Destroying a Nation

It has been argued that the Syrian Civil War could have been avoided if the regime of President Bashar al-Asad had implemented substantial reforms at an early stage of the Syrian Revolution that broke out in mid-March 2011. This revolution started with small-scale and peaceful demonstrations in Deraa in the south, and later spread out massively all over Syria.¹ The question is whether or not the ensuing Syrian War was really inevitable. When taking into account the earlier history of the regime and its behaviour (and misbehaviour) during half a century in power in Syria, I come to the conclusion that the Syrian War could hardly have been avoided. Another decisive factor in Syria in 2011 and after was that, in contrast to earlier periods, opposition groups gradually started to receive support, both political as well as military, from foreign countries that thereby began to intervene in Syria’s internal affairs.

As a result of this foreign support, the war in Syria developed into a war by proxy, as well as being an internal intra-Syrian war. Therefore, the terminology of ‘civil war’ was no longer fully appropriate after its initial stages, because it became a war with the Syrian regime and its regular army, militias and security institutions, supported by Russia, Iran and the Lebanese militia Hizballah on the one hand, and on the other side deserted Syrian military, who were later joined by many others, including thousands of fighters from other countries.

If the opposition forces had not been supported in the way they were, the revolution might possibly have been suppressed earlier with fewer victims, and the regime might have continued its repressive rule for another indefinite period. But some day in the future, there was bound to be a renewed effort by those people who had suffered from the atrocities of the al-Asad regime to have a violent reckoning.

The devastating consequences of the Syrian War were enormous. By the end of 2016, the number of dead was estimated at well over 400,000.² By the same year, an estimated 11 million Syrians had fled their homes since the outbreak of the Syrian Revolution in March 2011. In the sixth year of the war, 13.5 million people were in need of humanitarian assistance within the country. Among those escaping the conflict, the majority sought refuge in neighbouring countries or within Syria itself. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 4.8 million fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, and 6.6 million were internally displaced within Syria.³

In The Struggle for Power in Syria I came to the conclusion that it was very difficult to imagine a scenario in which the narrowly based, totalitarian regime, dominated by members of the Alawi minority – who traditionally had been discriminated against by the Sunni majority, and who themselves had on various occasions severely repressed part of the Sunni population – could be peacefully transformed into a more widely based democracy, involving a greater part of the Sunni majority.⁴ A transformation from Alawi-dominated dictatorship to democracy in Syria would imply that the existing repressive institutions were to be dismantled, and that the regime would have to give up its privileged positions. A scenario in which the Alawi-dominated power elite were to be overthrown or removed was bound to be extremely violent. Therefore, it should have been clear from the beginning of the Syrian Revolution that the regime, seen from this perspective, did not really want to implement any substantial reforms, if only because these, in the end, could lead to its downfall; and this perspective had never been otherwise. Calls for freedom in Syria were understandable and justified, but expecting a transformation of the Syrian political system into a democracy to be possible without severe bloodshed was therefore wishful thinking. Regime change through peaceful negotiations did not work, as could have been expected.

Modern Syria has known various dictatorships before the Ba’th regime came into power, and periods of democracy or relative freedom have been very scarce.⁵ In the period before Syria became independent in 1946 with the end of the French Mandate, there never was a democracy: not under the French Mandate, not under the Ottoman Turks, neither under the Omayyad or Abbasid Caliphs or other Islamic rulers, nor under the Byzantines, Romans or Egyptians, or before. The great majority of Syrians alive today have known nothing other than dictatorship in their country, like most of their ancestors. Their lack of democratic experience in Syria did not mean, however, that they would not have the capacity to build up a new democratic society. On the other hand, during the Syrian Revolution there were various forces present in the country that had their own political agendas and could be expected not to show any respect for democracy, once in power. This applied to the more radical Islamists in general. It tended to be, to a great extent, a matter of who was militarily the strongest and best organised. The only way to topple the Syrian regime appeared to be by counterforce. This counterforce was inspired and triggered to a great extent by the bloody suppression of the – initially – peaceful demonstrations. The Syrian regime’s excessively repressive behaviour reflected the motto of ‘it is either al-Asad, or we will burn the country’ (al-Asad aw nahriq al-balad), as wall slogans and the graffiti of regime loyalists portrayed it at the time.

If President Bashar al-Asad were to have implemented clearly visible reforms in 2011, would the opposition have been satisfied? It might have been in the shorter term, but in the longer term the opposition, both moderate and less moderate, would almost certainly have demanded further reforms that should have led to less dictatorship and more freedom, implying that at least a real kind of power-sharing could be achieved.⁶ Furthermore, it could have been expected that the opposition would have demanded justice for many of those from the regime who had committed crimes against humanity, both before and after the start of the Syrian Revolution in 2011, and had blood on their hands. In the Syrian context, the regime’s power elite, in the case of being brought before justice, could hardly expect otherwise than to be court martialled with a high probability of being executed. Within such circumstances it would have been unrealistic to expect that the president and those around him would voluntarily step down. A reconciliation scenario, South African style, did not seem to be possible.

In an effort to protect and save itself and to survive, the regime therefore did not want to go any further than implementing some cosmetic changes that were far from enough to appease the opposition in the longer term.⁷ Drastic reforms, however, would have been an introduction to the regime’s later fall.

