowing the regime to pursue its brutal attempts at a military solution, backed by the logistic and strategic support of Russia and Iran. A more charitable reading may point to the fact that the options available for Washington and other Western capitals are severely limited. A course that establishes a baseline of international legitimacy for forceful intervention down the line may be deficient, but is arguably the sole path currently available. However, such an assessment ignores the longer-term implications.

In its over-reaction to the early protests in its southern city of Dar’a in March of last year, the Syrian regime may have transformed what could have been a limited call for reform of the administrative and security systems into an anti-regime uprising. While clearly cognizant of the poor choices made by his fellow dictators in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, and emboldened by the material support provided by his Iranian allies who successfully survived a protest movement in 2009, Assad was still unequipped to counter the broad-based and largely peaceful uprising that was challenging his regime. His brute force approach is better suited for responding to a factional violent rebellion. His strategy has been a self-fulfilling prophesy — by treating the peaceful challengers as violent rebels, he has turned many of them into exactly that, which he then uses to justify the brute force.

Sadly, this “radicalize and eradicate” strategy has shown some degree of success ― mainly the “radicalize” part. Months of regime brutality have changed the inclusive peaceful face of the Syrian revolution into a more militant, more ideologically charged one. Still, despite repeated attempts by the regime to strike the revolutionary hotbeds, the battles rage on. In the calculations of some regional and international stakeholders (including Iraq, Egypt, and arguably China), the survival of the regime is thus recast as the lesser of the two evils that haunt Syria’s future. While committed to holding the regime accountable for its crimes, the Western alliance itself seems to be seeking assurances from the Syrian opposition that actual measures will be effective in countering the dire future predicted by such cautious observers.

Realistically, such assurances are of increasingly lesser value. The credibility of the Syrian political opposition in exile is severely strained by its inability so far to deliver any concrete result to the uprising. Protesters have been loudly demanding a modicum of international protection for months. The apparent futility of the Annan mission is further recycled into a narrative of abandonment and, with more frequency, of complicity in an attempt to defeat the revolution. The Annan mission allocates months for an observer effort, when non-compliance is a foregone conclusion, and further time for negotiations at the Security Council, where Russia’s steadfast support for the Assad regime would pre-empt any meaningful measure. This strategy is characterized in the Arab press as a means to ensure that no Syrian operation would disrupt the U.S. electoral process, even at the cost of an eroding future for Syria.

Ill-will interpretations notwithstanding, the regime’s treatment is causing considerable damage to the opposition. The civil revolution of the Syrian people is salvageable, but the odds of a positive outcome are receding with time, and will be long depleted by the end of the time frame laid out by the Annan mission. For what would be miniscule gains in confirming the regime’s already proven deceit, there is certain to be a severe disruption of the regional order, with Syria plunging into murderous chaos and serving as a base for destabilization well beyond its borders.

This foreseeable calamity is too grave to wait for an indeterminate solution. With the territory held by the rebels evaporating in front of disproportionate attacks by regime forces, some elements for bold action in Syria have already been lost. Yet, this regime — which survives largely by promoting the perception of having maneuvered out of the risk of collapsing — was (and still is?) susceptible to crumbling when faced with serious international resolve. The Annan mission has sent exactly the opposite message.

Hassan Mneimneh is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund in Washington.

WASHINGTON—Both the Friends of Syria meeting held last week in Istanbul (which continued a pattern of indecisive commitments toward the Syrian uprising) and the Arab Summit held in Baghdad shortly before (which barely masked regional disagreement about Damascus) underlined the importance of a re-energized role for Turkey in an escalating crisis that risks spinning out of control. Deferring to the United States’ more cautious approach, and seemingly lacking a comprehensive approach toward its southern neighbor, Turkey has visibly retreated from its initially bold and assertive stand on the brutal crackdown of the Syrian regime. By contrast, Moscow and Tehran are displaying none of the hesitation that characterizes the positions of Washington and Ankara. Russia has provided a robust diplomatic cover for the Syrian regime to pursue repressive measures with impunity, while Iran continues to supply the Assad government with the technical and logistic support to complete its crackdown. Still, such an imbalance notwithstanding, the regime is yet to prevail against what is a deeply rooted and widespread uprising.

In Istanbul, the Syrian opposition made symbolic gains in terms of international recognition. It was, however, unable to secure a consensus, even among its supporters, on the need for material support. While U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton underlined that U.S. support to the uprising would be limited to humanitarian aid, her Saudi counterpart, Foreign Minister Sa’ud al-Faisal, reiterated his call and intent to arm the rebels. These divergent and potentially conflicting policies were presented as complementary approaches, to the dismay of opposition activists. In opting for the studious incremental approach, the Obama administration is obviously concerned about the shape of a post-Assad Syria. The fractured opposition may indeed prove incapable of containing the descent into chaos. Many in the Arab world, on the other hand, are convinced that the gravity of the Syrian situation will only be exacerbated by a delay in the fall of the regime.

