| David Shagoury | Republican political analyst | United States |
Re: ‘If you had the choice what would you change in Syria?’
Throughout the developing world, peace and security can be potent elixirs for authoritarian governments to acclimate to increased political reform. Whereas a sense of insecurity can often hamper progress, as fear often breeds stasis. When Bashar Assad assumed power in 2000, US/Syrian relations were well grounded and engaged, and there were no active external threats. This sense of security proved fertile for the new, western educated President’s initial impulse towards greater liberalism, ushering in what was commonly referred to as “the Damascus Spring”. In the wake of factional concerns and increasing external threats, that liberal impulse was suspended. I believe it is no coincidence that current economic reforms are occurring as the regime has successfully passed through the U.S. imposed abyss and has a renewed sense of confidence. If we are truly concerned with the state of conditions for the average Syrian as Condi’s condemnation implies, then our current policy of isolation and destabilization against Syria should be replaced by engagement, and ultimately the very de-facto US/Syrian concordat based on mutual interests both nations had previously enjoyed to their respective benefit. If the aforementioned Syro-American concordat re-emerges, bringing forward peace and stability in the Levant, a more pro-active if less bellicose diplomatic effort on behalf of democratic improvements in the political system in Damascus would be more credible and able to produce results.
Economic liberalization is often an essential precursor for a successful transition to political liberalization. This is an ethos that the Syrian people and their government publicly accept. Syrians have suffered from conflict with Israel, but have also been transgressed by the economic paralysis that inevitably comes from a state dominated economic model that suppresses the vast natural instincts and talents inherent in their culture and evident in their ancient history. The Asaad government understands this and desires to embrace it. The recently passed foreign investment law affirms that understanding. Syrian authorities with success have sought corporate investments from Qatar, India, Britain, Iran and Europe. The new banking liberalization law has allowed private banks to slowly emerge in Syria for the first time since the Baath Party won control of the government almost a half century ago with the governments’ approbation, including attracting Lebanese banks to establish offices in Damascus. Since, despite propaganda to the contrary, the Assad government is neither endemically anti-American, nor even endemically anti-American interests, and since it has always had a prominent occidental orientation including its steadfast and principled embrace and respect of religious freedom and tolerance, we should encourage, or at minimum cease opposing investment and reconstruction of their private (non-military) sector economy as an impetus to enhancing Syria’s western values.
President Assad’s Father assumed power the traditional way in the developing world, via the military. Hafez Assad was a senior military officer who rose to the Presidency in Syria, just as Attaturk did in Turkey, Sadat/Mubarek did in Egypt, and Musharaff did in Pakistan. Unfortunately, Syria seems to have the misfortune of being the only real diplomatic victim of a flawed neo-Wilsonian ideology in current US foreign policy. Aside from the neo-Wilsonians who dominate the White House, those of us who are acolytes of Reagan know that in the developing world, democracy must be viewed as a logical means to a better end, and not THE end itself: and that authoritarian/ military governments often provide the security and stability required to reach a successful, if quite deliberate transition to the emergence of identifiable democratic rights.
The legal or constitutional basis for the virtual cart blanche powers of the Syrian Presidential system is based on the Emergency Law that was passed by the late President Hafez Assad when he won power and assumed the Presidency in the late 60s. The practical basis for the establishment of this Executive Rule was vast and based on the preceding history of post-mandate Syria. Prior to Assad’s ascension, Damascus was the coup capital of the region, suffering through coups and counter – coups. Such a backdrop breeds weakness of institutions at home and a sense of ineptness abroad. Only strong Executive authority with a passionate commitment to a unifying national identity, and a personality and intellect to match can rectify such political weakness and acute instability. In the developed world with its mature, modern democratic institutions and no sense of imperiled survival, you get the 5th Republic and DeGaulle. In the developing world, absent said institutions, where enemies with more money and better arms occupy your land, where part of your country has been severed from you by past colonial masters, and where domestic opposition can take the form of sectarian, factional or islamist violence, you get the Emergency Law and Hafez Assad. Both were the successful antidotes to their country’s most pressing ills, and later as uber nationalist figures, both were best able to direct their countrymen to accept major change towards peace as DeGaulle relinquished “Algier France” and Assad relinquished the “rejectionist” policy against Israel.
Fifty years is yesterday in Syria, so there must always be protection from the very palpable threats of that past. Presently, circumstances and external policies being what they are, systematic change would be untenable and ironically not even in the interest of the Syrian people. For now, considering current regional realities and trends, I am impressed enough with the resurrected moves from President Bashar Assad toward greater economic freedom and openness to foreign investment, and in general the rhetorical recognition of democracy as a positive principle to be pursued.
Our nation, the USA, must develop policies that work towards creating an environment in the Levant that is conducive to organic rather than imposed democratization: for the latter the regionally perceived exemplar is Iraq (and to a lesser extant Lebanon), a humanitarian and sectarian disaster that has not exactly burnished American ideals among either popular or elite perspectives in the region. Only a properly paced, organic movement that works within current government structures and respective national interests can succeed. Such an occurrence would be the future exemplar that could light the fire of democratic values throughout the Middle East, and is a long – term goal of those who truly do care about the living and political standards in Syria and the region.
I trust that the path to greater openness in Syria is virtually inevitable and will ideally take a form of consensus between the government and an increasingly informed and affluent citizenry.
(10 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)
Loading...
