How long has bashar

He was appointed commander of the armed forces and secretary general of the Baath Party, before a referendum confirmed him as president. Mr Assad promised wide-ranging reforms, including modernising the economy, fighting corruption and launching "our own democratic experience".

It was not long before the authorities released hundreds of political prisoners and allowed the first independent newspapers for more than three decades to begin publishing. Intellectuals pressing for reforms were even permitted to hold public political meetings.

But the "Damascus Spring", as it became known, was short-lived. By early , the intellectuals' meetings began to be closed down, several leading opposition figures were arrested, and limits on the freedom of the press were put back in place. For the rest of the decade, emergency rule remained in effect and what economic liberalisation there was appeared to benefit the elite and its allies. In foreign policy, Bashar al-Assad continued his father's hardline policy towards Syria's historic foe Israel, which has occupied most of the Syrian Golan Heights since the Middle East war.

President Assad has insisted there will be no peace with Israel until occupied land is returned "in full" and has supported militant groups opposed to the Jewish state. His vocal opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq, and the Syrian authorities' tacit support of Iraqi insurgent groups, angered Washington, but it was popular in Syria and the wider region. The finger of suspicion was immediately pointed at President Assad, the Syrian security services, which dominated Lebanon, and the allied militant Lebanese Shia Islamist movement Hezbollah.

Despite Mr Assad's denials of involvement, international outrage at the killing forced Syrian troops to withdraw from Lebanon that April, ending a year military presence. When anti-government protests erupted in the southern Syrian city of Deraa in mid-March , President Assad appeared unsure how to respond. At first, he insisted that calls for reform and economic grievances had been overshadowed by saboteurs who were part of an external conspiracy to undermine Syria's stability and unity.

The following month, Mr Assad lifted the hated Emergency Law that had been in place since But the crackdown against protesters was also stepped up, with soldiers and tanks sent into restive towns and cities to combat "armed criminal gangs". Despite the security forces' efforts and pledges of reforms by President Assad, the uprising continued unabated in almost every part of the country.

Opposition supporters began to take up arms, first to defend themselves and then to oust loyalist forces from their areas. In January , Mr Assad vowed to crush what he called "terrorism" with an "iron fist". Mr Assad pressed ahead with holding a referendum on a new constitution which dropped an article giving the Baath Party unique status as the "leader of the state and society" and allowed new parties to be formed.

But the charter was rejected by the opposition. Over the next few months, pressure built on the president as rebels seized control of large parts of the north and east of the country, and the opposition National Coalition was recognised as "the legitimate representative" of the Syrian people by more than countries.

By the end of the year, as the death toll passed 60,, Mr Assad had ruled out any peace talks with the rebels, whom he denounced as "enemies of God and puppets of the West". In early , pro-government forces launched offensives to recover territory in southern and western Syria. They also received a major boost when the Lebanese Shia militant group Hezbollah began sending members of its military wing to fight the rebels.

That August, Mr Assad was forced on the defensive after his supporters were blamed for a chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus. Hundreds of people died after rockets containing the nerve agent Sarin were fired at rebel-held towns in the Ghouta region. The US, UK and France concluded that the attack could only have been carried out by government forces, but the president blamed rebel fighters.

Pakistan's leader, General Pervez Musharraf, has positioned himself as America's ally and a staunch opponent of Islamist terrorism— despite the fact that the Taliban originated in Pakistan and Pakistani intelligence continues to play a questionable role in the country's official stance against Islamists. But Syria, which has been committed to excluding Islamic fanatics from political and social life, has encouraged moderate Islamists and provided the United States with important intelligence against Islamist terrorist organizations, has merely ended up being added to an expanded "axis of evil.

A major problem between Washington and Damascus is the definition of terrorism. As recently as , the US government was on the same page with Syria, which held that violence in the Israeli-occupied territories was resistance, not terrorism. Finally, the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in March —a war of choice rather than of necessity—has completely ruined US-Syrian relations. Objecting to the war was in the Syrian national interest. Damascus feared the US as a neighbour in the east while being exposed to Israel in the south-west and US-friendly Jordan in the south.

