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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 June 2000 Issue No. 487 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 June 2000 Issue No. 487
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Focus Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Syria: Continuity and change
By Mohamed Sid-Ahmed
Following Hafez Al-Assad's death, the Baath Party leadership coined the somewhat disingenuous slogan, "change through continuity," to describe the future course of Syrian politics. The real question is which of the two processes will have the upper hand when it comes to working out a settlement with Israel: continuity or change. In other words, will Bashar display greater flexibility than his late father or will he continue to uphold the same uncompromising line whatever the changing environment? The future of the Middle East peace process will be determined to a very great extent by the answer to this crucial question.
One man who believed he had the answer to the question was Hafez Al-Assad himself, who named Bashar as his heir precisely to ensure that his legacy would live on -- assuming of course that Bashar remains in power and that there are no surprises on that score. In any event, it would be a gross over-simplification to put the late Syrian president's choice of successor down to dynastic ambitions or to explain it in terms of a grand design aimed at transforming the republic into a monarchy or at replacing Syria-s pan-Arab vocation by a tribal society under Alawite domination. A more credible explanation can be found in the unique role thrust on Syria by its status as a major player in a complex regional game marked by virulent conflict throughout the last half century.
Syria's role in the regional equation was defined by a number of watershed events that left a deep imprint on Hafez Al-Assad's thirty-year rule. The first was its defeat in the 1967 war, the second its participation with Egypt in the 1973 war. The outcome of the latter offered Egypt what it did not offer Syria: the chance to engage in peace negotiations from a position which, though not a clear-cut victory, could certainly not be described as a defeat. Then came the rift between Sadat and Assad following the Egyptian president's visit to Jerusalem, his signing of the Camp David accords and Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.
Assad realised that peace could not be generalised throughout the region as long as Syria refused to be a party to any such arrangement, but he also realised that a new war against Israel was not an option without Egypt's participation. However, if Sadat was placing all his bets on the Americans, openly stating that "all the cards are in their hands," he, Assad, could foil that strategy by using the Soviet card. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the only card left to Assad was the fact that no comprehensive settlement could be reached without Syria's participation. This was the card he used to refuse any settlement that would not restore to Syria what had been restored to Egypt, namely, every inch of territory lost to Israel in 1967. For Assad, this entailed an Israeli withdrawal up to the 4 June 1967 borders.
The problem with making the 4 June borders the frame of reference is that there is no agreement on where these borders lie, no maps accepted by the two sides delineating their exact position. Because of the ambiguity surrounding the situation, Damascus has been unable to take advantage of what has come to be known as "Rabin's deposit" (a document presented by the late Israeli prime minister to Clinton indicating his agreement in principle to Assad's demand for an Israeli pullout to the 4 June 1967 borders -- but without defining what these borders were!) If Hafez Al-Assad with all his authority, stature and clout was unable to dispel the ambiguity, can the untried Bashar hope to do so without being accused of capitulation?
In trying to explain the lack of progress on the Syrian-Israeli track, Western analysts are divided into two schools. The members of the first school attribute the impasse to technical reasons and believe that it is not impossible, with a little imagination and creativity, to come up with a formula that would respond to the irreducible requirements of the two sides (what is described in the Theory of Games as a non-zero sum game plus in which all the players win). In the view of this school, the more successful Bashar is in ensuring stability on the home front, the better his chances of breaking away from his father's hard line and accepting the 'creative way out' that experts and middlemen will eventually devise.
For members of the second school, whose most prominent spokesman is the far-right American analyst, Daniel Pipes, the impasse is due to ideological reasons. They believe Hafez Al-Assad never wanted peace, that he remained committed to pan-Arab nationalism, an ideology for which the conflict is over Israel's very existence not over where its borders should be, and that Syria's participation in the peace process was a smokescreen, a tactical manouevre aimed at delaying any settlement and sabotaging Western efforts to bring it about. According to this school, however creative and imaginative the solutions proposed, there can be no breakthrough on the Syrian-Israeli track unless Syria's new ruler, Bashar or otherwise, makes a U-turn in Syria's basic policy line.
Which takes us back to the change or continuity conundrum. It is hard to see how Bashar can depart radically from his father's line, even if he wants to. There are many constraints on him, not least the fact that Hafez Al-Assad resorted to a constitutional coup to ensure that his son would become the custodian of his political legacy, at the expense of the old guard in the party and state apparatus. Accordingly, Bashar's legitimacy as head of state derives from his commitment to that legacy, in other words, from his ability to maintain continuity. It is said that before his death Hafez Al-Assad acted to ensure that key positions in the state apparatus were filled by men loyal to his heir designate. According to the late Syrian president's approved biographer, British author and journalist Patrick Seale, Bashar has already consolidated his position in the leading echelons of the army, party and state, as well as in his family's Alawite community (which represents 13 per cent of the population in a predominantly Sunni Muslim country).
It is rumored that the old guard complained to Hafez Al-Assad about his choice of successor, arguing that Bashar was too inexperienced for the job, and that Bashar fought back by accusing prominent members of the old guard of corruption. At the head of the list was Mahmoud Al-Zoghbi, prime minister of Syria for 13 years, who was driven into committing suicide. According to Patrick Seale the present prime minister, Mohamed Mustafa Miro, is a Bashar man. Syria's vice president Abdel Halim Khaddam and the head of its intelligence agency, Ali Douba, have been marginalised, while Hikmat Al-Shehabi, the strong man in the military establishment, left Syria to the United States a few days before Assad's death, allegedly to avoid standing trial for corruption. These facts lead Seale to conclude that Bashar's takeover will not face serious obstacles, a conclusion that seems to have been confirmed by his unanimous nomination as the Baath Party's presidential candidate at its congress this week.
But consolidating Bashar's authority need not necessarily mean consecrating continuity at the expense of change. Nor is it expected that the old guard would confront Bashar from the standpoint of change at the expense of continuity. The opposite is more likely. Polarization that could eventually occur as a consequence of a showdown between Bashar and the old guard (supported or not by his uncle, Rifaat) is an incentive for Bashar to introduce at least a degree of change.
The most likely field for change which would not collide openly with Hafez Al-Assad's policies is in the field of economics, where Bashar is expected to embark on a policy of economic reform aimed at attracting investment by promoting the role of the private sector, streamlining government bureaucracy and combating widespread graft and corruption. This would also help create a new type of relationship with Lebanon in which the economy will replace Syria's military presence in the Lebanese Beqaa as the key element.
But if Bashar faces constraints when it comes to change, he also faces constraints in respect of continuity. One of the most important is that in the age of globalisation there is no future for a policy in the Middle East based on acute polarization, and that Syria will have to reach some form of settlement with Israel sooner or later. One indication of a possible softening of Syria's hard line is the close relationship that has developed between Bashar Al-Assad and King Abdullah II of Jordan, in contradistinction to the often strained relations that existed between their fathers.
Bashar's upbringing is very different from his father's. He is neither a product of the military nor of the party establishments. An ophthalmologist by training, he is part of Syria's civil society. Contrary to his father who travelled very rarely and spoke only Arabic, Bashar is fluent in English and French. During a two-year stint in England for his internship, he developed an admiration for democracy and has affirmed his commitment to human rights. A computer fan, he is very interested in information technology and, as such, feels related to the globalisation process. These factors make it difficult for a person like his uncle Rifaat to challenge his legitimacy. If Bashar succeeds in his first test, which is to overcome the challenge of the old guard -- certainly no easy task -- no other obstacle is likely to stand in the way of coming up with an innovative formula that would save the face of all parties and ensure some type of settlement with Israel.
