 |
| Volume XII, Fall 2005, Number 3 |
| |
BOOK REVIEW
|
| |
|
| |
Inheriting Syria: Bashar’s Trial by Fire, by Flynt Leverett. The Brookings Institution Press, 2005. xv plus 166 pages, with chronology and notes. $27.95, hardcover.
Martha Neff Kessler
Central Intelligence Agency (ret.)
For over a quarter century, from administration to administration, Democratic and Republican,
the United States has undertaken ambitious policy agendas involving Syria. None has been
successful in achieving the overarching U.S. goals of stabilizing the Arab-Israeli arena and making
the region safer for American interests and those of our allies. Often the stumbling has involved
Damascus. This poor track record is one important reason for reading this concise, thoughtful
examination of Syria’s young president, Bashar al-Asad, and recommendations for trying anew to
deal effectively with Damascus. A former Middle East analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency
and senior staff member of the National Security Council, Flynt Leverett is uniquely positioned to
provide insight into Syria, its new leader, and the U.S. foreign-policy community that has struggled
with the Syrian challenge.
This is not a comprehensive history of U.S.-Syrian relations nor a critique of successive U.S.
policies toward Syria. The opening chapter, though, provides the reader with a succinct account of
Syria’s beginnings as a modern state, the inevitable tensions between Syria and the United States
over U.S. support to Israel, and Syria’s challenges to Israel and Washington. This opener, while on
point for the experienced Middle East watcher, may not be enough for those relatively unexposed
to Syria’s history, its tortuous political experiences from independence until Asad senior in 1970, its
early abortive experiments with democracy, its deep-seated fear of Israeli expansionism and its
concomitant distrust of American leaders.
Leverett’s primary concentration is on the authoritarian state Hafiz al-Asad built and the
constraints and challenges he bequeathed to his successor as a result. Chief among these are the
highly centralized, personality-based character of the state and the consequent enfeebled governmental
institutions that have failed to move Syria forward. Leverett especially focuses on the office
of the presidency, characterized by the author and a high-level Syrian interlocutor as far too weak
to manage a serious reform effort.
So dominant were the personality and principles of Hafiz al-Asad that the son’s legitimacy
resides first and foremost in his family name and, more safely, in being a “keeper of the flame” rather
than a determined reformer. Bashar also suffers, Leverett argues, from an authority gap, which would
plague any successor, especially a son who inevitably appears less powerful, confident and capable
at the beginning of his tenure than his father – a 30-year veteran of power politics, some of the most
violent and dangerous kind.
An outgrowth of this personalized and familial succession is the burden of Asad family
politics. Two generations of a large extended Asad family, many with political ambitions and all
with economic interests, have grown used to being at the apex of power and have a history of
abusing privilege and the law. All this adds to the complexity of the young president’s leadership
and puts constraints of a highly personal nature on Bashar, who is already predisposed by
personality toward caution.
Some of the most useful insights in this leadership study come from Leverett’s early-2004
interviews with Syrian officials, including Bashar himself. The Syrian leader apparently admitted to
the author that he was well aware of an old guard inhibiting change and reform. Bashar, interestingly,
corrected the widely held perception among American Middle East experts of a Syrian old
guard comprising a handful of powerful colleagues of his father. Bashar sees the problem as much
broader, involving a network of “mediocre” and “fossilized” bureaucrats.
The old guard also extends to a private sector that is to a considerable extent private in name
only; important segments of the so-called private sector in Syria have long relied on special
arrangements with various parts of the government for the bulk of their business. This unhealthy
partnership of status-quo-minded bureaucrats and their preferred allies in the private sector, Bashar
noted, is a real obstacle to change.
This open acknowledgement by a young leader who “gets it” is one of the book’s biggest
contributions and underscores the merit of undertaking a careful read of Leverett’s recommendations,
chief of which is to engage rather than undercut him. One wonders at the character of this
politically vulnerable young man, forthrightly describing malign and powerful entrenched interests
to an American scholar and member of a not-too-friendly U.S. security establishment, no less. In
Syria, such commentary is risky. Far riskier would be for Bashar to undertake a serious reform effort
before he has acquired the requisite power base, sidelined a few of his enemies, and steered Syria
successfully through the regional challenges resulting from the upheavals in Lebanon and the
morass in Iraq.
The author barely acknowledges the enormity of these tasks and, therefore, the discussion of
analytic uncertainties about Bashar’s leadership seems unrealistic. The question posed early in the
book – “Why has change come so slowly and what does that mean about Bashar al-Asad as a
national leader? – is not so hard to answer. His father’s tutorials could hardly have prepared him for
the tectonic shifts in the Middle East that began with September 11, barely a year after Bashar took
over the Syrian presidency. Moreover, most Arab leaders, even the monarchs, have spent years
establishing the underpinnings and character of their rule. None, including our allies, have fully
reformed their political systems, liberalized their societies or seriously tackled corruption. Some
have made a little headway, but we certainly would not want to count the years it has taken.
Virtually every regime in the Middle East is reeling from the impact of the U.S. invasion and
occupation of Iraq and the resurgence of terrorism in the Middle East and internationally. The flare-
up of tensions in Israel and the Palestinian areas with the coming of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
and the new intifada – and for Syria specifically, U.S. and French pressure on the Lebanon issue –
have made for a maelstrom of problems and vulnerabilities. Bashar’s succession came at an
exceptionally difficult time to consolidate power and steer Syria through regional dangers.
