Guest Contibutor Gerald B. (Jerry) Thompson , COL (Ret), USA, a former military officer and DOD official, is currently a consultant on Middle East affairs.
“We’re
not very good at understanding other societies.
Every game is an ‘away game’ for us.”
Speaking at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, 9/17/ 2013
Every
country’s political culture is unique.
Syria is no exception. As we
search through our recent past experiences in intervention operations such as
Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan for lessons that may apply to our consideration of
intervention in Syria, we need to be sensitive to the differences in political
culture we encountered in each situation.
Our ability to discern such differences is not a notable U.S. talent
nor, as a consequence, have we shown much ability to adapt policies and
strategies to these differences.
Our
understanding of the “other” culture - in this case, Syria’s political culture -
more than our own or others, should shape our analysis of the situation and the
political and operational concept of any intervention we might contemplate,
especially regime change.
Comparing
our experience of invasion, occupation and regime change in Iraq with the
situation we confront in the Syrian insurrection raises a number of issues that
deserve analysis. Among these are
differences in the political cultures of the two countries that have received far
too little attention. Among these is the
difference in the role sectarian, ethnic and class identities played in the
political culture of Syria and Iraq.
In
Syria, these communal identities were manipulated to structurally reinforce
regime legitimacy. In Iraq, they were
repressed, even denied to exist, as Saddam tried to impose a greater “Iraqi”
identity in their place. It is too
simplistic but it frames the thought to say, “Saddam’s Iraq was anti-sectarian
while Assad’s Syria was and is sectarian.”
My
concern is that communal rivalry in a post-Asad Syria may become
irreconcilable and make successful governance impossible. Should this occur, the
fragmentation of Syria would become virtually inevitable; the continuation of
the conflict among mini-statelets would become quite possible, and could, very
plausibly, destabilize the Middle East region.
In such circumstances, redrawing the map of the Middle East is not an
inconceivable outcome. If the United States were to choose to
somehow mitigate that outcome, the diplomatic effort required will be
unprecedented.
What have we
learned from our experience in Iraq that is relevant to Syria?
Both
Syria under the Assad regime and Iraq under Saddam Hussein were rigorously
repressive, pervasive, authoritarian regimes.
Neither permitted any meaningful opposition. In Iraq, as a result, there was no alternative
legitimate entity able to step in and govern when Saddam Husayn’s regime
collapsed. In the short term, a power
vacuum developed and the aggrieved population took out their revenge on their oppressor,
primarily in the form of massive looting.
Less visible was the campaign of deliberate assassination, notably by
Badr Corps operatives, taking targeted revenge against former Ba’th Party
members. Both the broad-scale looting
and the direct, targeted revenge were soon
subsumed in broader civil conflict.
It
is not my purpose here to analyze the post-regime change civil conflict in Iraq
except to say that it is helpful to think of it as many separate, often
overlapping conflicts:
·
A
resistance campaign against the occupation by primarily Sunni Arab groups,
often operating in tactical alliance with al-Qa’ida-affiliated “foreign
fighters.”
·
An
internal struggle for leadership among several predominantly Shi’a groups.
·
An
internal struggle for leadership among several predominantly Sunni groups.
·
A
broad but disorganized resistance against the central government seen variously
as dominated by former exiles, or under the influence and control of Iran, or
simply exerting unfair and unjust control and influence.
·
A
wary confrontation between the Kurdistan Regional Government and the central
government in which both attempted to define the relationship between the two
entities on their own terms.
Taken
together, there was widespread civil conflict and resistance against the
occupation forces which reached extremely high levels of violence, caused
enormous human suffering and impeded development of a post-Saddam governing
authority with broad political legitimacy.
At
their heart, each of these overlapping conflicts was fought over the question
of the distribution of power, authority and the benefits of the state. With the exception of al-Qa’ida, no group was
attempting to win sole authority. All groups realized that, at some point,
there would need to be a political settlement and they fought to maximize their
relative position whenever that day might come. al -Qa’ida was the exception and its maximalist goals resulted in its
influence being diminished. This
struggle continues.
