Brian M Downing
Opposition to the Assad regime in Syria has been firming since the beginning of the Arab Spring earlier this year. The government’s efforts to wait out and use force to end the opposition have failed thus far. Public opposition remains strong, almost mythic, even after thousands of deaths and the arrest and torture of thousands more. After many months now, the opposition may be nearing the point of eroding the Syrian military and state and bringing an end to the rule of Bashar al-Assad.
The Regime’s Repressive Capacity
Assad has responded to the popular uprising with persistent brutality, though it has thus far fallen short of the response his father, Hafez al-Assad, to the 1982 battle in Hama. That month-long campaign killed tens of thousands as security forces and military units pitilessly crushed the Muslim Brotherhood bastion there. A repeat of that is unlikely. The opposition today is not confined to a small network in a few cities. It is too broadly based and geographically spread out for the security forces and elite military units to handle in that manner – or in any manner.
The 220,000-man army is composed of a large number of conscripts drawn from the general population, and though indoctrinated and regimented, they cannot be relied upon to fire into crowds and otherwise repress a popular uprising. Those grim tasks are being done by security forces, elite army units, and semi-trained militias, which are expert and ruthless, but spread too thin.
The opposition has been encouraged by an undetermined number of desertions from the army and the coalescence of a Free Syrian Army about which more shall be said anon. Its origins and potential growth into greater significance lie in the unwillingness of the regular army to engage in killing fellow Syrians.
The government, then, has to refrain from the ferocity visited on Hama in 1982 for fear that it will cause more desertions and perhaps the regime’s greatest fear – a revolt of a full brigade or division that would give the opposition a significant conventional force and a sizable region that would soon enough become a Free Syria.
Foreign Support for the Regime
Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was able to retain control of western Libya with the aid of foreign mercenaries from the Tuareg people of the Sahara and several African countries upon which he bestowed generous subsidies. They fought in the face of unrelenting NATO airstrikes and rebel attacks and even put up effective resistance in redoubts around Tripoli and Sirte until the end came. The Syrian government has no such mercenary force at its disposal.
Syria’s neighbors generally oppose it as an enduring ally of Shiite Iran and wish to see it fall, wary though they are of what will come in its place. Saudi Arabia initially supported the Assad regime, most likely to support autocracy in the region and to persuade it to break with Saudi Arabia’s nemesis in Tehran, but now Riyadh calls for Assad to step down. Recently, Jordan also called for Assad to leave.
As the regime sees its isolation grow and its repressive power weaken, it will look to Iran for help. There are already reports of Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) advisers in country, but it’s doubtful they have anything to impart to the Syrian security forces whose brutality is plain and in little need of tutoring.
The introduction of Iranian forces is unlikely as it brings in regional and international politics. An Iranian presence would lead to strong objections from neighboring states, raise the likelihood of civil war between Shiite and Sunni Syrians, and lead to escalated attacks inside Iran conducted by Saudi, Israeli, and US intelligence services. It might also raise the likelihood of unrest inside Iran as its own repressive capacity weakens, albeit temporarily and incrementally.
Oppositional Forces
For many months the opposition held fast to nonviolent protest, even in the face of gunfire and artillery fire. More recently, however, the opposition is arming itself and engaging in attacks and skirmishes with security and army forces.
Arms are coming in from adjacent Lebanon, whose Hizbullah government has ties to the Assad regime but has little control over arms bazaars in its territory and smuggling abroad. The clandestine Muslim Brotherhood has long had to rely on secret channels to communicate and recruit; its networks are readily suited to arms smuggling, clandestine organization, and limited attacks.
Syria’s conscript army means that a large portion of the population over the age of eighteen knows how to use rifles and operate in disciplined, concerted group. In this respect, they are like the Arab veterans of the French army during WW2 who returned to Algeria and Tunisia and became the cadres and fighters in the liberation fronts of the postwar years.
Further, there are hundreds of thousands of Sunni Iraqis who have fled the Shiite government back home and bristle with resentment toward Iran and its Alawite allies in Damascus. The Sunni-Iraqi émigrés are tied to Salafist and anti-Shiite groups in Iraq who in turn are tied to Saudi Arabia, which seeks to detach Syria from its longstanding ties to Iran.