Probably, no one has a higher stake in ensuring that the Syrian hinterland is not transformed into a Yemen-style haven for terrorism than Turkey. Reconciling diverging policies ― avoiding a reckless flow of arms to the rebels on one hand, and being a helpless bystander to the ongoing massacres by the regime’s forces on the other ― will present a true test of Turkish leadership in the region. While Turkey has so far presented goodwill, promises, and many memorable sound bites, it has yet to deliver concrete value. As an institutional democracy, a successful economy, a civil state that has been able to recalibrate the role of the military, a polity that has endeavored to conform to EU standards, and, perhaps most importantly, a trusted interlocutor of Israel, Turkey offers valuable resources to many of its Arab neighbors. In engaging the Arab world, however, Turkey seemed at times eager to emulate the Iranian model instead of capitalizing on its considerable assets.

There may be some dividends, both domestic and regional, from Ankara’s altercations with Israel, which itself has been less-than-determined to diffuse tensions with Turkey. It is evident, however, that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan cannot replicate the populism of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in appealing to reflexive anti-Israel sentiments in the region, nor should he. Turkey’s ability to engage Israel is far more valuable for all stakeholders.

Even more dramatically, Turkey has allowed itself to mirror the Iranian protectionist approach to Arab Shi’a communities by acting as a presumed defender of supposedly Sunni interests. This is visible in the relations between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and some Arab Islamist formations, to the detriment of Turkey’s real constituents in the region: non-ideological forces for whom Turkey represents a plausible reconciliation of values and progress. It is even more acute in Turkey’s failure to preserve its political credit with the Iraqi government, which had hoped that Ankara would balance the disturbing influence of Tehran, resulting in accusations that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was targeting and alienating Sunnis. Turkey’s association with the supposed Sunni cause has only further limited its policy toward Syria.

For its own interest and benefit, and those of the region, Turkey is best served by assuming a leadership role on the Syrian issue, mediating transatlantic and Arab approaches, harmonizing policies, and managing expectations. Its unique relations with both Iran and Russia may be leveraged to forge a shared understanding of the Syria challenge that separates the inevitable regime change in Damascus from the macro-conflicts pitting both Moscow and Tehran against the West. For Turkey to be the steady hand in the Middle East region, it has to practice a kind of politics not common in the region, marked by productive realism rather than populism. Restoring its engagement with Iraq may be the prerequisite. Devising, leading, and implementing a strategy for Syria may be the real test.

Hassan Mneimneh is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund in Washington DC.

WASHINGTON—The Bashar al-Assad regime’s handling of the Syrian uprising may not ensure the survival of the Damascus government, but it seems set on destroying any prospects for a soft landing from the current crisis. A weakened, failed Syria would be a severe strategic threat for the regional and international orders. While the diplomatic course has proven futile, moral and political clarity on the part of the transatlantic alliance may require some operational ambiguity.

The Syrian regime seems determined to replicate its previous success in crushing insurgents. For weeks in 1982, the Syrian military shelled the rebellious city of Hama before storming it and subjecting its population to atrocities. Damascus privately acknowledged its excesses but publicly congratulated itself that the blunt show of force had averted a more costly civil war. In fact, the “Hama Doctrine” — the use of overwhelming brutal force to ensure submission — has been a fundamental element of the regime’s behavior, both in the internal repression of its subject population and in the course of its 1976-2005 occupation of Lebanon.

So when the Arab Spring-inspired demonstrations erupted in March 2011, the natural inclination of the Syrian regime was to repress them with decisive force. But, unlike in 1982, there were restraints. The international community was now better informed of the regime’s actions, and it was capable of taking forceful corrective measures. The specter of a Libya-style operation haunted Damascus and prompted it to use a more nuanced low-intensity, high-impact approach. The death toll has consequently remained below the threshold that might necessitate international action, while the atrocities — which include torture, mutilations, and rape — have been conducted in a manner that enables plausible deniability. Despite some protestations to the contrary, these atrocities are not incidental or mistakes but are an integral part of the regime’s modus operandi.

The February 4 Russian veto at the UN Security Council, which shielded Damascus, and the repeated ill-advised assurances from the transatlantic leadership that no use of force is being contemplated, have emboldened the regime to revert to its classic Hama Doctrine, ushering in the past weeks a new phase of high-intensity, high-impact crackdown. The city of Homs has suffered an all-out military siege, assault, and abuse of its population, and the northern city of Idlib is slated for a similar fate.

