Misreading Syrian signals
Threats to Damascus are self-defeating, if their real objective is political reform, warns Anders Strindberg*
Syrian domestic reform is a longstanding national project and not, as several US policymakers and commentators have recently alleged, a product of the Middle East's new strategic environment or a sudden response to Washington's demands for change. Recognition of this fact is important. The threat of US military force, far from being a panacea for the region's democratic deficit, may well discourage or even reverse reformist efforts.
Bashar Al-Asad, according to those who know him, nurtured plans for socioeconomic reform well before becoming Syria's president in July 2000. The radical liberalisation of Syrian civil society during the first few months of his presidency -- often referred to as "the Damascus spring" -- saw the introduction of a range of new investment and banking laws. New technologies were promoted. Internet cafés went from one in all of Damascus to one on almost every street. Travel and trade was made easier and the citizens' margin of political freedom increased drastically.
A number of developments combined to stall these developments. The outbreak of the Palestinian uprising in October 2000 led to a regional political crisis that impacted all neighbouring countries, including Syria, which is home to about half a million Palestinian refugees. The government came to believe that, as one senior Syrian official said, "the present political climate is seriously inhospitable to reform [because] reform requires stability." Moreover, the government realised that the way in which it responded to increasingly impatient demands for full democratisation would determine its ability to keep radical Islamists out of politics. The terror and tragedy of the Muslim Brotherhood's armed insurrection in the late 1970s and early 1980s still haunt Syrian society, and the staunchly secular government remains loath to give Islamists a place in national politics.
The government decided to hit the brakes in December 2000. It did not stop the reform process entirely, however, and it has been quietly inching forward ever since. An unambiguously reformist government was appointed in 2001 and the ruling Ba'ath Party saw significant internal reform in 2002. The civil service was given an overhaul -- among other things, a statutory retirement age of 65 was introduced -- and the presidential task force against corruption and mismanagement has continued its daunting battle. Such steps were intended, according to one Syrian official, to "change things by steps, not leaps". They clearly had the added benefit of removing recalcitrant elements from the political system.
The idea that the invasion of Iraq in combination with direct threats against Damascus has somehow generated Syrian reform thus disregards recent history. The illusion it creates in turn suggests that the threat of military force is an effective way of jolting third world countries in general, and Middle Eastern ones in particular, into whatever action Washington wants them to take. This is not the lesson to be learnt from the Syrian case.
Despite -- not thanks to -- Washington's intense pressure, the consensus among Syrian policymakers is that their country needs more constructive interaction with the West, including the US. This, in turn, would stimulate further reform. But if Syria is repeatedly faced with calls for compliance rather than dialogue, attitudes in Damascus may change.
"We will not respond to demands," warned Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq Al- Shara' ahead of Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to Damascus in early May. In a region where notions of dignity and honour occupy a central role in public affairs, Syrian policymakers cannot afford, and will not permit the perception that domestic reform is a product of US dictates -- especially at a time when anti- Americanism is soaring throughout the region. Too many threats from Washington may eventually cause the Syrian government to respond by suspending the reform process; bracing themselves for US wrath rather than risk being seen as dancing to Washington's tune.
Damascus has a history of such behaviour, long disregarded by Western analysts as irrational intransigence. But public perceptions of dignity and honour are primary wellsprings of the Syrian government's domestic and regional legitimacy. Now, as many times before, it may therefore make long-term political sense for it to choose "dignified confrontation" over the "safety of humiliation". Washington's continued failure to take this dynamic seriously may have dire consequences.
* The writer, formerly a visiting Professor at Damascus University, is a correspondent for Jane's Intelligence Review and a visiting fellow in the Centre of International Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.