However, also critics from within Syria have criticized the increased ideological pan-Arab rhetoric from Damascus. Bashar al-Asad went over the edge with his pan-Arab populism and thus isolated Syria even further. Robert Rabil writes: "Ironically, where the senior al-Asad had sacrificed Arab nationalism at the altar of Syria's national interest in general and regime security in particular, the Syrian leadership today has been advancing Arab nationalism with the objective of countering US plans in the region.

In a nutshell, because of a series of unfavourable events, Bashar al-Asad's foreign policy has remained reactive instead of proactive. International confrontation and stigmatization have taken away the regime's air to breathe and to take on domestic reforms. The regime in Damascus has put security before experiments. In such a situation, progress in the fields of political pluralism, human rights, and economic perestroika are hardly to be expected.

Asad between popular support and international isolation. On the other hand, Asad can fall back on broad popular support among the Syrians, especially after the confrontations in Iraq and the war between Israel and Hezbollah in July and August Rulers and ruled in Syria share a strong feeling of anti-Americanism, nurtured by the insensitive US approach on Iraq, as well as disgust about Israel's warfare in Lebanon and the West's double standards in its Middle East policy. Asad has become the champion of the Arab street far beyond Syria.

But this pillar of regime legitimacy is very emotional and not very sustainable. In the long run, he will face headwind from two directions: On the one hand from ideological hardliners and beneficiaries of the present regime, and on the other hand, from increasingly impatient reformers within the regime, the more or less organized opposition, and parts of the Syrian public. Hardliners and regime profiteers are losing confidence in Asad's capability of safeguarding the "national interest" and their privileges, among them key representatives of the oligarchic bourgeoisie and members of his extended family clan.

In their eyes, Asad has gambled away too many political battles, the most severe blow being the humiliating withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon in April after the murder of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

On the other side, reformers doubt whether the President is still able and willing to pursue the economic and political reforms that he announced and pursued shortly after he had come to power in the summer of Meanwhile, he has replaced almost all of the old functionaries in government, administration and army and has to take full responsibility for the sluggish process himself.

There are not many people left to blame, at least not in official positions. Despite surprising recent economic growth rates, the living standard of many Syrians has not matched raised expectations. Sure, it is hard to overcome the structures of a decade-old closed and socialist economy. But many problems lie less in the technocratic realm than in political failures and rampant corruption that Asad has repeatedly promised to tackle.

In addition, Syrian oil resources, which contribute to almost half of the national budget, will not last longer than the next decade. This scenario is interrelated to foreign policy: The less Syria's economy can catch up with the region, the more Syria has to fear normal relations with Israel and an open regional market.

Bashar al-Asad is busy finding out how he can secure the last pieces of his father's political heritage. Despite many challenges abroad—above all in public diplomacy—his main battle fields lie at home. But he needs successes in the international realm in order to strengthen his own position against the hardliners and the extended family clan at home who profit from the status quo, partly because a pluralist polity and an open economy would endanger their long held privileges.

After the war in Lebanon last summer, signs point into the direction that Syria may be able to escape its international isolation. Several European foreign ministers have visited Damascus since then, and in December a high profile group of US politicians, including Democrat John Kerry, have followed. The new US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, is known to have uttered deliberations about including Syria and Iran in an effort of regional conflict resolution. But nothing practical has followed yet from these initiatives.

Opinions are divided if Syria is part of the solution or part of the problem in the Middle East. A lot will also depend on how much Syria tries to raise its market value. The following discussion will both focus on constructive elements of Syrian politics and society for the region and on destructive elements of Syrian politics during the past months and years.

One of the constructive elements has already been mentioned: experience and willingness in the fight against Islamist extremists.

By isolating and stigmatizing Syria, the United States has lost a valuable partner in the fight against religious fanatics. Interestingly, Syria has always had more sympathies in the ranks of the intelligence communities in the West, especially in the US and Israel, than in the ranks of political decision makers in those countries.