The fact that the issue of sectarianism during the beginning of the Syrian Revolution did not figure prominently, did not mean that it was not an important undercurrent which could fundamentally undermine the possibility of achieving freedom and democracy as demanded by Syrian opposition groups. Syrians were very much aware of it but tended, generally, to avoid talking about sectarianism openly, because it could have such a destructive effect. For almost 30 years since the Hama massacre (1982), the situation in Syria was relatively quiet on the sectarian front, in public at least. This did not mean, however, that the issue of sectarianism could not become acute again.⁸

Whereas the common sectarian, regional and family or tribal backgrounds of the main Ba’thist rulers had been key to the durability and strength of the regime, their Alawi sectarian background was also inherently one of its main weaknesses. The ‘Alawi factor’ seemed to be hindering a peaceful transformation from Syrian dictatorship towards a more widely representative regime. The Syrian demonstrators’ main demands at the beginning were simply to get more political freedom and to bring an end to the corrupt one-party dictatorial system. The sectarianism issue was generally avoided. After all, the last thing the opposition seemed to want was another sectarian war or confrontation which would not only lead to more violence and suppression, but might also not result in meeting any of their demands. The opposition instead preferred to portray the Syrian people as one and the same, irrespective of them being Arab, Kurd, Sunni, Alawi, Christian, Druze, Isma’ili or whatever. They wanted justice, dignity and freedom. Their demands at the beginning were generally rather modest, democratically oriented and peaceful.

It is good to take into consideration that at the beginning of the Syrian Revolution there was no clear sectarian dichotomy in Syrian society, dividing the country into Alawis and non-Alawis. Syria had never been ruled by ‘the Alawi community’, although it was nevertheless perceived as such by a considerable number of non-Alawis, Sunnis in particular.

It was only natural that there were also numerous Alawi opponents to the regime. Many Alawis had themselves been suffering from Alawi-dominated Ba’thist dictatorship, often just as much as, or occasionally even more than, non-Alawis. According to one Alawi opposition leader Alawis were equally severely tortured in prisons, but fewer of them were killed than was the case with members of other communities. A great number of Alawi villages had people imprisoned for political or security reasons. The Syrian dictatorship was applied without exception to all Syrian regions, sectors and population groups, including those with an Alawi majority. Many Alawis were just as eager for political change in Syria, as were other Syrians.

Shortly before the Syrian Revolution broke out, a wave of demonstrations and revolts swept over the Arab world, starting in Tunisia in December 2010, and spreading out over other Arab countries like Egypt, Libya and Yemen in early 2011. Many of the demonstrators in these countries were motivated by their miserable economic situations and lack of future prospects, and they wanted to get rid of corruption and dictatorship, hoping to achieve more prosperity and freedom. The demonstrations were received enthusiastically in the Western world, where it was hoped that the authoritarian regimes would be replaced by democracies, preferably Western style. The revolutions were initially given the positive name of the ‘Arab Spring’, but in the end they resulted in a serious deterioration of the situations in all the Arab countries involved. In some cases they even gave rise to devastating civil wars, such as those experienced in Libya, Yemen and Syria. The revolutions caused the fall of various authoritarian rulers: in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, where the presidents themselves decided to step down; and in Libya where its leader al-Qadhafi was killed after foreign military intervention came to the aid of the Libyan opposition groups.

The revolutions that took place in other Arab countries initially gave rise to hope among Syrians that the situation in their country could also be changed for the better, and that demonstrations could finally lead to the fall of the al-Asad dictatorship. When the Syrian demonstrations started in March 2011, Egyptian President Mubarak had already ceded all his powers, whereas the Libyan regime was being attacked by foreign military forces.

All this created hope among Syrians that change would come within a shorter reach.

Syrians from all social and ethnic segments initially tended to be carried away by the so-called ‘successes’ of demonstrators elsewhere in the Arab world and they were prepared to take great risks to help in achieving something ‘similar’. They were not aware yet of the disaster-in-waiting.

It should be noted that in the other Arab countries that had been swept by demonstrations and revolts, the social composition of the regimes was completely different from that of the regime in Syria, certainly as far as the dangerous issue of sectarianism was concerned. Sectarianism made Syria into a special case, as has been described in the preceding chapters, and came to be an important factor during the Syrian War.

Whereas the high proportion of Alawis in key positions in the Syrian armed forces apparently did not constitute an obstacle to sustaining an inter-state war, with for instance Israel, it has proven to be an inherently damaging structural disadvantage in fighting an internal civil war.⁹ The sectarian provocation and confrontation that the Muslim Brotherhood and its Mujahidin had unsuccessfully initiated at the end of the 1970s and in the early 1980s, and which ended with the bloodbath of Hama in 1982, triggered a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy after the beginning of the Syrian Revolution, in the sense that something similar was bound to happen again, albeit in a somewhat different context.

Various observers have claimed that the Syrian regime wanted to encourage a sectarian-tinted civil war on purpose, and part of the Sunni majority of the population may indeed have perceived it as such. However, since the regime already fully dominated all power institutions that were heavily controlled by Alawis, there was no real advantage in having any further sectarian polarisation with the Sunni majority, but rather the contrary. The only shorter-term ‘advantage’ for the regime could have been that it might induce a greater part of the Alawi community into an unconditional and artificial solidarity with the regime. But this had already been triggered to a great extent by the attitudes of the radical Islamist organisations, both present and past. Irrespective of who was the main instigator, to get out of such a polarisation would, in any case, be extremely difficult in the longer run, and could only add to further disaster in Syria.

Nevertheless, such a sectarian polarisation – whether the regime wanted it or not – was hardly avoidable because of the sectarian composition of the Syrian armed forces elite troops, its security institutions, its armed gangs like the Shabbihah, and other repressive institutions. Since these were so identifiably Alawi-dominated, those who were suppressed and were non-Alawis, Sunnis in particular, could under such extreme circumstances hardly see their oppressors other than as Alawis. Many of the Alawi regime loyalists were considered to be easily recognisable by their Arabic accents, with the heavy guttural Qaf, even though non-Alawis, from the same mainly Alawi areas in the countryside, have similar accents. Many people incorrectly associate the use of the phoneme Qaf with the Alawis alone, but it should be noted that the Qaf is not so much a ‘sectarian’ characteristic of Alawi dialects, but rather a rural feature, also present in the speech of Sunnis, Druzes, Isma’ilis and Christians or anyone else living in certain rural areas.¹⁰

Whereas the peaceful civilian opposition was strongly against any sectarian element in their demonstrations, the Islamist and Jihadist military opposition groups were clearly sectarian motivated in their actions against the Alawi-dominated regime, and also strongly contributed to sectarian polarisation.