The three conflicting profiles of Bashar that Leverett puts forward accurately describe the
positions being debated in Washington policy circles:
• Bashar, as neophyte, is simply not up to the job. He does not really have a vision for Syria or a
foreign-policy agenda. This weakness and inexperience are regarded as dangerous to regional
stability by those who judge him to be a “neophyte.”
• Bashar, as loyal son, is characterized as a product of his father’s Syria, motivated to protect
entrenched interests and to pursue his father’s foreign policies. Some even see him as worse
than his father for having fallen under the spell of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Bashar is
the “second Asad edition” of the problem and thus wholly unable to be part of a solution.
• Bashar, as closet reformer, has a bit more nuance. He wants reform and changes in Syrian foreign
policy but is constrained in initiating change by the old guard. Some who hold this view think
he may eventually succeed in this quest. The pessimists speculate that Bashar is Syria’s
Gorbachev, stymied by a terribly shaky economic and political system that seems unreformable.
There are stakeholders in these interpretations of Bashar. The author suggests that each
image “carries its own implications for U.S. policy; the lack of analytic consensus thus exacerbates
the lack of consensus as to the appropriate course of policy.” One suspects it is the other way
around in today’s Washington, and that those who want to see a clean sweep of the Syrian
leadership promote the “loyal son” and/or “neophyte” profiles in pursuit of acquiring support for
regime change. Conversely, those who ascribe to an interpretation of Bashar as sincere reformer
probably shudder at the prospect of further U.S. adventures in the region. A careful read of the
author’s copious endnotes helps one understand where the various portraits of Bashar come from.
It is less clear where the author comes out. He writes that elements of all three profiles apply, but
as a result of his regular references to Hafiz al-Asad’s legacy and the script he provided Bashar, the
“loyal son” image reappears in the reader’s mind regularly.
At a time in Washington when policy interests chase down facts, near facts or fiction, what
suffers is honest analysis, common sense and nuance. Fortunately, that is what Leverett offers in
the discussions of Bashar’s performance thus far in managing Syria’s domestic- and foreign-policy.
Both the domestic and foreign policy chapters are excellent recaps of events over the past five
years, with all the necessary commentary concerning divisions within the U.S. administration over
policy toward Syria and very useful insights gleaned from Leverett’s interviews with the Syrian
leader and other officials. The author is at his best in assessing the strategic calculations the
Syrians made during this period in reaction to seminal events. He does less well in helping the
reader understand Syrian motives and their historical context. But then, at bottom, this book is for a
readership inside the Washington beltway – a thoroughly considered, diplomatically argued
presentation of the author’s vision of an effective U.S. policy toward Syria.
The approach Leverett promotes is one of conditional engagement – as he describes it, “hardnosed,
carrots-and-sticks engagement,” the essence of which is “to contrast the benefits of
cooperation with the likely cost of noncooperation.” He cites the successes of this approach in
getting Sudan out of the terrorism business and convincing Libya to meet its obligations in the
Lockerbie/Pan Am103 case and abandon its WMD program.
The two broad realms of tension between Washington and Damascus are Iraq and terrorism.
The author takes on both, parsing each issue by issue, giving recommendations on carrots and
sticks, step by step. His logic is convincing, particularly in its application to the clear benefits for
the United States. Throughout the book, Leverett gives the reader important insights and information
on exactly what U.S. policy has been and currently is. To non-official Middle East watchers
this is often a murky area, given the general inattention Syria has received. This makes Leverett’s
thorough rationale for the approach he recommends particularly persuasive. One good example
concerns terrorism:
"Specifically, the United States should indicate it would be prepared to take Syria off the state-
sponsors list, provided the Asad regime expelled terrorists from its territory, renewed
counterterrorist cooperation with the United States against al-Qaeda, and broadened that cooperation
to include rolling back Syria’s own terrorist links. Many readers may assume that this is
already U.S. policy, and at least some U.S. diplomats will suggest that it is. But the fact of the
matter is that the United States has never made such an offer to the Asad regime. Indeed, during the
Clinton administration, the policy was that Syria would be removed from the state sponsors list
only in the context of a peace agreement with Israel. Since the Bush administration has been in
office, it has declined to offer the Syrians the kind of roadmap for getting off the list advocated here."
Much of what troubles U.S.-Syrian relations is related too directly to the Arab-Israeli issue to
be handled apart from successful peace negotiations between Israel and Syria. And, in the author’s
view, conditions in Israel, Syria and the region are not ripe for a renewed effort on that front.
Leverett, however, believes, based on his own discussions with Bashar, that Washington could
help the new leader carve out enough maneuverability and political cover on contentious Arab-
Israeli issues to deal with other bilateral problems. Washington essentially would provide what
amounts to the “kiss of future promise” and Leverett thinks that might be just enough to help the
young man move forward.
This is where the logic of Leverett’s recommendations, even though based on what Bashar
says, strikes deep distrust among so many other Syrians, particularly powerful figures in the old
guard, the Asad family, and the military and the bureaucracy. Without tangible success in regaining
the Golan Heights and containing an aggressive Israel, Syrians are not likely to grant Bashar
much leeway in giving “concessions” to Washington. Distrust of the United States is a major
component of Hafiz al-Asad’s bequest to his son, and, even if Bashar has overcome that part of the
tutorial, his countrymen remain deeply suspicious of the United States. They see America as an
unstinting ally of Israel, a country prejudiced against Islam and Arabs, and one that has a history
of backing away from its peace promises.
|
| |
|