As many critics have argued, also in the United States, the war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq had less to do with fighting Islamist terrorism than following a strategic agenda in the Middle East whose main focus is the security of Israel. When it comes to Syria, it is important to include a societal level of analysis. Not only with regard to security, also with regard to civil law and social life, Syria counts among the most "Western" countries of the Arab world.

Some people in the Syrian government have used this argument as well, presenting themselves as a partner of the West in view of growing international pressure.

We have a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society like in the United States. For forty years, we have had the best policy in the Arab world for promoting women's rights.

I can't see why the United States would have any problem with us. If you take Israel out of the equation, I can't see any collisions of interests. Secularism combined with religious tolerance, have been strong assets of Syrian politics and society.

This tradition is much older than the rule of the pan- Arab Baath Party since the s. Syrians, and especially Damascene people, are historically known for their composure and tolerance.

This, however, has been strongly challenged in the past years and decades by Wahhabite influence, financed by Saudi petro-dollars. The influence of conservative Islamic scholars and the numbers of women in head scarves have visibly increased in recent times. Nevertheless, a variety of lifestyles and customs have endured in Syria that are not exclusively based on religion.

Many restaurants and bars sell alcohol, not only in the Christian areas. It is not uncommon to see long manes of hair, skintight T-shirts and leggings, audaciously low necklines, and provocative make-up on university campuses in Damascus, Homs, Aleppo, or Lathakia, as well as in the streets and shopping quarters. The contrasts in Syrian society are sharpening. Muslims, Christians, and the few remaining Jews live peacefully door to door in the old quarters of Damascus, instead of dwelling in more or less homogeneous ghettos.

In other countries in the region such as Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, and even in the politically more open Lebanon, religious communities have withdrawn into separate shells, cut themselves off, and become encrusted. They have entered into a competition of identity whose own dialectic momentum has created the compulsion for people to assign themselves more and more clearly along religious or ethnic cleavages.

Loudspeakers that deliver the muezzin's prayers from mosques have been restricted by law to one mosque per district, so that the noise does not upset Christians or more secular Muslims. The Civil Code of , which to a large extent still applies today, was modeled on the secular French code.

Women are allowed to file for divorce, which is far from the customary convention, as debates in Egypt have shown. They enjoy equality with men in the eyes of the law and receive equal pay for equal work, which is not always the case even in some Western countries.

There is a large number of Syrian women in middle-management positions, and women account for more than half of the students in the universities. Since , the military is no longer an exclusively male domain, and since , boys and girls have been taught in common classrooms. Catholics, for example, have reacted promptly and granted men and women equal share. Unlike in Iraq, political cleavages do not run along religious lines yet.

An old mosaic manufacturer in the Old City of Damascus replied when he was asked whether he was not happy that Iraqi refugees increased the number of Christians in Syria: "I don't care if they are Christians or not. Here, we Damascene people trust each other, Christian, Muslim, Jew, or whoever.

We know each other and each other's families, we live together, and we do fair business with each other. The Iraqis are different. I don't trust them. Iraqis enjoy free health care and education as Syrian citizens. With this peaceful absorption of religious and ethnic minorities in times of scarce means, Syria has delivered a model to the Middle East. This also showed when Syria hosted some , Lebanese refugees, most of them Shi'a, with extraordinary helpfulness.

Even human rights organizations have acknowledged this endeavor, although they usually have many good reasons to condemn Syria's human rights violations when it comes to gagging dissenters. In this context, two aspects must be put forward that qualify the above remarks. First, apart from religious freedom, Syria still has an ethnic problem. The regime has remained reluctant to grant citizenship to about , members of its Kurdish population that mostly live in the northern provinces bordering with Turkey and Iraq.