According to a survey carried out by The Day After Association on the issue of sectarianism in Syria, published in 2016, there appeared to be strong differences between various sectarian communities as far as their support for the demonstrations in 2011 was concerned. The answers provided by Sunni respondents demonstrated a near-consensus on supporting the 2011 demonstrations of the opposition, whereas the answers of Alawis and Shi’is demonstrated a position against them. More than half of the Christian respondents supported them, whereas a very considerable proportion of Druze and Isma’ili respondents opposed them.¹¹ It should be added that the opinions given with some hindsight, after five years of the start of the Syrian Revolution, may not necessarily have been the same as they were in 2011.

The Alawi-dominated army and security forces, as well as Alawi-dominated gangs (like the Shabbihah) in fact provoked a sectarian confrontation – if only because of their sectarian composition and misbehaviour – and were responsible for provoking acts of ethnic cleansing, but, by way of intimidation, warned others against doing what the regime was doing itself. Reports about ethnic cleansing operations have not always been consistent, and were occasionally contradictory and highly controversial. The regime and the opposition accused one another of being responsible.¹²

As part of the fighting and intimidation between regime and opposition forces, ethnic cleansing operations took place in particular between Alawis and Sunnis, in city quarters, in the countryside and in and around villages. Radical Islamists also expelled Christians from their living quarters. All this had a deep impact on Syrian society and its social fabric.¹³

During negotiations between the regime and the military opposition, the idea of reshuffling parts of the population was occasionally brought up. Such reshuffles or population exchanges could have a sectarian dimension, and were, therefore, very sensitive.¹⁴

One example of this was the ‘Four Towns Agreement’ negotiated in September 2015 by the Syrian regime (represented by Iran) and opposition groups including Jabhat al-Nusrah (represented by Qatar and Ahrar al-Sham). According to this agreement, the beleaguered towns of (predominantly Sunni) Zabadani and Madaya north-west of Damascus were to be evacuated by military opposition forces, in exchange for the evacuation of fighters from the two Shi’i towns Kafarya and al-Fu’ah in the northern province of Idlib. There was also to be a population exchange, which meant a sectarian reshuffle between Sunnis and Shi’is. It took until 2017 for the agreement to be implemented.¹⁵ Jabhat al-Nusrah wanted to expel the Shi’i population of al-Fu’ah and Kafarya also on religious grounds, considering them to be apostates (rawafid) who should be removed from the area. Jabhat al-Nusrah described the towns as Shi’i ‘outposts’ in Sunni territory, whereas the respective villages were in reality remnants of earlier times when this territory was still mainly under Shi’i domination.

During the recapture by the Syrian regime of eastern Aleppo in December 2016, opposition fighters of Jabhat Fath al-Sham (ex-Jabhat al-Nusrah), the Free Syrian Army and others, who had been cornered there, were allowed to leave for areas under control of the opposition (mainly Idlib province), on the condition that besieged pro-regime people could leave Kafarya and al-Fu’ah.¹⁶

Whereas some may have considered the Alawi-dominated regime of Bashar al-Asad as a protective shield for the Alawi community in general, the war that was started after the beginning of the Syrian Revolution in 2011 achieved the opposite. Instead of being a protector of the Alawi community, Bashar al-Asad’s regime also caused it to become severely threatened. All the Alawi-tinted violence and suppression made any existing grudges against Alawis in general bigger, whether justified or not.

The regime, at the beginning of the Syrian Revolution, could have adequately responded to the reasonable demands of the peacefully oriented opposition by way of introducing essential reform measures. But most measures were too little too late. With his totalitarian regime, President Bashar al-Asad should, at least theoretically, have been able to control all the army and security institutions, as well as the armed irregular Alawi gangs like the Shabbihah, to guide Syria out of this crisis in a more peaceful manner. But he, together with his loyalists, did not do so. The chosen path of repressive violence finally led to a destructive war in Syria, which was to last for many years.

Later, President al-Asad was even criticised in an interview by the chief of the Airforce Intelligence Directorate, General Jamil Hasan, for having shown ‘too much restraint in the early days of the Syrian uprising in 2011’. Had al-Asad, according to Hasan, ‘not tried to appease his domestic and foreign detractors in 2011, an early all-out crackdown could have nipped the uprising in the bud … It would still have been better than what actually followed.’¹⁷

During the earlier stages of the Syrian Revolution, when the bloodshed had not yet taken its extremely heavy toll, it still looked as if there might have been a chance to solve the crisis through a kind of national dialogue with the aim of reconciliation. Some internal opposition meetings took place in Damascus in June 2011 with the aim of discussing how the crisis could be solved. Various well-known opposition members attended, including Michel Kilo, Lu’ayy Husayn, Anwar al-Bunni, Mundhir Khaddam, Fayiz Sara and others, many of whom had earlier spent years in the regime’s prisons. They wanted a ‘peaceful transition to a democratic, civil and pluralistic state’, and called for an immediate end to the security crack-down and the withdrawal of the army to its bases. They stressed that there could be no national dialogue with a ‘security solution’ taking place. Confidence-building measures were urgently needed. The opposition conference called for an independent committee to investigate the killings of Syrian citizens and soldiers, the release of all political prisoners, the right to peaceful protests without the government’s prior approval, and an end to the power monopoly of the Ba’th Party. These opposition meetings in Damascus were unique in the sense that they were condoned at all, but they did not result in a dialogue with the regime.

In July 2011, the regime organised an alternative meeting, led by Vice-President Faruq al-Shar’ and attended mainly by regime supporters and a few opposition representatives who were closer to the regime. These meetings did not result in dialogue between regime and opposition either.

