Celebrating in the Golan Heights: For how long?
Photo credit: Mathias Delacroix, AP.
The US should intervene in Syria now. Central Command, the Tampa-based unit that oversees the US military in the Middle East and Central Asia, organized and still controls the Syrian Defense Forces, the Kurdish-led army in northeast Syria. Officially, this army fights the remnants of the Islamic State in northeast Syria. That’s why the US set it up in 2015. But it really has fought President Bashar al-Assad for a decade, preventing the Syrian National Army from conquering the northeast. Assad has fled to his main patron, Russia.
The rebels now in Damascus need the Kurds. They are tenacious and skillful fighters; they are not strangers to the Russian arms that the rebels have captured; and they get along with the Druze and other southern Syrians who had led the democratic opposition to Assad since civil war broke out in 2011. The southerners, not Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, know enough about Syria to keep the government running. Assad lost control because he had lost touch with Syrians more than 15 years ago. The typical Syrian is angry because he lives on $2.07 a day, according to World Bank data for 2021. And he faces rampant inflation, with prices doubling every year according to my estimates. The Syrian National Bank, the country's central bank, stokes inflation by printing Syrian pounds, to obtain dollars cheaply. Health care is miserable: The infant mortality rate is 15.5 per 1,000 live births, estimated Worldometer.
To stabilize the nation, the new government must control the pound supply and obtain foreign aid for Syrians, the majority of whom cannot afford a decent meal, according to the United Nations World Food Programme. In a population of 25 million, nearly 13 million are hungry. On top of this, the Programme estimates, the HTS attacks of the past week will displace 1.5 million Syrians.
Democracy or doomsday?
Because of their practical experience, the southern democrats are better positioned to feed, house, and care medically for Syrians than are the conservative Sunnis of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The US can accomplish humanitarian goals by steering the new government back to the democratic purposes of the Arab Spring of 2011 that launched the civil war, and by providing economic expertise, especially in monetary policy.
The HTS leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, indicates that he is open to democracy. Observers are rightly suspicious, because he had belonged to al-Qaeda. But al-Jawlani’s roots may be more Syrian than fundamentalist Sunni. He is from Golan and indeed became a terrorist by fighting in the second intifada against the Israelis. He may be willing to break with al-Qaeda for real, and not just in rhetoric, if this will strengthen his popular support in the Syrian leadership. This is particularly the case because al-Jawlani faces internal opposition from fundamentalist Sunnis; so why not break from them now, with US help?
In addition, the US can aid the traditional opposition to Assad, including Dima Moussa, a vice president of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces. She is an American-educated lawyer specializing in women's rights, a pressing issue in this patriarchal society that accepts wife-beating as par for the course. Indeed, rapists can obtain lightened sentences by marrying their victims. Women, who are half of the country's population, can form a critical contingent of the new democracy's political base. They have shown their clout in Iran by protesting the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, in the custody of the Guidance Patrol in Tehran in 2022. Amini's crime was to wear her hijab incorrectly.
Does fight make right?
President-elect Donald Trump writes: "Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!"
This is most definitely our fight. Shouting in capital letters won't change that. First, a democratic Syria would provide a buffer for Israel against Iran, which is dedicated to destroying the only democracy in the Middle East. Second, it would strengthen democratic impulses in Iraq, which are weakened by the influence of Iranian militia. Third, it would enable the US and Israel to control the supply of arms between the Syrian coast and Lebanon that has supplied the terrorist group Hezbollah that is bombarding Israel. Fourth, it would restore American influence in the Middle East, at the expense of Iran and Russia. This influence is not only political. It can also stabilize the supply and price of US imports of oil, which historically have come from the Middle East.
Mark Kennet raises vital points. "I suspect you may be overly optimistic about Syrian propensity toward democracy. Syrians have no memory - ever - of democracy. Like neighboring Jordan, the best we can hope for is a tough but progressive-minded autocracy kept tightly under the ruler's thumb. I share your doubts that al-Jawlani, or al-Golani, is that ruler.
