Friday, July 3, 2009

Bashar Hedges His Bets--Finally

Bashar al-Assad has not played the game of balancing alliances nearly as well as did his father. Neither has the son come close to the father in his ability to use proxies rather than to be used by them. Perhaps he has been learning in recent weeks. Certainly there are indications to that effect.

While there is little or no probability that Syria will abandon its Iranian connection and opt instead for one with the US, the events since 12 June in Tehran and elsewhere have raised doubts in Bashar's mind regarding the long term prospects of the Mullahocracy. Also probably factoring into the recent shift in Bashar's position is the decision by the Obama administration to send an ambassador back to Damascus ending the several years of rupture resulting from a (typically wrongheaded) Bush-Cheney decision to "punish" Syria for its alleged participation in the assassination of a Lebanese political figure.

Simultaneously Bashar has been edging Syria back to the Arab fold. This midcourse correction has been warmly welcomed by the Saudis among others. Prying Syria from the Iranian embrace has been an important aspect of the ongoing Cold War between Shia Iran and the Sunni majority of the Arab states.

Syria sent a typically indirect signal of the impending change by changing the law on so-called "honor killings." The government repealed Article 548 of the penal code which had limited the prison sentences given to men convicted of killing women suspected of "immoral" sexual conduct. The move had been sought for many years by women's rights groups within the country and will be welcomed by Western governments.

By the change the Syrian government demonstrated to hardline Islamists within Syria that the influence of extreme positions on Islam are no longer fashionable. It also alerted the West that there was no longer any perceived need to placate either the domestic Islamists or the mullahs of Qom. It was the sort of move that Assad, pere, used from time to time.

The most dramatic indication of change came with Bashar's offering of an informal invitation to President Obama to drop on by Damascus. The invitation was offered in the context of a relaxed interview on Britain's Sky News TV. With his British born wife alongside, Bashar presented a very human face which effectively rebutted George W. Bush's implied characterisation of Bashar as a leader equivalent with Kim il Sung and Saddam Hussein.

Bashar is anything but the moral or policy equivalent of the leaders of the other two countries included in Bush's (in)famous "Axis of Evil" speech. Assad, fils, is not a hardline, ambitious, oppressive dictator. He is head of state by accident. As his education as an opthamologist shows, he was never expected to follow his father in the family business. That role was to be filled by the elder brother who managed to kill himself in an automobile accident.

Bashar's western training brought with it an orientation to embracing new technologies, particularly those of information handling as well as a set of liberal orientations which were (and are) at a variance with those of his father and the close circle of elder Baathists who surrounded dad--and the son. His early efforts to broaden the political culture of Syria in the so-called Damascus Spring brought him into conflict with the Old Guard, and he had to retract his ambitions and inclinations significantly.

The political and religious conflict in Lebanon--a country often seen in Damascus as a part of Greater Syria--served to end the early experiments with liberalisation. The invasion of Lebanon by Israel in 2006 further strengthened the belief that Syria must seek reinsurance with Iran.

Bashar moved on this perception both quickly and unadvisedly. Syria did benefit from the largess of the mullahs. Weapons and other warlike stores flooded into Syria both for its own army and on consignment to the Iranian (and Syrian) proxies Hezbollah and Hamas. Iranian money also underwrote the modest infrastructure improvements undertaken in the past few years.

In return Syria provided Iran with both a forward basing capacity in the same way that Hafez Assad furnished the Soviet navy with force projection abilities during the late Seventies and Eighties. Syria also provided the real estate upon which the Iranian purchased and North Korean built plutonium production reactor was constructed.

The Israelis responded by air strikes on the reactor as well as portions of the Syrian chemical weapons facility. The one was leveled and the other badly damaged as a result.

As the attacks showed, Syria ran very real risks in its alliance with Iran. Nonetheless the alliance continued and, at least rhetorically, strengthened until very recently. The consequences of the 12 June presidential election in Iran as well as the continued invitation of increased international isolation by the mullahs and their stooges waved, if not the red flag of danger, at least the yellow caution flag.

At the same time the continued presence of the United States in the Mideast must have weighed on Bashar's contemplations. With all of its deficiencies President Obama's Cairo Address did convey the clear and unmistakable reality of continued American involvement in the region, including the search for peace between Israel and its neighbors among which Syria is a critical presence.

No matter how Bashar and his associates parsed the matter, the involvement of the US in ending the sixty years of war between the Jewish state and the Arabs was far more likely to see the return of the Golan Heights to Syrian control than was any action by Tehran. The return of the Golan has been the heart and soul of Syrian foreign policy for the past forty-two years.

Accomplishment of this end required that Syria not be the odd country out among the Arabs. It also demands the sympathetic assistance of the US. Those are the ground truths of the matter.

Putting it all together, Bashar had no real option. He had to emulate his father. Do not get too close to one country at the expense of opportunities which may present themselves by having acceptable, even if not great, relations with others. This implies a corollary: Do not allow proxies to control the sponsor.

Since President Obama made the first move, the appointment of an ambassador to Syria, it became proper, even necessary for Bashar to respond. He has. Alone among the Arab states Syria has made a move which can be construed properly as a favorable reaction not only to the Cairo Address and the ambassadorial appointment but also as a hint of movement toward a peace with Israel.

The Obama administration would be well advised to have a first task the turning of the informal invitation into a formal status. The presentation of credentials by the new ambassador might be the favorable first moment to do this. In the meanwhile some mood music from the Oval might be appropriate. Some sort of reaction to the TV interview would not be out of order.

Neither would be some words to the effect that the current administration does not share the view of Syria as "evil" laid forth by the previous incumbents. Bashar needs--and deserves--to be jollied along, encouraged, have his tentative move responded to with alacrity and vigor.

The Syrian government will not--cannot--reverse course quickly nor completely. Policy has inertia. It is akin to changing direction with a fully loaded tanker, changes come slowly almost imperceptibly, but they come.

Syria is a test case of this reality. We have to hope that the Obama administration doesn't flunk the test.

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