Yet, countless victims and unspeakable atrocities later, the al-Assad regime’s grip on the country has not been restored. The uprising is taking new forms, both peaceful and violent, but continues unabated. This is an existential impasse for the regime. Basing its gravitas on the use of overwhelming repressive force, any relenting on its part is a prelude to defeat. Its decision to seek a military solution may be futile but is unavoidable. Welcoming international mediators is an insincere gesture through which the regime gains more time to pursue its repression. Exposing the regime, rather than enabling it to continue its lethal charade, must be a priority for the transatlantic allies and recognizing the Syrian National Council as a legitimate representative of the Syrian people is an important step toward achieving that goal.

The current trajectory seems to be that the regime will inflict upon Syria a prolonged agony before its inevitable departure, leaving it as a quasi-failed state, with deepened factional fault lines. A Yemen-like — or even Somalia-like — future for Syria is avoidable only through concerted international actions today. With the cynicism demonstrated by Russia and China, it is incumbent upon the transatlantic alliance to assume the moral and political leadership. The Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council have displayed an unusual level of commitment to a central role in many of the facets of this complex issue.

As the regional organization with established international legitimacy, the Arab League decision to ostracize the Syrian regime and support the rebels could be strengthened to provide the necessary mandate for actions extending all the way up to a Kosovo-style intervention. Transatlantic powers may not need to heed the call of Syrian rebels pleading for air strikes, but the propensity to declare direct military action a non-option ought to be curbed. Simply put, when it felt that it was under threat, the regime killed less. Political banter in Washington, London, and Paris costs lives in Homs, Dara’a, and Zabadani. The fear of punitive strikes in retribution to crimes against humanity ought to be restored as a regime consideration. No-fly zones, humanitarian corridors, and arming the rebels are complicated actions, particularly when contemplated outside of a UNSC-approved structure. The political cost to pay for such actions is, however, minimal when compared to the implications of a failed Syria.

Hassan Mneimneh is Senior Transatlantic Fellow for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Islamic World at the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington.

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WASHINGTON – When it began last March, the Syrian revolution appeared to be a textbook example for a peaceful uprising by a people united against state brutality. For weeks, videos documented the determination of the mostly youthful protesters, chanting their demands for freedom and political participation only to be faced with bullets, arrests, torture, and execution.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad reacted with a series of gestures whose insincerity was swiftly revealed. A few hundred prisoners were released while thousands more were arrested, with many dying in custody. The decades-old state of emergency was lifted but the regime, in the name of a “security solution,” went on ruthlessly crushing the protests.

Publicly, the Syrian government asserts that “foreign powers” are instigating an insurgency in Syria to punish it for its support of what it calls the anti-Israel “resistance.” In private meetings with non-Sunni regional leaders, the regime promotes the notion that this is also a conflict between a “hegemonic Sunnism” (about three-fourths of Syrians are Sunni) and historically persecuted minorities. But support for the revolution cuts across all socio-economic strata and ethnic or religious groups. Conversely, the Assad regime has resorted to the Alawi community (approximately one-eighth of the population) as a primary pool for support; still, it neither encompasses this community in its totality, nor is limited to it.

The Syrian revolutionaries’ commitment to nonviolence was premised on expectations that they would be able to divide the security apparatus through insubordination and defections and that the world community would act to stop the massacres. Neither expectation was realized.

The revolutionaries have underestimated the ability of the regime to leverage ethnic and religious community cleavages. Recruits from the Alawi community are playing a key role in the repression. Defections are happening, but remain at about 10 percent of the military. The defectors, with no unified leadership, are unable to defeat the regime, but are used by it as proof of being engaged in combating “armed gangs.”

Even more dramatically, the international community was unable to provide the revolutionaries the support they needed. Most observers remain wary as to the implications of regime change in Syria, and indeed the revolutionaries have yet to offer a convincing post-Assad scenario to alleviate these concerns (including those of the regime’s internal constituencies). The Arab League was able to overcome substantial differences between its members on ways to manage the Syrian crisis, but as a result provided a watered-down plan that failed to satisfy the revolutionaries, and was still rejected by the regime. Meanwhile, the transatlantic alliance, the sole plausible agency for decisive support, is hamstrung by the economic crisis and a sharp decline in public tolerance for military interventions. Many strategists compare the case for Western intervention in Syria unfavorably with Libya: the latter, they argue, was “low-risk and high-reward,” whereas the former is precisely the reverse. Finally, Assad continues to be of significant value for both Iran and Russia.