So,
very broadly, there was a pattern in Iraq and there is a high probability
that we will see a similar pattern in Syria:
·
Regime
collapse;
·
Power
vacuum;
·
Revenge
taking;
·
Struggle
for relative power in the successor regime.
Most
notable for the purpose of comparing the experience of Iraq with what may
possibly be expected in Syria is the lack of truly sectarian motives in the
Iraqi civil conflict, especially when compared with the form of communal
conflict we may see in post-regime change Syria.
Sectarianism in the
Political Culture of Syria Compared With Sectarianism in Iraq
The
role of sectarianism in Syrian political culture has been very different from
the role of sectarianism in Iraq for more than a generation, perhaps three
generations.
Since
the end of WWI, France, then Syrian regimes, manipulated communal identities in a
structural way to produce a complex balance of these interest groups. “Divide and conquer” was the way it was
described, but the reality was both more complex and often more vicious that
that sound bite implies. As a
consequence, Syrian political culture has a deep experience of ethnic and
sectarian group identity being part of the structure of the governing regime’s
legitimacy.
This
was never the case in Iraq.
Saddam
Husayn’s regime in Iraq was virtually anti-sectarian throughout its tenure.
Some
readers will question this assertion, given the common media and politically
driven image of Saddam’s regime as a Sunni chauvinist tyranny led by a clique
of a previously unknown tribe which held power by brutally suppressing the
disadvantaged and disenfranchised communities of Iraq, notably the Shi’a and
the Kurds, but also the Christians,Yazidis, Turkmen. Actually, this common image of Saddam’s
regime is more caricature than truth. Of
course, like all good caricatures, there is a kernel of truth in it. But, taken literally, it is at least as misleading
as it is revealing, and it has mislead us in a great many ways in post-Saddam
Iraq.
It
is more accurate to see Saddam’s regime as having metamorphosed through stages,
over 30+ years and three major wars (and several internal conflicts), rapid
development and more rapid decline. For
its first decade and into the early years of the war with Iran, Saddam’s regime
was dogmatically anti-sectarian. By the
end of the Iran war, it had become a Stalinist-clone personality cult in which
the currency for access to power was loyalty to Saddam. However, even then, sectarian identity had little
to do with the legitimacy of the regime in any structural sense. Joseph Sassoon noted in his Saddam
Hussein’s Ba’ath Party, based on post-2003 access to the Ba’th Party files,
that the Ba’th Party database format did not provide a space for “sect” or
“religion” right on through the 1990’s.
This
is very different from the more structural role that sectarian and ethnic
identity has played in Syria, which favored Alawis, coopted certain elites and
minority communities and deliberately repressed others, notably Sunnis and,
perhaps especially, Sunni Islamists, such as members or sympathizers of the Muslim
Brotherhood. Syrians were favored or
denied on the basis of who they were in addition to their loyalty to the
regime. In Iraq, the currency of favor
was simple – loyalty to Saddam. If
Saddam felt an individual was loyal, he/she would be advanced – without regard
to that person's communal origins.
How might
“sectarian conflict” evolve differently in Syria compared to its experience in
Iraq?
In
Iraq, the population as a whole was repressed.
In Syria access to privilege (and repression) has been manipulated among
narrowly based family and communal groups.
Whereas
in Iraq, resentment of the regime was broad-based, it was also focused on the
Ba’th Party and Saddam’s personally directed security apparatus. When the regime fell, revenge taking was
targeted on these specific people – relatively well-defined, personalized
targets. And, the revenge-taking phase
was quickly absorbed into a wider, more complex internal struggle for relative
strength in the post-Saddam governing entity.
Limiting ourselves to the very strictest definition of the term, “sectarian
conflict” never happened in Iraq. What
happened was a fundamentally political competition among groups struggling for
power.