Touche. But I would note that Japan had no memory of democracy, either. It took a cataclysm to make it happen. Syria's is here. And the spirit of the Arab Spring has survived in the south for 14 years.
The usual roadblock to democracy in a country is the army -- which, in Syria, no longer exists.
Jordan is an interesting comparison, but it had to cope with a huge influx of Palestinians in the Fifties and Sixties, accompanied by the PLO. In contrast, the main immigration into Syria will be of Syrians.
US air support along with Israel's, especially over the Russian bases on the coast, is a good idea although it may provoke Russia and Iran, as Annabel Benson points out.
Why should Syria succeed?
Mark responds to me that "other models of incipient democracy which did not do as well as Japan are more common, and include Russia itself. I note that the only functioning Arab democracy is Tunisia. Why would Syria be different?"
It's a good question. Democracy didn't flourish in Egypt, either, after 2011. The issue, I think, is whether a failed state is more likely to be reborn as a democracy than other states. I would argue that the failed state subjects people to such miserable conditions that they are more likely than other peoples to participate in the new government to keep those conditions from recurring. Also, revolution in the failed state can sweep away interest groups that dominated the old government and economy, that prevented broad participation. Postwar Japan and Germany may be rough examples, although Japan has a rather overbearing industrial policy. Mine is basically speculation based on "The logic of collective action," by Mancur Olson.
Mark is rightly skeptical. "A lot depends on culture and institutions."
A lot sure does. The English legacy of the American colonists might have enabled them to develop democratic institutions faster than, say, the Spanish colonists. But the desire for democracy might also matter. One thinks of the French Revolution and the 1848 revolts in Germany.US air support along with Israel's, especially over the Russian bases on the coast, is a good idea although it may provoke Russia and Iran, as Annabel Benson points out. Air cover could cut off the transport of arms from the Mediterranean to Hezbollah in Lebanon via the east-west highway from Damascus to Baghdad.
Paul Higgins makes a practical point. "All of the American commentariat who hit the Sunday talk shows noted that the US can't (officially) even talk to HTS right now, because it's listed on our terrorist watchlist (or whatever the correct term is). Beginning the process of removing them would seem like a necessary first step towards any substantial communications."
Indeed, the UN has documented recent cases of torture and execution of prisoners by Hayat Tahrir al-Salam in northwest Syria. https://www.ohchr.org/.../un-commission-warns-syrian-war... I don't know if it might be possible to lift sanctions on al-Jawlani.
This problem is common. In 2020, President Trump said he would think about meeting with Nicolas Maduro although the Venezuelan President was under sanctions for narcoterrorism. Trump open to meeting with Venezuela’s Maduro But probably the Office of Foreign Assets Control, of the Treasury Department, will not balk at licensing the President to meet someone red-hot because of a sanction. OFAC Consolidated Frequently Asked Questions | Office of Foreign Assets Control
Yes, Mister President-Elect, Syria is a mess. That's why it's not our friend. Maybe it's time to offer a hand. -- Leon Taylor, Seymour, Indiana tayloralmaty@gmail.com
Notes
For valuable comments, I thank but do not implicate Annabel Benson, Paul Higgins, and Mark Kennet.
References
The New York Times. Syria Live Updates: Rebels Who Toppled Assad Face Stark Challenges - The New York Times . December 9, 2024.
Trading Economics. Syria GDP per capita . Accessed December 9, 2024.
United Nations Syria Country Team Report. https://uprdoc.ohchr.org/uprweb/downloadfile.aspx?filename=9689&file=EnglishTranslation Accessed December 9, 2024.
United Nations World Food Programme. GENEVA / MIDDLE EAST HUMANITARIAN PRESSER | UNifeed . December 6, 2024.
Wikipedia. Dima Moussa - Wikipedia Updated December 8, 2024.
Wikipedia. Death of Mahsa Amini - Wikipedia Updated December 1, 2024.
Worldometer. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/syria-population/ Accessed December 9, 2024.