There were no signs that suggested that the opposition wanted to talk with the regime, unless important preconditions were being met. Real reconciliation would only have been possible if enough trust could have been created among the various parties. This was something that turned out to be unfeasible, however, because the regime and the opposition had one thing in common: they fully mistrusted one another.

Later, even a new Ministry of Reconciliation was created, but President Bashar al-Asad internally reportedly called the respective government a ‘war cabinet’, which better reflected the president’s real intentions.¹⁸

In 2011 the regime apparently imagined that the whole crisis could be solved by brute force, just like it had managed to do in Hama in 1982 and on various other occasions. This, however, turned out to be a disastrous mistake. The situation in 2011 was completely different: the wall of fear and silence had been broken among a substantial part of the Syrian population, and they received political, financial and military support from abroad.

Countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and organisations like the Arab League, at first undertook serious efforts to help bring the violence to an end, to help establish an intra-Syrian national dialogue, and to mediate the start of reform measures, but it all turned out to be of no avail. Once it became clear that these mediators could not achieve any positive results, and the disproportionate violence of the regime continued, these countries finally chose the side of the opposition and started to actively work against the regime by supporting its adversaries with funds, weapons and other aid. Turkey allowed weapons and other aid for the opposition to pass across its borders into Syria, which was made even easier after opposition forces occupied some of the most important border crossings, like Bab al-Hawa, Bab al-Salamah and Jarabulus. Most countries that aided the opposition claimed to support the idea of a ‘political solution’ to the conflict. Turkey, by way of an exception, while calling for a political solution, also openly called for toppling the regime, which would in that case be a ‘military solution’. Most other countries maintained that they wanted a political solution, but in fact they wanted a regime change, albeit preferably peacefully, although this turned out to be impossible. All this gradually contributed to giving the ongoing intra-Syrian conflict the additional dimension of a war by proxy.

The Arab League froze the membership of the Syrian Arab Republic, but this turned out to be rather counterproductive because it further polarised relations between Syria and other Arab states. The Syrian National Council of the opposition in exile was allowed to participate in ministerial meetings on an ‘exceptional basis’, but the Arab League did not grant it the official recognition it sought to be Syria’s sole legitimate representative.

Being isolated by its Arab brothers and sisters appeared to be more sensitive for an Arab nationalist country like Syria than being sanctioned by the European Union or the United States, if only because relations with the latter were already rather cool, if not hostile. Self-preservation of the regime was, however, more important for Damascus than anything else.

Relations between Damascus and Washington had already been at a low ebb before 2011 because of Syrian support to opponents of the US–British invasion in Iraq from 2003 onwards. Jihadists from Syria were allowed to go to Iraq to fight the US–British occupation. Many joined al-Qa’idah in Iraq, and came back to Syria later, well-trained to join the Syrian Revolution after 2011.¹⁹ It was one of the examples where interfering in the internal affairs of other countries may in the end backfire.²⁰

It appeared to be an omission of the Western countries not to even have tried any kind of serious political dialogue with Damascus, even though there would not have been any guarantee of success, particularly when taking into account the efforts already made by other intermediaries. Once these Western countries had declared the Syrian president and his regime to be illegitimate, possibilities for dialogue were also blocked, and it became more and more difficult, if not impossible, to find a way back towards a more neutral position from which mediation between the regime and the opposition groups might have been possible.

Most Western countries withdrew their ambassadors from Damascus in 2012, and thereby not only cut off all direct communications with the regime, but also lost their ‘ears and eyes’ inside Syria. As a result, it became more difficult for them to correctly monitor and evaluate developments inside the country. The continuous propaganda war between the regime and the opposition through the media made the possibility of neutral evaluation of developments even more difficult. Had they remained in Damascus, the ambassadors might have been a kind of last contact through whom attempts might have been made to influence the regime.²¹

The United States, the European Union and other countries started to impose various sanctions against the regime. These, however, did not achieve the desired results. Regime violence, intimidation and suppression only increased. Whereas these sanctions in themselves did not lead to the fall of the regime, as could have been expected, they indirectly encouraged others to help bring its downfall nearer, and made the economic situation for the population that was dependent on the regime more difficult.²²

Imposing sanctions with the aim of hitting the hard core of the regime, while simultaneously wanting to spare the population from its negative effects, turned out to be illusionary, as could have been predicted on the basis of earlier experiences with boycotts and sanctions elsewhere (for instance in Iraq in the 1990s where the sanctions contributed to hundreds of thousands of dead). Historically, sanctions have only rarely been effective. They, more often than not, have caused a lot of damage without ever achieving the results for which they were intended.

Wishful thinkers hoped that al-Asad would step down or that he might even leave the country in order to help solve the crisis, once enough pressure had been exercised by the countries condemning him, but the contrary happened – as could have been predicted as well, if only because dictators generally do not follow the rules of democratic accountability.

The regime reacted to the initially peaceful demonstrations by using disproportionate heavy force, trying to bloodily suppress any opposition, but this only resulted in the protests becoming more hostile. Nevertheless, on 26 March 2011, within two weeks of the beginning of what later turned out to be the Syrian Revolution, a presidential amnesty was issued for the release of approximately 260 prisoners from Saydnaya. It appeared that the large majority of those released were Islamists of one kind or another, while others were members of political opposition bodies and of Syria’s Kurdish minority, although claims differ over the precise breakdown. According to Charles Lister

this may have been an attempt to appease the growing anti-government sentiments across the country; but it is more likely that it was yet another devious attempt by the Assad regime to manipulate its adversary, this time by unleashing those it could safely label ‘Jihadists’ or ‘extremist’ among its ranks.

