It Looks As If Assad Has Made A Decision

The Baathist regime has sent the tanks to Daraa, the place where it all started.  It would appear that Assad and company have decided to end the protests where they began a few short and bloody weeks ago.  A cell phone image of the hulking mass of a top of the line Soviet era MBT lurking in a city street gives a particular air of menace--a air which is undoubtedly true.

One is tempted to compare the Syrian government's response to the anti-regime movement with that of the Trolls of Beijing regarding the pro-democracy demonstrators twenty two years ago.  Assad's regime, like the Masters of the Forbidden City, gave warnings, blunt and unmistakable warnings, offered (carefully limited) reforms, and, finally, cracked down with sledgehammer violence.  The protesters have been given ample time--and inducements--to back down.  If nothing else, they had the memory of what Assad the Father did to the Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Homa thirty years ago.

Arguably, the single greatest mistake made by Assad the Son was not stomping the initial demonstrators in Daraa harder and faster than was the case.  The first response was just brutal enough to outrage, but not brutal enough to intimidate.  The same can be said of the later responses to demonstrations.  The less than truly scarifying moves by the security forces coupled with the offers of reform sent mixed messages to the large body of inchoate anti-regime opinion festering throughout the Syrian population.

It is easy to see how the anti-government figures--particularly the large, influential expat community who possessed the bravery of being out of range--interpreted the mixed messages to mean the regime lacked the political will to suppress the forces of change.  While easy to understand the process of misinterpretation, it must be pointed out that those who did the misinterpretation were overlooking the most important part of the regime's motivations--physical survival.  The vast majority of the power elite from Assad down to the mid and lower ranks of the military officer corps, the civil service, and, most importantly, the security forces is comprised of religious minorities.  Alawites, Christians, Druze, and others of minority persuasions would be at a very real risk of being killed should religiously enthusiastic Sunni take over.

This is not to say there is any real danger of the Muslim Brotherhood or akin groups rising to the top in Syria even if the protesters are successful in ousting the Baathists.  The decades of very effective repression directed against the Brotherhood ever since the abortive uprising assure the organization is weak, divided, few in members, and lacking broad support.  However, religious enthusiasm is percolating through the anti-regime ranks with sufficient vigor to make credible the fears resident throughout the elite regarding what would happen to them should the status quo end.

With motivation of such a fundamental nature in play, it is not shocking that the regime has struck back.  And, struck back with a ferocity which is not likely to lessen in future days and weeks.  If anything, threats such as that levied over the weekend of prosecution by the International Criminal Court will amp up the brutality and lethality of the repression.  The necessary inference to be drawn from the ICC gambit is simply that the Assad family and the Baathist regime generally will have no place to run, nowhere to hide if and when the mobs break down the palace gates.

Quite literally the Baathists are fighting for their lives.  More even than Gaddafi, Bashir al-Assad, his fellows, and underlings have nothing to lose by fighting as fiercely as they can regardless of casualties to civilians, heedless of international condemnation, indifferent to expressions of disapprobation such as sanctions, travel bans, or UN resolutions.  And, they have nothing to gain by giving in to the demands of the anti-regime movement and its foreign supporters.

Indeed, the more foreign governments offer indirect support to the anti-regime movement, the more the body count will grow.  The chimera of foreign support has the effect of enhancing the political will of the anti-regime forces.  The size, sophistication, and orientation of the Syrian expat communities in Western Europe and the US will magnify both the reality and the appearance of Western sympathy to and support of the Oust Bashir movement.  This will lengthen the fighting.  Lengthening means more killing.  More killing means the political will of both sides is strengthened as increasingly the dead dictate policy.

Another factor that needs consideration is the relation between a more robust response by the regime and Iranian government policy.  Tehran will be pleased to see the Syrians finally following the Iranian model of regime maintenance by harsh repression.  This course of action has undoubtedly been the major message from the mullahs to the Baathists.  By letting the tanks roll in Deraa and authorizing more snipers to pull more triggers, Assad has tied his regime closer to Tehran which means Tehran will invest more in enhancing the security of Assad's government.