Many Kurds have assimilated and are no champions of separatism like many of their fellows in today's Iraq. However, this situation could change when rising pan-Arab rhetoric and regime stubbornness clashes with increased Kurdish activism from across the border. The second problem with regard to Islamism and secularism is an escalating paradox: While Syria has been trying to fight Islamism at home, it has allied itself with Islamist forces abroad, i.

This contradiction creates tensions also within Syria. In its present state of weakness, the regime in Damascus cannot afford a second front at home.

As a result, Islamists have an increased leeway of action and are eroding Syrian secular society. Among the constructive elements that Syria contributes to the region one has to mention its relative socio-economic balance thanks to its rest-socialism with free public services and regulated prices of basic goods.

Slums and visible poverty like in Egypt, for example, do not exist in Syria. This however, is may change with increased strains through economic reforms, rising real estate prices, and the influx of Iraqi refugees who are in need of quick housing solutions. Syria has a strong and reasonably educated middle class.

Among them are many moderate Sunni merchants who are more interested in business than in Islamist rhetoric. This is a healthy back bone for a possible pluralist or even democratic development. Another positive aspect that is even conceded by members of the opposition is law and order in Syria. The country is a police state, and according to one estimate there is one secret service member for every Syrians over the age of fifteen.

The reasons are not only found in the strong state machinery, but also the still largely intact traditions and a strict code of values despite the growing challenge through social change. The looting and excesses of violence in post-war Iraq have made even more evident its contrast to the tranquility in Syria. The situation is likewise worse in Lebanon due to its greater social and sectarian divisions. Finally, the tradition of Syrian pragmatism is an asset in the region.

Damascus, unlike Tehran, is not a place filled with ideological hardliners, and certainly not with religious fanatics. Despite enhanced ideological rhetoric by Bashar al-Asad, particularly since the Iraq war, the pragmatism of the elder Asad has not necessarily been buried. Syria opened diplomatic relations with Iraq's new government, which many in Damascus see as a US puppet, faster than expected.

Since , Assad has repeatedly offered Israel direct peace negotiations. He has even abandoned his demand that Israel deliver on a promise murdered former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once made to return almost the entire Golan Heights to Syria.

There are potential openings that could be used to entice Syria to abandon the Hezbollah-Tehran axis:. This suggests that Syria might even be prepared to sign a peace treaty with Israel if the Israeli-Palestinian question had not yet been satisfactorily resolved. Indeed, the Syrians would not permit Hamas to open an office in Damascus until a few years ago. The war in Iraq and the US's emergence as a common enemy have given secularists and Islamists a common denominator—but one that is not necessarily permanent.

Its current alliances are dictated by foreign policy constraints. If these constraints are set aside and Syria manages to find other allies, even its partnership with Iran and support of Hezbollah could crumble.

Peaceful coexistence among various religious groups has a longer tradition in Syria than the Baath party, and the ruling Alevites see religious diversity as an important aspect of their legitimacy. Having said this, the regime in Damascus has also played destructive roles in the region, especially since shortly before the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in February Asad's personal fallout with Hariri in Damascus in September started the tragedy.

In an attempt to display political strength, Asad used harsh means to change the Lebanese constitution for the purpose of prolonging the term of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud. Hariri, who used to be a rather moderate and integrating politician, opposed this move and after his rough treatment by Bashar drifted toward the anti-Syrian camp in Lebanon. Whoever was behind Hariri's murder, Asad has to take political responsibility for the fact that the political atmosphere escalated and hate campaigns against Hariri were on the march.

Asad widely underestimated the international reaction after Hariri's assassination. After he realized that military sanctions against his country were a real scenario, he finally announced the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, which was completed before the international deadline in April With its military engagement, the Syrian regime had ended the civil war in Lebanon in , but in the new foreign policy environment pressure has been rising on Syria, especially by the United States and France, to grant Lebanon its full sovereignty and independence.

After this humiliating experience, the Syrian regime has reacted like a snubbed child. In his speech in front of the Parliament when he announced the Syrian withdrawal, Asad missed the opportunity to reconcile the Lebanese people who celebrated their independence.