It is not clear why the regime at such a sensitive stage ‘wanted to play the cards of terrorism and military gangs to scare Syrians and the international community at the same time’, nor why it would thereby have had the ‘aim of distorting the Syrian Revolution’, as was argued by different Islamists of the opposition with some hindsight four years later in 2015.²³

Indeed, some of the released Islamist leaders later played a prominent role in the Syrian War, like Hasan ‘Abbud of Ahrar al-Sham and Zahran ‘Allush of Liwa’ al-Islam (later Jaysh al-Islam). But would the Islamists have played a much less prominent role in the Syrian Revolution, had these particular leaders not been released from prison? After all, the Islamist current had already been on the rise for a long time in Syria.²⁴ And there were enough Islamists who wanted to take revenge against the regime.

It did not really fit into the behavioural pattern of the Syrian regime to release prisoners – who in fact were its enemies – if they would thereby run even the minor risk of these people actively turning against the regime. Therefore, it appears more likely that these men were released to ‘appease the growing anti-government sentiments’. Nevertheless, it looked quite contradictory that the regime would release some of its well-known enemies. Yet, developments had not gone out of control that much at that stage, and under previous circumstances the released prisoners could have been re-imprisoned relatively easy. From this point on developments progressed quite differently, however, from what the regime might have imagined.

The Syrian writer Ehsani (pseudonym) later, also with some hindsight, gave a view that could be considered closer to reflecting the perception from Damascus:

As the crisis first unfolded in Daraa, Sheikh Sayasneh was invited to Damascus in an attempt by the authorities to de-escalate the situation. One of the key demands of the cleric was the release of prisoners, the majority of whom were Islamists. This pattern was often repeated throughout the early phase of the crisis. The UN mediator took up this demand. He too requested the release of prisoners as a trust-building measure. While many in the opposition are convinced that the release of people like Zahran Alloush was engineered by Damascus to help radicalise the opposition, the truth is probably more nuanced. The Syrian State was desperately trying to stop the uprising through both using a stick (swift response against protestors) and a carrot (release of prisoners when urged). While one may still debate this argument and claim that the government’s secret intent was to turn the uprising into a Jihad, the fact is that what Damascus sees today are insurgents and Islamist armed groups who want nothing less than to destroy the Syrian State and replace it with a state designed to conform to Sharia. They call it ‘more Islamist in identity’.²⁵

If Ehsani’s comments are correct, the regime at the time did not yet fully understand that its disproportional force was completely out of balance if it had wanted to apply a successful carrot and stick policy.

Reinoud Leenders has argued that the regime might have reasoned that with a militarisation of its confrontation with the opposition, it would stand a much better chance of surviving, given its superior military capabilities. For the regime ‘the military stand-off that ensued, and which lasts until today, contained a far slimmer chance of delivering regime change than the peaceful and popularly driven protests that challenged the regime in the first few months of the uprising’.²⁶ If this was indeed the regime’s reasoning, it did not take into account the possibility that the opposition was going to receive substantial military and other aid from abroad.

In another regime gesture of appeasement, 220,000 Kurds in the north-east were given Syrian citizenship by presidential decree on 7 April 2011, after many Kurds had been rendered stateless since the early 1960s.

In April 2011, the regime started to label the uprising in explicit Islamist or extremist terms. According to the Syrian Ministry of Interior

some of these groups have called for armed insurrection under the motto of Jihad to set up a Salafist state … What they did is an ugly crime severely punished by law. Their objective is to spread terror across Syria.²⁷

Painting some of the opposition as Sunni Salafist extremists, whether justified or not, could have helped secure the continued support of sectarian communities that were of primary importance to the Syrian regime, like the Alawis and Christians.²⁸ The number of Christians in Syria decreased drastically during the Syrian War and even before.²⁹

On 21 April 2011, the state of emergency, in force since 1963, was abolished by President Bashar al-Asad at the demand of the demonstrators, after having been in force for 48 years. In practice, however, it made no difference because the regime simply continued with its severe repression of the population and ignored the laws that did not suit it. And some of the laws permitted the regime to do whatever it wanted, without any repercussions.

Syrian opposition leader Haytham Al Maleh has noted in this respect that according to legislative decree no. 14 of 1968:

It is not permitted to bring criminal proceedings against anyone who worked within this administration for crimes committed while carrying out their defined objectives or where the execution is by mandate of the leader … This text assured immunity from persecution for the authors of crimes of torture and murder by torture. Since the publication of this decree to this day, no one responsible for security has ever been held up before a court of crime.³⁰

In May 2011, the president’s spokeswoman Buthayna Sha’ban stated that al-Asad had ordered that there should be no more shooting, but it simply went on. This did not necessarily mean that al-Asad did not have his own army and security people under control, but rather that the regime had opted for the violent way to ‘solve’ the crisis, and that the spokeswoman’s statements simply did not reflect the realities on the ground.³¹

But was Bashar al-Asad really fully in control? Bashar al-Asad was parachuted on to the top of the regime in 2000 to prevent disunity among the officers and supporters of the late President Hafiz al-Asad. Faruq al-Shar’, Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2000, has recounted in his memoirs that Minister of Defence Mustafa Talas, on the day of the death of President Hafiz al-Asad, proposed that al-Shar’ should be given the task to directly prepare for a change in the constitution that would enable Bashar al-Asad to become the new president at the age of 34 instead of 40, as was laid down in the constitution. Al-Shar’ notes that he was originally against the principle of an hereditary presidency (just as he was strongly against the takeover of power by Rif’at, Hafiz al-Asad’s brother, in 1984). This time the situation was different, however, according to al-Shar’: ‘If Bashar al-Asad would take over the presidency, this would be a secure way out, as well as a peaceful alternative to a bloody struggle that might break out.’³² Bashar’s appointment as president was to ensure continuity, in taking over from his father, but that did not mean that he from the very beginning had just as much power. In the early stages of the Syrian Revolution Bashar al-Asad may not have been the one who directly issued the orders to shoot and kill; it was more probably those who for decades had got used to acting independently where violence and intimidation were concerned.