The losers in the new escalation of violence are Saudi Arabia and Israel.  The House of Saud certainly has been in a clandestine conflict for influence in Damascus with the mullahs.

Regardless of King Abdullah's intense distaste for Assad and his view that the ophthalmologist turned dictator is a viper in the Arab tent, the goal of prying Syria loose from Iran is high on the Kingdom's to-do list.  However, not even the redoubtable Prince Bandar has been able to do the job.  If that had been the case, it is far more likely that Assad would have restrained the snipers and left the tanks in the garage, preferring instead to use bribery and more promises of more reforms to undercut the appeal of the anti-regime agenda.

Israel loses as well.  The spreading unrest in Syria may result in undesired spill overs including a ratcheting up of the Hezbollah threat.  Certainly, there is no reason to believe that any successor regime to that of the Baathists will be any more kindly disposed to the Jewish state and many reasons to conclude the hypothetical successor will not be able to assure the peace is kept regardless of such events as the 2006 Lebanon war.  If a successor comes to power over the corpses of Assad and company with the assistance of Iran (not an impossibility should the mullahs conclude Assad is losing anyway), the successor will be far less amenable to any sort of comprehensive peace settlement.

Henry Kissinger once famously quipped that the Arabs can't make war without Egypt--and can't make peace without Syria.  He was right.  Thirty and more years later his observation is still bang on.  Syria--not Egypt, not the Palestinians, not the Saudis, not the Iranians--is the major player in bringing about a genuine and comprehensive Mideast peace.  The anti-regime movement and, even more, the regime's increasingly blunt and bloody response puts severe constraints on both the will and ability of Syria to play its linchpin roll in securing a lasting regional peace.

The endless intransigence of the Israeli government on the Golan Heights Question boggles the mind of an objective observer.  Even more logic defying is the American position in the matter.  One American administration after another has kept a myopic focus on the Palestinian Question and the Two State Solution to that question as if this was the only or best way to achieve a comprehensive peace.  The reality--a reality so simple that even a Deep Thinker inside the Beltway should be able to get a grip on it--is simple.  No matter what the Palestinians do, no matter if there is a Two State or a Three State Solution, unless Syria signs off on the deal, there is no comprehensive regional peace.

If and when Syria signs a deal, there will be a genuine comprehensive peace in the region.  For Syria to do this, there is but one requirement.  Syria gets the Golan Heights back.  That's it, folks, Golan or no peace.

This ground truth argues powerfully for one approach to Syria.  It is a time sensitive matter.  If the US, if the EU, if the UN actually care about the body count in Syria, there must be a tough single minded effort to convince Israel that the time is now for returning the Golan Heights to Syria.

Word of the return of the "lost provinces" (to use a phrase redolent of meaning for the French) would have immediate and very positive effects on the current situation in Syria.  Assured of the speedy return of the Golan Heights, Assad would order the tanks back to the garage, the snipers to stand down.  The anti-regime protests would fade away faster than a rain shower in the desert.  Assad would be the hero of the Syrian people.  Additionally, Damascus would dump its "eternal" and "strategic" alliance with Iran with a haste worthy of the phrase, "a New York second."

And, to the benefit of all--Israel, the new regime in Egypt, the embattled Saudis, everyone except Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and a few other malcontents--peace would be a reality in the region.  With Syria on board, it would be possible to bring the Palestinian Authority to the table with a realistic attitude regarding the "settlements," Jerusalem, and the Jordan Valley security belt.  The Palestinians would not be in a position to resist the pressures and inducements which could and would be brought by a united Arab front now including Syria as well as Saudi Arabia.

There is the near-term alternative to what otherwise must be a welter of blood as the Baathists wage an existential battle against the anti-regime movement.  Sanctions will not deter Assad.  Not even if the EU joins with the US in a campaign of economic punishment will the pain outweigh the perils of losing in an existential contest.  The way to peace in Syria is identical with the way to peace in the Mideast: Give the Golan Heights back to its rightful sovereign.

It must be so simple as to fly below the elevated thoughts of the Deep Thinkers of the administration.  But, at least they can go home at night without dodging snipers' bullets or fearing the tanks' treads.