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| Joret al-Sheyyah, Homs |
The added
value of this brilliant think piece, which I paraphrased from Arabic, is that its author is
Ibrahim al-Amin, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Beirut daily al-Akhbar, which is
close to Syria and Hezbollah
So far, the Arabs’ enemies have succeeded in
pummeling Syria.
The regime’s durability does not at all mean survival
of the state.
The Syrian army today is the regime’s cornerstone. But
the Baath Party, civil institutions and public supporters are all now engaged
in parochial power struggles.
The historical clout of Syrian state authority has
been severely undermined. Security services risk becoming sluggish and passé.
Blood that is being shed day after day deepens the schism. The result: a sharp
dip in stability, a steeper economic slump and an even more acute drop in the
yearning for the state.
This is at the upper layer.
At the base, collective recourse to self-management
instruments benefits opposition forces, chiefly the armed groups that are
sinking roots where the state switched off, the army evaporated and the
loyalists decamped.
Syria’s rural areas were the uprising’s backbone
before becoming the bedrock of its militarization. They now serve as the armed
rebels’ action and planning centers.
These rural areas had uplifted the Baath revolution
decades ago. The late Hafez Assad relied on them to consolidate his rule. They
were the counterbalance that opened the door to a new Syria.
There are scores of understandable or objective
reasons why the rural areas’ share of economic and human growth lagged behind.
Numerous mistakes committed by state authority over the past 20 years
overburdened the rural areas, driving their inhabitants into the poverty belts
surrounding major cities and the scourge of mass unemployment.
Loafers and the collapse of public services over and
above political, security and sectarian hegemony turned the rural areas into
fertile ground for the first popular uprising in Syria since French Occupation
times.
All this is now out of date. The round table meant to
address these problems has been pushed aside. The regime chose the easier
course of blunt repression. The insurgents erred by selling their movement down
the river Syria’ enemies – whether Arab, foreign or global hegemons.
The result was Syria’s descent into a cruel civil
war, where there is no room for reason and where evil and wrath prevail over
all else.
The outcome doesn’t look promising.
Seventeen months after the outbreak of the crisis,
Syrians at home as well as distant observers are back arguing over whose
prognosis was more accurate. Everyone is sarcastically saying: We had
forewarned of what is happening today. But each side then follows up this
phrase with premises and conclusions.
The regime and its supporters reiterate that the
oppositionists in Syria did not discern differences from other Arab countries
and ignored regional and external interests whipping up support for any protest
leading to Syria’s destruction.
The opposition camp in turn reiterates that the
regime disregarded realities on the ground, chose to deny the existence of a
genuinely internal problem and focused its efforts on a security solution that
led to militarization of the popular uprising.
Speaking of disagreements, loyalists call for calm,
urging the opposition to lay down arms, clear the streets and get involved in a
“realistic dialogue” with the regime. As for the oppositionists, they set the
regime leader’s exit as a precondition for a settlement involving his
supporters in and outside government.
In brief, there are no signs of compromise by this or
that side. As foreign interests overlap with the internal faceoff, the bloody
war rages on. Everyone is looking forward to fundamental changes on the ground
that would pave the way for political exchange.
Until then, Syria’s doors remain wide open to all
manners of killings and destructions and to a confrontation so brutal as to
justify the fears of Syria’s allies and enemies for the country’s future.
Meantime on the ground, configuration of borders of
densely- and scarcely-populated mini-states is underway.
The Syria we know is dead. And all the dreams of a
civic state in this sectarian Mashreq perished with it.
Also, not too far from Syria – meaning along its
eastern, western, southern and northern borders – there are states and peoples
paying the price of dispensing with a united Syria.
Iraq is bracing for new sectarian infighting. The
alliance striving to bring down the regime in Syria is seeking to topple the
current regime in Iraq. Even the United States, which won special privileges in
post-Saddam Iraq, is growing closer to Christian Europe’s and the Sunnite
Gulf’s belief that a dismembered Iraq is preferable to one ruled by the Shiites
and dominated by Iran.
Jordan is steeped in a deep internal crisis resulting
from shoddy governance and the state’s reduced chances of fully independent
survival. Jordan is being pulled in opposite directions by two powerful
magnets: one wanting it to decisively throw its lot against the Syrian regime
and the other warning that Syria’s collapse would empower political Islam in
Jordan and breathe new life into the old concept of “Jordan is Palestine.”
Turkey, which boasted being the regime’s heavyweight,
is witnessing an Islamization process that would dispense with the trappings of
civic equality introduced by Ataturk.
Talk of discrimination is already rife among
confessional, sectarian, national and ethnic Turkish minorities. The miserable
adventure of its theoreticians and politicians would force the Justice and
Development Party to tighten its grip on power and thus undermine democracy as
well as pubic and private liberties. Privatization would be the party’s only
recourse to protect the country’s economic growth that would be flattened by
the loss of Syria, Iraq and Iran.
Also, all the restrictions that curbed part of the
PKK’s (Kurdistan Workers Party’s) power would dissipate. Much of Syria’s lands
will provide fertile ground for rebellious Kurds striving for an independent
national identity.
As for troubled Israel, existential questions don’t
leave its mind. Survival of the (Syrian) regime means consolidation of the
anti-Zionist “Axis of Resistance.” The (Syrian) regime’s downfall on the other
hand would expose Israel’s northern front to negative repercussions regardless
of who rules Damascus.
But the bigger problem for Israel today is the loss
of its ability to launch preventive and pre-emptive wars. There are the added
fears of Israel taking a miscalculated step that would see it pay the foremost
and more exorbitant price.