David Lesch has noted that the Mukhabarat’s accumulation of power over the years led to systematic recklessness, which backfired against the regime. ‘The right hand did not know what the left hand was doing, and nor did it seem to care – a disconnect that is both dangerous and an abdication of authority.’³³ But as President and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Bashar al-Asad was fully responsible for everything his men did, irrespective of whether or not he issued the direct orders. And in March 2011, at the beginning of the revolution, he had already been in power for almost 11 years, long enough to establish a powerful position and have a lot of experience. Later, during the Syrian Revolution, repression and attacks against the opposition became more planned, rather than being improvised, as might have been the case in the very beginning. The regime created a special ‘crisis cell’ to deal with it.

In the early stages of the Syrian Revolution it was suggested quite often that Bashar al-Asad was a moderate personality, open to ideas of democracy. Many imagined that these supposed attitudes, if correct, could be ascribed to his stay in Great Britain where he studied ophthalmology for a year and a half. At first, after taking over as president in 2000, Bashar al-Asad was in the diplomatic community in Damascus even characterised as a kind of ‘Snow White’: a rather innocent personality who was open to reform and democracy. In practice, it turned out that he was not able, or indeed willing, to implement any drastic reforms at all. Many Syrians in the beginning had high hopes that the internal political situation in Syria might essentially change under Bashar al-Asad’s rule, but this turned out to be a misconception. The so-called Damascus Spring that began in 2000, with intensive public political debates among Syrian intellectuals about future reform in Syria, died an early death in 2001, because the activities of most of those who were involved were supressed. Many who still believed in Bashar al-Asad’s openness to reform ascribed the failure of the Damascus Spring to the thesis that it was the old guard, the remnant prominent personalities of the rule of his father Hafiz al-Asad, who had prevented any drastic change. Even if this contained some truth, in 2011 it was mainly the new guard, led by President Bashar al-Asad, who decided things, albeit still in the presence of some prominent people from the old guard. By 2005, most officers of the old guard, whom Bashar al-Asad had known as a child, had been replaced. Thereafter, his regime became more stable.³⁴

The influence of Bashar al-Asad’s exposure to the West and its ideas have generally been highly exaggerated. It was more based on wishful thinking than on realities. Bashar may have been influenced by his exposure to Western values of democracy and reform during his stay in Great Britain, but never to such an extent that he would really think that these concepts could be brought into practice in the same way in Syria. In his view it would take a long time before any kind of democracy could be practised in his country, if at all.³⁵ David Lesch has noted that Bashar al-Asad ‘learned soon enough that to succeed in the Syrian system one had to conform to it’.³⁶

Instead of being a child of the West, Bashar was an authentic child of Syria and his Syrian parents. He was born in Damascus, making him a Damascene rather than someone who was from the Alawi Mountains. He was raised in the Arab nationalist Syrian environment of his father who was president, and of his Syrian family and Syrian friends. He was thereby intensively exposed to the problems Syria went through, like the Arab–Israeli conflict, the Syrian intervention in Lebanon, the killing of Alawis in the late 1970s to the early 1980s, the assassination attempt against his father, the confrontation of the regime with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood in Hama in 1982 and many other developments. He was a member of the Ba’th Party, received an education in the Syrian army, and was groomed to become Syrian president by his father and his entourage during a period of six and a half years, between 1994, when his brother Basil died in a car accident, and 2000 when his father died. His formative years were therefore in Syria and Syrian. His mere 18 months in London were of secondary importance.³⁷

Demonstrations against the Syrian regime continued for many months, and it was a miracle that they generally remained so peaceful for a relatively long time, taking into account the severe repression and atrocities committed by the regime against the peaceful demonstrators, their families and regions. In the past, such atrocities were not that visible, although they were well known from publications.³⁸ After 2011, however, they could be witnessed throughout the world via social media like Facebook, YouTube and various Arab television channels such as Al Jazeera.³⁹ These media showed graphic films and pictures that further contributed to great indignation and helped trigger serious counterviolence that, in the end, resulted in a disastrous war.

Next to the peaceful demonstrations, there also was armed anti-regime violence during the early stages of this revolution, probably committed from the ‘side lines’ by radical Islamists and others, branded by the regime as ‘armed gangs’.⁴⁰ It takes only one or more armed men in a large peaceful crowd to cause a serious escalation of violence. In general, however, the anti-regime demonstrations in the beginning clearly had a nonviolent character even though the reaction of the regime to them was disproportionate in every sense. It has been argued that there were some armed pro-regime agents provocateurs among the demonstrating crowds, but the regime did not really need such people as an excuse, because it could do whatever it wanted.

The regime reported that between 4 and 6 June 2011 nearly 120 of its soldiers and security people were killed and their bodies mutilated and thrown in a river around the town of Jisral-Shugur. Opposition activists claimed at the time that the dead soldiers were shot by their own superiors as they tried to defect. According to the Syrian writer Ehsani, who was close to the regime, this was incorrect. Ehsani reports that ‘according to informed Western sources, electronic interception of opposition communication from that day clearly revealed that opposition fighters took responsibility for the murder of the soldiers’.⁴¹

Whatever the truth, it is clear that by June 2011 violence and counterviolence had increased to such an extent that any return to peaceful discussions and dialogue between regime and opposition had become extremely difficult.

No less important was the fact that the Syrian Revolution had already, to some extent, been kidnapped by radical Islamists. They saw the so-called Arab Spring developments in the region as an excellent opportunity to present themselves as viable alternatives in their efforts to spread the rule of Islam.⁴²

At the beginning, the demonstrators just asked for freedom and peacefulness. It was only after being confronted with additional bloody suppression by the regime’s military and security forces that protestors gradually started calling for the toppling of the regime, the departure of the president and even for his execution.