All this has emboldened the Syrian regime; it is asserting that it will regain its international standing once its “security solution” is complete. Yet, with all its lethal superiority, it has been unable to achieve military victory. It has, however, managed to seriously undermine the revolutionaries’ initial commitment to nonviolence and inclusiveness. Against the protestations of many militants, the Syrian revolution has in large part become an armed uprising. This in turn allows the regime to “expose” the revolution as a violent sectarian insurgency, in order to justify resorting to even harsher measures, including arguably engineering violent sectarianism. The Assad regime’s actions may not secure its survival, but they will ensure the unraveling of Syria as a nation-state, with deadly repercussions across the region.

Russia and China’s veto of the latest UN Security Council resolution amounts to a green light for the escalation of the Syrian regime’s homicidal campaign — or, in the words of Qatar’s foreign minister, “a license to kill.”

The only way to stop Syria from sliding into an abyss now is for the transatlantic alliance to assert moral and political leadership. The Arab League’s original plan — that Assad should delegate his authority to a deputy ­­— had succeeded in trimming the demands of the rebels to yet another token action, but still ran afoul of concerted opposition by Russia and China. The League should now be encouraged to propose a bolder, more principled plan to serve as a baseline.

Obviously, it would be preferable to see this conflict addressed at the highest levels of the United Nations, but given the entrenched positions of Moscow and Beijing, that is unlikely. However, the Arab League’s position would also provide a mandate on its own for the transatlantic alliance to investigate next steps. It would also be worth preserving silence as to which steps are would be categorically excluded since the Syrian regime’s killing machine has been reinvigorated by statements of restraint from Washington.

The Assad family’s decades-long stranglehold on power has been largely based on a fear-instilling aura of power. The Syrian revolutionaries have broken through the wall of fear. Their ultimate success depends on denying the regime the ability to re-erect it. They will not be able to succeed without Western help. 

Hassan Mneimneh is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund in Washington, DC.

Image by Syria Press. 

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WASHINGTON—December 17 marks the first anniversary of a desperate act of self-immolation in Tunisia, which sparked a series of uprisings across the Arabic-speaking world, toppling three regimes, threatening to topple at least two others, and prompting several governments to take unprecedented measures to address popular dissatisfaction. But one year on, there is still widespread disagreement about the nature of the events, their implications, and even what to call them. Indeed, internal and external observers of many stripes — optimists, pessimists, realists, and outright romantics — all feel vindicated by the past year’s developments. Their perceptions and their consequent actions will continue to color the eventual outcome of the “Arab Spring” (as it is still widely referred to in the West). Whatever their preconceptions, observers confront three emerging cleavages in the Arab world: ideological, political, and generational.

The most obvious effect of the Arab Spring has been the recasting of the primary ideological fault line in Arab political culture as between Islamists and liberals, with both camps severely fragmented. The discourse and slogans of the uprisings were indeed non-Islamist, focusing on concrete issues such as representation, corruption, and employment and framed by universal values such as freedom, empowerment, and dignity. Yet, elections in Tunisia and Egypt have handed power to Islamists. The Arab Spring can therefore be framed either as a smartly orchestrated Islamist maneuver utilizing popular action instead of militancy or a result of the dearth of credible alternatives that anticipates the consolidation and institutionalization of liberal political movements. While the poor showing of liberal groups in both the Tunisian and Egyptian elections may have caused disappointment, the fact that they now constitute a sizable legislative minority is itself a considerable development. The Islamists have the benefit of decades of organization, but the Arab Spring constitutes the first significant instance of modern organized Islamism moving from radical to less radical postures. The will of the people is an uncontested principle in the post-Arab Spring era.

Yet if shifts in ideological principles are to translate into democratic values, more deep changes in political cultures will be necessary. A cardinal feature of Arab societies is that they remain largely patriarchal, prone to acknowledging the authority of rulers and expecting an element of paternalistic care in return. But the Arab Spring has deeply shaken the foundations of political paternalism. Even the most entrenched of monarchies have begun to promise reforms in representation and governance. The creation of a democratic culture is a function of civil institutions holding governments accountable for their promises, a role that eager civil society movements across the Arab world are poised to assume. The judicious engagement of the liberal factions of the Arab civil society movement by their international counterparts has become even more urgent than before.

