Robert G. Rabil: Syria: The Death of a Nation?
Robert G. Rabil is an associate professor of political science and the LLS Distinguished Professor of Current Events at Florida Atlantic University. He is the author of Embattled Neighbors: Syria, Israel and Lebanon (Lynne Rienner, 2003); Syria, the United States and The War on Terror in the Middle East (Praeger, 2006) and most recently Religion, National Identity and Confessional Politics in Lebanon: The Challenge of Islamism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
Months after the outbreak of the popular uprising in Syria, Damascus continues its slow, steady descent into sectarian strife. Ominously, atrocities, including massacres, suicide bombings and kidnappings, are becoming daily occurrences in Syria. The ramifications of sectarian strife in Syria have fueled simmering political and sectarian tensions in Lebanon, potentially causing a new sectarian conflagration with dire consequences for the region. Meanwhile, the international community remains woefully divided as to how to put a stop to violence in Syria, while at the same time being gripped by delusional notions about the nature of the Syrian regime and that a compromise between the Syrian regime and the opposition is still achievable. At the heart of this gloomy crisis are layers of complexity linking sectarian intuitions and concerns to regional and international geostrategic considerations. Damascus today is at the epicenter of a regional struggle that may well shape the new political contours of the Middle East.
What started as a rebellion against the repressive and oppressive Syrian Alawi-dominated regime, in tune with the popular uprisings in Egypt and Libya, has evolved into a struggle equating the survival of the regime with that of the minority Alawi community. Conversely, the rebellion has evolved into a struggle against Persian and Shi’ism assertion of regional predominance, tightly linking Syria to the evolving Arab politics, as influenced by the Arab popular uprisings, and to the ongoing shifts in the Saudi and Iranian-led regional axes of powers that have resulted from withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. All of this has rekindled revanchist impulses associated no less with sectarian than Islamist-nationalist considerations on the local and regional levels.
Pan-Arabism and the Syrian Regime
True, the Alawi-dominated regime of late Hafiz al-Asad and his son Bashar has adopted the Ba’thi strident nationalist discourse; nevertheless, it has pursued domestic and regional policies all in the interest of regime security and, by extension, Alawi hegemony over the state. Syrian troops initially entered Lebanon in 1976 on the side of the Christian camp, against the National Movement camp and its PLO foot soldiers. The Syrian regime supported Tehran in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, against a brotherly Arab and Ba’thist Baghdad. At the same time, the Alawi regime used pan-Arabism as an ideological tool not only to transcend tribal and sectarian differences in Syria, but also to wrap itself in the mantle of Arab nationalism’s legitimacy to win over the majority Sunni community. The regime, thus, has defined itself as the defender of Arab rights, firstly against an aggressive Israel and then against an imperial United States. As of late, the Syrian regime has supported an Islamist-nationalist discourse that coincided with its support of Hezbollah both as a resistance movement and as a central aspect of its relationship with Iran. Meanwhile, the regime institutionalized its levers of power on the basis of an Alawi preponderance in the state and an uneasy alliance between the Alawi military and the Sunni merchants of Damascus and Aleppo....