Ayman Abdul Nour, once a friend from Asad's youth and a Baath member with a critical voice, said in frustration that "Bashar's speech was a golden opportunity to address the Lebanese people, especially the younger population.

Since then Syria has tried to keep up its influence in Lebanon with political allies such as Hezbollah and the influence of a mysterious web of Syrian intelligence.

Murders of anti-Syrian intellectuals and politicians have followed, although it has never been clearly established if they were ordered from high up the Syrian command chain, if low-level Syrian and Lebanese officials played their complex game of interests, or if it was even Israeli operations that intended to blackmail Syria during this sensitive period, as many Syrians claim.

After the Hariri assassination the Lebanon issue has become a red rag for the regime. A sense of panic and helplessness seems to be in the air in Damascus. Syria has been reluctant to recognize Lebanese sovereignty, to demarcate mutual borders, or to come to friendly terms with the government in Beirut. Syria brought stability to Lebanon, but Syria could also break it again. Instead of playing a conciliatory and stabilizing role in the neighboring democracy, the regime has arrested well-known intellectuals of the oppositional secular Civil Society Movement in Syria who signed a declaration in favour of normal relations with the Lebanese neighbor.

Journalist Michel Kilo, human rights lawyer Anwar al-Bounni, and other intellectuals from Syria were jailed in May because they had drafted the Damascus-Beirut Declaration together with Lebanese counterparts. Thus they crossed the red line. Aggravating the situation was the fact that the petition appeared on the eve of a UN Resolution draft put forward by the US, France, and Britain in the Security Council.

Resolution stipulates the necessity to take measures to prevent the entry of Syrian arms into Lebanon, the demarcation of the border between Lebanon and Syria, and the exchange of ambassadors. The regime may have inferred—or looked for a pretext to infer—that the signatories of the Damascus-Beirut Declaration have lined up with the foreign powers in this matter.

But those who know Kilo and most of the other intellectuals will agree that this is a highly constructed nexus. In this way the regime has further estranged moderate secular forces that are Syrian patriots and potential allies. Kilo, for example, tried to push for a technocratic solution that would lead into a more pluralist political system. He, like many others, has repeatedly distanced himself from US attempts to establish democracy in the Middle East by forced and ill-considered regime change and refused any form of cooperation with US-supported opposition figures.

Kilo is at least as pan-Arab as the Baathists. His arrest symbolizes the short-sighted decisions taken by the regime in recent months. Asad has not only gambled away the goodwill of many moderate opposition figures but he has also lost leeway in pursuing foreign policy strategies of his own. The President is lacking vision and strategic sensitiveness.

He is riding on a wave of popular support, thanks to ill-conceived US foreign policy and his increased pan-Arab rhetoric. He has taken up his role as the "defender of Arab interests" when he opposed the Anglo-American invasion in Iraq as strongly as no other Arab leader, although Saddam Hussein for many years counted as one of the staunchest enemies of Bashar's father Hafez al-Asad.

Whereas his father never really depended on domestic public opinion, Asad started to ride on popular support and even took along Islamists as well as parts of the moderate opposition who share the common denominator of Anti-Americanism.

In lack of other successes that he could present the Syrian public—such as economic progress, including the long overdue association agreement with the European Union, or political glasnost—he has become one-dimensionally dependent on this form of populism. The drawbacks of Asad's reliance on populism have become obvious during his first public speech after the cease fire between Hezbollah and Israel in August , after which German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier cancelled his planned visit to Damascus.

Perhaps, in anticipation of that moment, the family is grooming his eldest son, Hafez Bashar al-Assad, to ascend to the presidential throne.

The Assads are not done with Syria yet. Pity the nation. Order from Chaos. A how-to guide for managing the end of the post-Cold War era. Read all the Order from Chaos content ». Order from Chaos Can Syria return to the regional stage? Related Books. Bending History By Martin S. Avoiding Armageddon By Bruce Riedel. Order from Chaos A how-to guide for managing the end of the post-Cold War era.

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