The deepest of the cleavages affecting the wide Arab world is neither ideological nor political, but generational. The demographic youth bulge and the refusal of oligarchs to surrender their control over resources were the actual impetuses of the Arab Spring. Even before the Arab Spring, multiple youth cultures had begun to challenge political paternalism. While some young people in the Arab world indulged in Western-style consumerist pop culture, radical Islamism was also built upon the frustrations of disaffected youth. The Arab Spring provided youth with an unprecedented opportunity to channel their energy into political movements. It is therefore hard to imagine that the mere replacement of old oligarchs with new Islamist Doppelgängers will consign the Arab world’s youth to escapism or nihilism. As demonstrated by Egypt’s “second revolution” in Tahrir Square, youth activism is bound to remain a major force in the next phase of the political transformations in the Arab world.

Understood in light of these divisions, the recent electoral successes of Islamist parties in the Arab world appear precarious and subject to pressures from multiple sources. Far from being the inevitable outcome that both Islamists and their symbiotic detractors predicted, their successes are the transitory result of evolving conditions. If, however, the Islamists are ultimately successful in consolidating their victories, it would be in no small measure a consequence of the failure of liberals worldwide in helping to level the playing field.

Hassan Mneimneh is Senior Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington DC.

Image by giaitri59.

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WASHINGTON—At first glance, the recent news cycle provides plenty of reasons for skeptics of the Arab Spring to feel vindicated. The killing of Libyan despot Muammar Gaddafi following his capture, and the gruesome display of his body at a meat market in Misrata, expose a disturbing side of a movement that many had been inclined to romanticize. In Tunisia, the clear win of the Islamist party, Ennahda, in the first elections since the start of the region’s uprisings would appear to justify the fear of the Arab Spring turning into a long Islamist winter. And shocking reports of Egypt’s official television network calling on citizens to support security forces during their recent crackdown on peaceful demonstrators — a call that resulted in the brutal massacre of scores of mostly Christian demonstrators and an exacerbation of sectarian tensions — suggest that that country’s transition out of autocracy may not result in an inclusive and pluralistic new order.

The initial euphoria of witnessing the transformation of a region previously dismissed for being exceptionally resistant to representative and accountable governance was bound to be followed by some let-down. However, observers can easily point to reasons for optimism. The generally free and fair Tunisian elections highlighted the political maturity of a society that suffered under decades of uninterrupted autocracy. The massive revenge killings that were feared in Libya have not occurred. Egyptian activists have reacted with renewed vigor to the sectarian killings, forcing authorities to take corrective measures. Optimists could argue that setbacks are incidental to the larger forces shaping what is a truly revolutionary outcome in the region — the end of Arab autocracy.

If both fear and hope drive much of this analysis, it is because the region’s volatility is entirely unprecedented. The Arab Spring has introduced new variables into a strategic context that was always precariously stable, at best. The feared loss of Egypt as a cornerstone of efforts to dampen the Israeli-Palestinian conflict leaves both the United States and Israel scrambling for remedies. The long-standing Saudi-Iranian rivalry may spillover into new arenas, while countries such as Turkey, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates might be inclined to seek local allies in their attempts to safeguard their interests and balance risks. The rulers of Syria and Yemen have been successful so far in fending off regime change, but the price of their ephemeral success is likely to be further decay in the already weak fabric of their societies. The implications of collapse in both cases would be dramatic, with safe havens for terrorists already emerging in the southern Arabian Peninsula, and the Levant promising to become a powder keg of political and communal instability affecting Israel, Turkey, and Iraq.

The dramatic political transformations underway are not a matter of choice. The autocratic lid may have been firm enough to project an illusion of permanence, but it was always clear that repression had to yield to political, economic, and generational grievances that remained largely unaddressed and provided an impetus for the diverse protests that coalesced into the Arab Spring. Obfuscating this original cause has been the primary approach of both autocrats, in their efforts at maintaining their grips on their threatened regimes, and theocrats, in their efforts at appropriating popular mobilization for their ideological goals.

Consequently, the West cannot pretend to be a neutral bystander to the unfolding events. The path to stability in the region will be a long and arduous one, and lending a hand to those forces seeking to address legitimate grievances — whether through sound governance or sustainable development — is necessary. While recognizing their differences, secular, democratic, liberal, and progressive local forces are aware of their limitations and are seeking remedies through networking, mutual collaboration, and international support. However, these groups are often disorganized and face better-resourced opponents, and this has resulted in their slow retreats after their initially successful mobilizations. The West, having gained considerable experience during the post-1989 transitions in Eastern and Central Europe, should not shy away from responding to their urgent needs at both the government and civil society levels. Their success may be the only true antidote to the volatility that threatens to drain the region of its potential and become a serious challenge for the international community.

Hassan Mneimneh is a Senior Transatlantic Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, DC.

Image by The European Parliament.

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