OPINION — It has been several years since I thought deeply about Syria. And that is a shame, given my long time affection for the Syrian people, whom I grew to know and love after several decades working on Near Eastern issues at CIA. Syria came crashing back for me in full force recently after I watched and wept through the stunning and tragic Syrian civil war documentary “For Sama,” which chronicled the heroism of a Syrian journalist and her family in surviving the apocalyptic destruction in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
In my former professional life, an operations officer moved between countries and even regions quite often, and thus I had not followed Syria with any granularity since around 2015, when I served in CIA’s Near East Division. At one time I was considered quite knowledgable on the internal dynamics of Syria, and particularly on the regime itself. In 2006, I wrote an informal assessment on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for President George W. Bush. His PDB briefer responded later that morning telling me that President Bush greatly appreciated my analysis on a particular crisis we were facing, but had significant trouble pronouncing my last name.
Syria has always held a special place in the hearts of the U.S. national security establishment as well as the United Nations, international aid and development communities. In fact, if you took a poll even today of Near East specialists in the U.S. diplomatic corps as to their favorite locale to have lived and worked in the Arab world, based either on a two or three year posting or even just temporary duty assignments, Syria, without a doubt, would land near or at the top of their list. The smells of spices in the Damascus souk, the famous shwarma at al-Farouk’s restaurant in Malki, pizza at the La Montagne restaurant on Jabal Qasyun overlooking the city of Damascus, and the magical ruins of Palmyra have no doubt been seared into their collective memories.
The dark side of Syria was also never far from their thoughts, with the black leather jacketed thugs on the street corners of Damascus, the rampant corruption that made the Sopranos look tame, and the terrible human rights abuses carried out by the Syrian security services that even under times of relative calm cast a pervasive and omnipresent spell across the country. That is the dichotomy of a Syria that so many loved and detested all at once.
Recently, I began to re-engage with some voices in the Syrian experts community. A prominent activist recently challenged the Twitter-sphere to come up with the most oft-cited “truths” that the Syrian aid community in particular has preached since the start of the uprising in 2011, and to which the world failed to listen to. I relished this intellectual challenge, and while my knowledge on Syria was dated by several years, I responded with the three themes that in fact I began to discuss starting as far back as in 2005, and which I argued until 2015 when I moved on from the Middle East.
These truths are not only relevant in looking at the Assad regime from 2000 until present, but I also contend, will be important to understand in the future. The world must now grapple with Assad still firmly in power, emboldened by Russian and Iranian support, and now in control of over 60 percent of the country. While Assad was ostracized as a war criminal for much of the last eight years, there are now calls for the west to re-engage with the Syrian regime, to include discussion on reconstruction assistance. As such, these three “tiresome” truths on Syria may be as relevant today as they were many years ago:
President Bashar al-Assad will never relinquish “el-Kursee.” Much has been written in the press about the support provided to the Syrian opposition by the United States, several European nations, Turkey, Qatar, Jordan, and the UAE. This was predicated on two concepts. First, that under a best-case scenario Assad could be overthrown with a complete victory by the Syrian opposition. However, as the war dragged on, it became fashionable to claim that the anti-Assad international coalition working with the Syrian opposition could bring Assad to the negotiating table and ultimately force him to surrender power. That latter concept in my view was and always will be total hogwash. Assad learned the brutal power game of middle eastern rule from his father Hafez al-Assad, which was further reinforced by his mother Anisa, sister Bushra, and brother Mahir, even after his father’s death. The concept of dynastic family rule at all costs is ingrained deeply in the al-Assad family, particularly as they see themselves as protecting the Alawite minority. Thus, I have always argued that only the death of Bashar al-Assad would ever cause him to give up “el-Kursee,” or the “chair.” I recall during my time at CIA, several senior Obama Administration officials promulgating the concept of providing just enough military assistance to the Syrian opposition to compel Assad to negotiate in Geneva, and even step down. I found that to be both highly immoral, but also patently misguided as well given the al-Assad family adherence to keeping the throne at all costs. I am confident that on his death bed, Hafez al-Assad passed on such guidance to his son. Never surrender. Never relinquish the throne.
Bashar was not “westernized” by his opthomology studies in the United Kingdom. At CIA, both on the analytic and operational front, there is a fundamental belief in the “goodness” of the western ideal, that any such exposure to the west will have a magical effect on an individual. This belief is inspiring, idealistic, yet patently false. It is a bias that has been proven wrong by autocratic rulers, terrorist masterminds, and yes, by Assad himself, all of whom spent time in the west. This simplistic view argues that Assad - just by exposure to fish and chips and English Premiere League football during his brief tenure studying in the UK - would somehow embrace western style democracy and capitalism when he returned to Syria to take the throne in 2000. Even early on in his tenure, the results of the Damascus Spring—a brief and much publicized political and economic thaw that some had hoped would open Syria to the outside world— proved this wrong. Yes, Bashar “modernized” the Syrian business community by breaking up some state monopolies, but all this did was allow his cronies and relatives — the Makhlouf family primarily—to then dominate key business sectors. Does Assad enjoy computers, playing tennis and driving an Audi? Sure, he does. I recall images of Assad driving Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi in his Audi through the streets of Damascus during the visit of a congressional delegation. Does that mean he has embraced western style democracy, capitalism, and a respect for human rights? Absolutely not.
First Lady Asma al-Akhras is not a moderating influence on the policies of her husband. Nothing could epitomize this belief more than the infamous 2011 Vanity Fair article, which was so roundly panned as it painted the glamorous Asma as “the rose in the desert” even as Assad’s security forces were cracking down on protestors in southern Syria. Yet the puff piece was such a clear reflection of the continued hope and even longing by so many that she would somehow influence her husband to be a true reformer in the region. Akhras’ credentials from the outset seemed impeccable and a model for other Syrian women to emulate. Prior to marrying Assad in 2000, she held UK citizenship, had completed stints at JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank as an investment banker, and earned a spot at the Harvard University business school. Many U.S. officials who served in Damascus in fact saw first-hand the good that she was doing in Syria with her charitable endeavors supporting NGOs to include education and microfinance. Yet ultimately this never prevented any of her husband’s sheer brutality. Assad is responsible for the deaths of over half a million Syrians, has conducted chemical weapons attacks on his own people, and has been rightfully deemed a war criminal by many in the International community. Despite Asma’s charms that had so many in the west both smitten and hopeful that she could make a difference, she has been a major source of disappointment since the Syrian civil war began in 2011.
The Syrian civil war is one of the greatest humanitarian tragedies of our generation. One wonders what the West could have done differently, particularly after the uprising began in 2011. What is clear, is that we have never really succeeded in fully understanding what makes Assad tick. Perhaps his comments in a recent Paris Match interview are most illustrative of his thinking about his historic role as President for life. When asked if he ever considered leaving Syria even during the darkest days of the civil war, he responded “In fact I have not, for a simple reason: the option neither existed nor was it considered, it was only suggested by Western officials. As far as I am concerned, it does not exist and it does not concern me.”
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