Were the demonstrators so naive as to expect the regime to really make any drastic political reforms leading to a more democratic political system and to freedom of expression? Did they really believe that the regime would peacefully give in to their demands, or even that peaceful demonstrations could cause its downfall? It would be unjust to label these courageous demonstrators as naive. They were rather overtaken by their enthusiasm after being inspired by ‘Arab Spring’ developments elsewhere, and they imagined that they were going to be supported by Western countries in achieving their aims for freedom and reform. After all, the ambassadors from the United States, France and elsewhere had shown solidarity with the demonstrators by personally going to Hama in July 2011, thereby openly taking sides in the conflict under strong criticism of the regime in Damascus. Whereas France had had close and friendly relations with the Syrian regime previous to the Syrian Revolution, the US–Syrian relationship had since Syrian independence always been more hostile than friendly.⁴³

Also, other Western governments at first reacted positively and optimistically about the possibilities for democratic change in Syria, and thereby encouraged the Syrian Revolution. Given the circumstances, the demonstrators at the beginning did not have much of an alternative to demonstrating peacefully. Most of them did not have any arms. This changed drastically, however, once they were supplied with arms from abroad, via Turkey and Jordan.

The demonstrators may not have had any well-contemplated plan or strategy at the beginning. It was rather a spontaneous reaction to the violence and repressive actions of the regime, first in Deraa province, and later elsewhere, all over Syria. They apparently simply wanted to get rid of the Ba’thist dictatorship that had already existed for almost half a century. The youth – and older people as well – were fed up with always living under dictatorship, having no freedom of expression, and, more important perhaps, not having any prospects for positive change in their often miserable lives. In the years preceding the Syrian Revolution the agricultural economy had been severely affected by drought, reportedly the worst for at least 500 years, causing more than a million rural people to migrate to the cities.⁴⁴ This added up to the situation being explosive.

Those who had only read or heard about the regime’s violence and its repression, but had not experienced it themselves first hand, were, under the perceived new circumstances, prepared to take immense risks, without having the slightest guarantee of success. But those who themselves in the past had already directly experienced the regime’s extremely bad treatment in prisons and its torture chambers were equally willing to take those risks.

Robin Yassin-Kassab has observed that Syrians stopped acting ‘as if ’, and shocked themselves in the process. ‘Participants often describe[d] their first protest as an almost mystical experience of liberation through honest self-expression, of breaching the limits imposed by fear, and of finding true solidarity with the community.’⁴⁵

After earlier mediation efforts had failed, Syrian opposition forces started to be militarily supported to a great extent by the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab Gulf states, France and Great Britain, whereas the regime was supported in particular by Russia, Iran and Hizballah. For some of these countries and parties, intervention in Syria was part of their strategic ambitions or perceived interests. For instance, the regional rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran played a role. Iran had its regional ambitions in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, in which Syria constituted a bridgehead across which Hizballah could be supported in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia wanted to counter this, and was active in extending the influence of its Wahhabism.⁴⁶ The Syrian–Iranian axis had little or nothing to do with religion, but mainly with strategic interests. It was an alliance between a theocratic and a secular regime. It was not a Shi’i alliance, as has sometimes been suggested. And many Iranian Shi’is may not even consider Syrian Alawis as Twelver Shi’is like themselves. As was mentioned above, this also applies to some of the Syrian Alawi Shaykhs, who consider Alawis to be different in religion from the Iranian Shi’is. The link between Syria and Hizballah was strategic as well, and had little to do with religion. Each party had its own motives.

Russia wanted to prevent the emergence of an Islamist state on its southern flank.

During the Syrian War, various kinds of speculations have come up suggesting that the Alawis would like to have their own state or autonomous region, once the Alawi-dominated Ba’thist regime falls, and revenge killings against Alawis would take place on a large scale, within the context of a sectarian war, with Alawis and Sunnis as the main opponents.

There have been suggestions from the anti-regime side that Alawis should be given certain assurances for their future so as to prevent a further sectarian polarisation, and to induce them to distantiate themselves from the regime. But the big question remained whether or not such assurances could be trusted, and by whom such so-called guarantees could be made, particularly as long as the sectarian-tinted Syrian War was going on.

[t]he Assad regime is counting on a sectarian survival instinct, confident that Alawite troops – however underpaid and overworked – will fight to the bitter end. The majority will find it hard to do so. After enough mindless violence, the instincts on which the regime has banked could push its forces the other way. Having endured centuries of discrimination and persecution [⁴⁷] from the Sunni majority, Alawites see their villages, within relatively inaccessible mountainous areas, as the only genuine sanctuary. That is where security officers already have sent their families. They are unlikely to believe that they will be safe in the capital (where they feel like transient guests), protected by the Assad regime (which they view as a historical anomaly) or state institutions (which they do not trust). When they feel the end is near, Alawites won’t fight to the last man in the capital. They will go home.⁴⁸

It should be added that it may indeed be true that many original Damascenes do (or want to) consider Alawi people as ‘transient guests’. But I do not think that Alawis who were born in Damascus, and spent their whole lives there, share those feelings. On the contrary, many Alawis are already there as part of a second, or even third, generation. To them, Damascus has become their ‘home’. For them, therefore, they would not go ‘home’ or ‘return’ to the mountains, because they never lived there. This does not mean that they might, during a certain stage, not feel safer in ‘the mountains’. What complicates things is that very many rural people have become urbanised, or even Damascenes, for instance, as has happened on so many earlier occasions in history, be they Sunnis, Alawis, Druzes, Christians, Isma’ilis or others. How many inhabitants of Damascus are really Damascenes when taking their ancestors into account?