There have been a number of Syrian officers and soldiers who have quit their units and joined the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a group whose numbers are unclear to outsiders, probably exaggerated by the opposition, and quite worrisome if not unnerving to the regime. There is no evidence of whole units – say, battalions of 500 men or more – going over to the opposition and operating against the security forces. That would be a sign of the regime’s disintegration and impending fall.
The FSA has engaged security forces in several sharp attacks that left the latter with scores of casualties and an abiding concern for their troop movements and communication links. The FSA and the less-trained guerilla forces concentrate their attacks on security forces rather than the regulate army as the latter is more likely to have troops willing to go over to the rebels. Security forces once moved from trouble spot to trouble spot with little fear along the road. Now they must move more cautiously and watch the army units alongside them for signs of disaffection and defection.
The rebel forces seek to establish a region or a cluster of cities in which they can form an alternate government on Syrian soil, construct conventional defenses, and draw government forces into costly attacks on fixed positions. This would parallel the Libyan rebels who wore down the vaunted Khames Brigade in Misurata – a protracted and bloody battle that gravely wounded the Gaddafi regime.
The FSA can undermine opposing forces in non-lethal ways. Armies have countless informal networks running through them based on common training backgrounds, common patrons and mentors, and tribal affiliations. FSA officers are undoubtedly contacting their colleagues in the regular army, apprising them of the regime’s poor prospects, and offering an honored position in the new army. Air force and navy officers may defect with their planes and ships to nearby Turkey and work with the FSA.
Foreign Intervention
The international community has been slowly heaping criticisms, sanctions, and occasional threats upon the Assad government. Every day brings more bad news to the isolated regime. The usually inert Arab League is now on the verge of expelling Syria from its membership. Foreign assistance in the form of military intervention is greatly hoped for by the opposition and greatly feared by the government.
The Libyan case in which NATO and a few Gulf states intervened is presently unlikely to be followed. The protracted air campaign against Gaddafi showed military limitations and internal strains in the alliance. Western publics are looking toward domestic problems and parts of it have strenuous opposition to actions in former colonies even in the best of times, resonant as they are to old imperialist actions.
Nonetheless, sharper ground fighting in Syria, especially if near liberated areas and accompanied by documented atrocities, could prod NATO countries to act once more. Intervention can also be influenced by the perception of a Muslim Brotherhood ascendancy, fear of Shiite-Sunni warfare and Saudi-Iranian intervention, or the wish to gain influence in an important part of a new Middle East.
NATO intervention could be in conjunction with Arab sates that see Assad’s fall as inevitable and wish to avoid sectarian conflict. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates contributed to Gaddafi’s ouster and could help with a no-fly zone over Syria and with arms shipments to the opposition. A few drones overhead would strike fear into government troops and the leadership ensconced in Damascus, as would a fighter or two flying low on afterburners.
Turkey, a NATO member but an increasingly independent one, may play a vital role with or without alliance partners. It is already giving sanctuary to oppositional forces and is gradually escalating pressure on Assad. Turkey is reportedly considering establishing an aircap over any city or region able to assert independence from Damascus.
Turkey is a rising power seeking to become a regional power linking Western Europe with Central Asia and its hydrocarbon wealth. A diplomatic campaign that effected Assad’s ouster would add to that ambition as would a swift, decisive military campaign that brought the same. Ousting Assad would position Turkey to better pursue its goal of brokering a settlement to the Palestinian problem, which would all but assure its regional preeminence.
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The machinery of the Assad state is slowing down. Small parts are breaking off and doing damage to larger more critical ones. Meanwhile the opposition’s machinery is being assembled with limited but growing foreign help. The Assad regime faces a hopeless dilemma. Continued or still harsher repression will lead to more defections from the army, stronger opposition, and greater likelihood of foreign intervention. On the other hand, easing repression will be seen as a sign of weakness and embolden the opposition.
The examples of collapsed dictatorships that we’ve been fortunate to witness over the last few decades suggest that the disintegration is not apparent to outsiders and that collapse comes surprisingly swiftly – Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya. The end in Damascus is unlikely to be far off and Assad’s demise may well come either from a court decision in the Hague or a pistol shot in Damascus.
©2011 AT