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Til Death do us Apart

Syria and Iran: Bros Before Foes

According to Syrian lore, former President Hafez al-Assad often told his young son Bashar that he could always rely on the Iranians, but never other Arab leaders. Indeed, almost all of Syria’s Arab neighbors have now deserted it. Egypt has withdrawn its ambassador, while a UN General Assembly resolution introduced by Saudi Arabia supporting the Arab League plan for a transfer of power passed with an overwhelming 137-12 vote.

Yet Iranian support appears to be unwavering. After rejecting the General Assembly resolution, Tehran sent an Iranian warship through the Red Sea this week, which docked at the Syrian port city of Tartus, although the Pentagon disputes the actual docking. This is not the first instance of Iranian military might being flexed in Syria: Iran signed a deal with Damascus in August 2011 to fund a multi-million-dollar military base in the coastal town of Latakia. More recently, Syrian rebel fighters have accused Iran of sending these captured men to fight on the side of the Assad regime. Amidst the seeming endless carnage, most apparent in the besieged city of Homs, Tehran has positioned its Syria policy around issues of regional and global influence. While Iran has continued to decry the violence in Bahrain, Tehran is clearly concerned that the ongoing uprising in Syria is harmful to their regional standing. The Iranian foreign Minister was quoted by the Syrian state news agency Tuesday as noting that “what is happening in Syria serves the best interests of Israel and weakens the Resistance.”  Indeed, the Syrian blind spot on Iran’s framing of the regional protests as the “Islamic Awakening” was brought to the forefront at a recent conference in Tehran.

For the US and Israel, the Iranian nuclear program appears to loom over any proposed Syria policy.  US Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain announced their support this week for arming the Syrian rebels. Their justification for doing so? Not the end of the violence, but the downfall of an Iranian proxy: “Breaking Syria apart from Iran could be as important to containing a nuclear Iran as sanctions,” Graham said. While Israel is afraid of the possibility of its northern neighbor becoming a hotbed of terrorist activity, in the words of Dan Meridor, Israel’s intelligence minister, “if the unholy alliance of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah can be broken, that is very positive.” Doing so could also force the regime to suspend its nuclear program, other Israelis argue. Hovering on the minds of officials from D.C. to Damascus is the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear targets. Some have noted that the political window of opportunity for a strike is rapidly closing, and could be shut by the November US presidential election (never mind the intelligence about the status of the Iranian program itself). In an effort to quell the war fever, President Obama will host Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on March 5th to discuss Iran. Many have wondered whether the message will be “do not attack Iran,” or “do not attack Iran now.” Meanwhile, residents of Homs continue to die without an end in sight.

A somber situation and a breakout

Protests in Daraa lead to death, concessions… and a Syrian Revolution?

A few weeks ago the SISMEC Weekly Bulletin reported on Syria’s Bashar al-Asad remaining relatively undisturbed by the uprisings taking place throughout the region.  He had endured small-scale demonstrations, largely in solidarity with Egypt and Tunisia, and quickly stepped in to quell protests against police brutality in Damascus.   In response to the regional protests, Bashar told The Wall Street Journal that Arab leaders needed to accommodate the new era descending upon the region, but that Syria was immune to such mass public protests.  It appeared that once these waves had passed all would be quiet again. However, on March 18th after Friday prayer, residents of the Sunni town of Daraa (approximately 100 miles south of Damascus) took to the streets chanting “God, Syria and Freedom” as well as “the people demand the downfall of corruption.”  The impetus for such protests appears to have been residual pro-democracy sentiments mixed with particularly local agricultural and corruption concerns, notably against Bashar’s cousin and Syriatel owner Rami Makhlouf.

Over the course of the past week thousands have continued to take to the streets in Daraa, increasing in numbers each day in response to the use of force, ranging from water cannon to live ammunition.  Yet early morning March 23rd marked a new apex in the use of force.  Syrian troops—reportedly a unit under the control of Bashar’s brother Maher—opened fire on the Omari Mosque, which had become the heart of demonstrations and triage since the beginning of the protests.  The death toll from the Omari Mosque is reported from 37 to over 100, in addition to at least a dozen from the days prior, and overall hundreds of protesters and activists have been detained.

Yet despite Bashar’s resort to lethal force, he appears to have implemented some sort of hybrid containment policy for the demonstrations in Daraa. In addition to troops surrounding the city and increased security presence within the city, he has commissioned a package of concessions aimed at placating the protesters. These include releasing the children whose arrest for pro-democracy graffiti sparked the protests as well as the removal of the governor of Daraa and the release of those detained in the city over the course of the protests.  Most recently, Syrian government spokeswoman and advisor to Bashar, Buthaina Shaaban, discussed efforts to “study” the lifting of the state of emergency law under which Syria has been operating since 1963, allow political parties, free up the media and increase pay and health care for government employees. Interestingly, unlike the anti-regime demonstrations elsewhere in the region, those in Syria have largely refrained from seeking Bashar’s ouster, instead calling for an end to corruption and increased economic reform.  Yet one may ask whether this is too little, too late and whether Bashar’s overtures to this new era in the region could possibly
overshadow the devastating use of violent force against the protesters.

UPDATE: Friday, March 25th seems to be Syria’s breakout day.  The rallying cry that fills the mosques and streets of major cities and small towns all over Syria is “with our souls and with our blood we will redeem Daraa.” Casualties are mounting and unrest has spilled over into Damascus with clashes occurring between Daraa supporters and pro-regime groups in front of the Umayyad Mosque.  The presence of both Bashar supporters and those displaying solidarity with Daraa in streets across the country is a common occurrence.  However, some of the protesters now appear to be calling for the ouster of Bashar as portrayed in graffiti using the slogan “your turn has come, doctor.”

How a terminal illness spared the regime

Syrian regime stabilized by…pulmonary fibrosis?



Despite Facebook calls for “days of rage” and imploding mansions of hereditary presidencies in the neighborhood, Syria’s Bashar al-Asad has remained largely unscathed in his Damascus abode.  The man some pejoratively call “the Doctor” (a reference to his training as an ophthalmologist and perceived hasty insertion into Syrian politics after the death of his older brother, Basil) succeeded his father Hafez al-Asad after the latter’s death of pulmonary fibrosis in 2000 at the age of seventy.  Could it be that had Hafez lived to see his late 70s or 80s—as has Egypt’s Mubarak—the Asad republican dynasty would be on the same chopping block as that of the Mubaraks, the Qadafis and the Salehs?  Or is there something coincidental about pulmonary fibrosis taking the man’s life just as he reached 30 years of rule (Ben Ali, 24; Mubarak, 30; Qadafi, 42)?



In reality, it’s a broader combination of factors, ranging from the security apparatus to the economic situation to Bashar’s anti-Israel and anti-West posture…simply put, the Syrians just don’t hate him as much as those who have fallen or are falling.  Yet the fact that Hafez’s death passed the torch more than a decade prior to the events of the past few months is significant.  As a result, Bashar was able to settle into his office at the ripe old age of thirty-four, marry an eminently capable and gorgeous woman ten years his junior and establish his regime as one of relative youth with untapped potential.  During his first decade in power, he has maintained the pillars of his father’s legitimacy while implementing gradual economic and political reforms, many of which have lessened the severity of anti-regime dissent.  Against this backdrop, it appears as though the untimely death of the Lion of Damascus may, in fact, have been at the opportune time to stabilize his familial legacy as the only hereditary presidency on the block.