President Bashar al-Asad was born in Damascus, and spent most of his life there. But he may be buried one day in al-Qardahah (the birthplace of his late father Hafiz al-Asad) out of tradition. Bashar al-Asad’s perception of himself will most probably differ from what original Damascene people think about him.⁴⁹ All these factors have severely complicated the sectarian-tinted war, because various ethnic and sectarian groups have geographically strongly intermingled, all over Syria. There are even some strategically located, predominantly Alawi military-dominated quarters in and around Damascus that could serve to protect the regime, including Dahiyat al-Asad (the ‘al-Asad Suburb’).⁵⁰ Alawi majority quarters have also come up around other Syrian cities, like Homs or Hama.

In the theoretical case that the Alawis were to flee in great numbers to the ‘Alawi Mountains’, this would be as part of largescale ethnic cleansing operations and migration movements, not just of Alawis, but of other communities as well, drastically changing the distribution of the Syrian population. In my view the internal migration of people from all over Syria has taken place on such a large scale and over such a long period of time that it cannot be fully undone, and therefore has reached a point of no return.⁵¹ Moreover, large-scale ethnic cleansing operations and forced migration movements would bring a solution to the conflict further from reach than ever. Nevertheless, terrible developments such as these cannot be fully excluded.

Many would expect the Alawi region to have economically profited because of the fact that so many Alawis occupy important positions in Syria. The reality is different, however, because the Alawi mountain regions have in general been quite neglected and remain relatively poor. This is not in line with the idea that the Alawis would one day like to have a state in their regions of origin.

Fabrice Balanche has argued that the potential for a separation of the Alawi region from Syria is well founded. Balanche sees evidence of such a potential development in both the transport infrastructure and the presence of certain military bases in the Alawi region. He interprets these as having strategic importance for the defence of the Alawi territories within the Syrian internal context.⁵²

It should also be concluded that there is no serious danger of territorial fragmentation of Syria, at least if it were really up to its inhabitants themselves to decide. Nobody, or hardly anyone, would want it. The Alawis do not want it, the Druzes do not want it, the Isma’ilis do not want it, the Christians do not want it, and the Sunnis do not want it. It is more that some communities suspect other communities of wanting it. Among the Syrian Kurds there are those who would like to have a kind of regional administrative autonomy, albeit for the time being within the framework of a unitarian Syrian state. The Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD – Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat) is an exception, wanting a kind of political, not only an administrative, autonomy.

And Israel may want it, as it would fit better in its vision of a Middle East divided into entities based on ethnic and/or sectarian identities, in which Israel as a Jewish state might, in the opinion of various Israelis, be better accommodated.⁵³

The Syrian identity has become well embedded today, irrespective of half a century of Arab nationalist Ba’thist indoctrination claiming that the Arab national identity should be considered as an identity of supreme importance, being of a higher order than the Syrian identity.

John McHugo has observed that few Western commentators want to sound as if they are advocating the redrawing of the map of the region,

yet just raising the possibility can almost make it sound like something inevitable … This is an outbreak of the old Western disease of drawing pretty lines on maps and then expecting the people of Greater Syria to step neatly into the zones marked with the particular colour chosen for them. Things do not work like that.⁵⁴

There were some Alawi leaders who in 1936 reportedly signed a petition addressed to the French, stating that they wanted to continue the separate entity of the predominantly Alawi region under the French Mandate: L’État des Alaouites (‘The State of the Alawis’), later called Gouvernement de Lattaquié, that had already existed for 14 years since 1922. The petition, supposedly signed by only six persons, including the grandfather of Hafiz al-Asad (Sulayman Asad), has often been (mis)used by opponents of the Syrian regime to discredit the present-day al-Asad family, even though it was more than 80 years ago, and Hafiz al-Asad himself was a fervent Arab nationalist, whereas his father was explicitly against a separate Alawi state.

Even the French invoked this ‘separatist’ petition when Syrian Permanent Representative Bashar al-Ja’fari in 2012 gave a negative portrayal of French Mandatory rule before the United Nations. His French counterpart, on behalf of Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, used the petition as an argument to say that President Bashar al-Asad’s [great-]grandfather had had a pro-French position.

Another document, which is generally ignored, is a ‘unionist’ petition that was signed by some 86 Alawi notables, including ‘Ali Sulayman al-Asad, the father of later President Hafiz al-Asad, who wanted the Alawi region to be incorporated in a greater Syrian state. These Alawi notables were strongly against any separate region for the Alawis. Opponents of the regime obviously do not refer to this document, because it would confirm the ‘unionist’ credentials of the al-Asad family for at least three generations.

And when scrutinising the first mentioned ‘separatist’ document, it turns out that it is most likely a falsification.⁵⁵ But even if the ‘fake petition’ turned out to be genuine, one might pose the question: ‘so what?’ One’s present-day political views are not determined or (de)legitimised by what one’s father, grandfather or great-grandfather (or for that matter whatever family member or relative) may or may not have said on a certain day.

According to a poll conducted by The Day After Association in 2016 about the opinion of Syrians on decentralisation, Alawis turned out to be among the strongest opponents of this idea, implying that they were against the formation of an Alawi state or a separate predominantly Alawi region. Respondents from all religious minorities overwhelmingly opposed the Democratic Self-Administration except for Isma’ilis. Alawis constituted the group of respondents who opposed it the most (70.5%).

The most cited reason for rejecting self-administration in regime and opposition-controlled areas was the ‘fear of partition’.⁵⁶ In 2016, the circumstances and context were completely different from those in 1936, if only because of the Syrian War. Whether justified or not, this time the idea of partition could be associated with the dark picture of ethnic cleansing, and was, therefore, seen as something very negative by Alawis and others (even though the half a million Alawi residents of Damascus could have profited from ‘Democratic Self-Administration’).

But decentralisation would also imply the Alawi-dominated regime losing control over the whole of the country. Alawis in general may have perceived this as a danger to their community – something that could also lead to the loss of the privileged positions of many Alawis.