Assad’s Moment of Truth in Syria

BEIRUT -- The rolling citizen revolts that have moved throughout much of the Arab world in the past three months have now reared their head inside Syria, and the Syrian government has moved forcefully to stem the wave of protests from spreading throughout the country. Syria is a lynchpin of many relationships and developments around the Middle East, vis-à-vis Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine, Israel, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia especially; so any change in the power structure or policies in Damascus will reverberate around the region like a propelled silver ball in a pinball machine.

President Bashar Assad’s speech Wednesday blaming the recent demonstrations in Syria on foreign conspiratorial hands surprised most observers who expected him to announce changes on the road to “reform.” His defiant tone, in fact, is perfectly in keeping with his own track record of presenting Syria as the guardian of Arab dignity, sovereignty and rights, which he configures in a package of policies and rhetoric that form the endeavor of “resistance.” He did the same thing six years ago when Syria was pressured by a U.S.-led coalition in the wake of the war on Iraq; in a speech at Damascus University then he defiantly rejected the calls and pressures to change Syria’s policies internally and vis-à-vis Lebanon, Hizbullah, Iraq and Iran, and presented Syria as the steadfast anchor of the Arab-Iranian resistance front in the face of Arab, Israeli and Western plots.

He continues this strategy today, when the pressures on him emanate more from domestic discontent in Syria than from foreign pressure. The Syrian accusation that all the troubles inside the country are the result of a foreign plot are unconvincing -- not because foreigners have not plotted against Syria in the past, for they have indeed, but because there is something incrementally less credible with every new Arab government that explains internal demonstrations for more democracy, freedom and non-corrupt governance as the sinister work of foreign plotters. It is unlikely that external conspirators are so skilled at multi-tasking that they can foment citizen rebellions and street demonstrations simultaneously in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria. The hard truth is that citizens of any country will not face the danger of arrest, injury or death only at the instigation of foreign hands.

Syria, in other words, is not immune from the domestic discontent that has triggered serious populist revolts in half a dozen other Arab countries, and the president and his officials who have spoken on the issue more or less acknowledged the reality of the grievances that Syrian citizens express -- or else why would they speak of unmet material needs, slower-than-desired political reforms, top-level Baath Party decisions five and ten years ago to liberalize the political system, the president’s own mentioning of the need to fight corruption and reform the governance system, and the formation of committees this week to examine the emergency law, political pluralism and the recent deaths during street demonstrations in several cities?

Assad’s speeches this week and in recent years allude to the grievances that Syrian citizens express, and also mention the government’s desire to address them, but always in a context that separates and shields government action from citizen activism. As citizen activism and pressure for change increase, the state will have to devise a more credible and productive response than the one that it now offers, which perpetuates its legacy of strong and centralized state control that many of its own citizens are challenging. Many Syrians who demonstrate in support of Assad these days suggest that he has assets that he can deploy in his stated desire to implement needed reforms, but at his own pace, not at the behest of those foreign conspirators or local demonstrators. Syria also has the support of many Arab and foreign governments that do not want to risk the enormous consequences of seeing Syria possibly subjected to the same turmoil that has hit a few other Arab countries in recent months.

The contours of both state control and citizen agitation in Syria are clearer now. The stakes of deep change in Syria are higher than anywhere else in the region, except perhaps in the oil-producing Gulf. Syria’s current response is probably not a realistic long-term strategy, because it will lead to massive police action and repression to smother citizen demands, ongoing conflict as in Yemen or Libya, or regime collapse as happened in Egypt and Tunisia. Assad has to act more decisively and realistically in forging a middle ground between those drastic options, but he has yet to indicate what that might be. His best option is to initiate deep, real reforms in Syria à la Mikhail Gorbachev’s top-down revolution in the Soviet Union, and ride that wave towards a better future for Syria and the entire region. The longer he waits, the foreign conspirators and domestic discontented will only increase and become more ferocious.