Post-Asad
Syria may be very different and could become much more violent than Iraq. In
Syria, the targets of resentment for revenge taking are more likely to be groups rather
than specific individuals: communal groups such as Alawis and Christians,
coopted families who have been part of the regime’s patronage and power
networks. Such groups are likely to be
targeted because of their group identity without regard to what they may or may
not have done politically as individuals. We have
already seen examples of such behavior.
The
phase of revenge taking and the competition for power in the follow-on regime in
Syria may well blur together and take the form of an identity war. This could become a true inter-communal
conflict in which interest groups aim to eliminate the potential power of their
competitors for the sake of their own survival.
Instead of evolving toward a political competition over the distribution
of power, the conflict could spiral downward.
A kind of mutual genocide is not unthinkable in that we could see
communal groups attempt to annihilate other groups for the sake of their own
survival.
At
that point, we would have reached sectarian war in the fullest sense the term
implies.
What are the
potential consequences of regime change/regime collapse in Syria?
The
violence of Syria’s insurrection is spreading into Iraq and Lebanon and
cross-border incidents have occurred in Turkey, Israel and Jordan. This spread of Syria’s violence is likely
to continue. In the event of regime
change/collapse, the violence of Syria’s insurrection could expand rapidly and
uncontrollably.
In
the power vacuum and revenge taking following regime change/collapse, some
degree of territorial fragmentation of Syria will be a virtual certainty. In the power vacuum after Asad’s removal,
revenge taking on the basis of group identity or inter-communal violence in the
competition for power, as described above, will cause the various groups to seek
security in geographical areas where they are predominant and can establish
control. These areas may very well take
on the behaviors of mini-statelets as they take action to protect their
security.
Where
this fragmentation may lead is a matter of speculation. In the short term, it could mean that the
Syrian nation-state as it has been known through most of the 20th
century will effectively cease to exist.
Whether it may be drawn back together by a future post-Asad regime is
certainly doubtful but not impossible. It
happened before, under the French mandate.
Fragmentation might lead to some form of highly decentralized or
federated system of governance. On the
other hand, these decentralized communities of Syria might establish
relationships with similar communities along Syria’s current borders, blurring
the meaning of those borders, perhaps rendering them effectively void.
Ultimately, this sort of process could lead
to a “Greater Kurdistan”, uniting the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq
with the Kurdish region of Syria. Would
this entity be nominally part of Iraq? Or Syria? An “Alawi homeland” might emerge in the
northeast of Syria. Similarly, there
might emerge a “Sunnistan” in Syria based around Damascus, Homs and Hama that
might merge with a self-declared autonomous region of Anbar/Salah ad-Din in
Iraq.
And then, there’s Lebanon and
Jordan. It is not inconceivable that we
could see the end of the post-WWI order of nation-states in the Middle East. Re-mapping
the Middle East is a real possibility. Such
an outcome would certainly cause stress among long-term United States interests and
relationships in the region.
What could mitigate
that outcome?
Revenge
taking presumes a power vacuum after regime collapse/removal. If a capable entity were available and able
to step in and exercise governing authority immediately, it is possible that
the revenge-taking phase could be preempted or, at least, substantially
constrained.
Such
an entity would have to be regarded as legitimate by a preponderance of the
population and, in particular, the communal groups themselves. This means that it would have to have been existing
and present in some capacity for some time prior to regime change/removal, have
demonstrated its capacity to govern, and the various groups would have
satisfied themselves that their concerns would be treated fairly by this
entity. That is a very tall order.
For
such an entity to emerge and prove itself will require the support of the
various external supporters of the different groups contending for power in
Syria now. This will require the
cooperation and collaboration of Russia, Iran, Turkey, the European Union, the
United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the UAE as well as Jordan,
Lebanon and Israel. Obtaining that sort
of support from this group of interested parties is also a very tall order.
Despite the difficulty, this sort of outcome – providing a relatively orderly
transition of power rather than an abrupt and conclusive change or collapse of
the Assad regime – is far preferable from the standpoint of both strategic
interest and minimizing human suffering.
Achieving
this outcome will require extraordinary diplomacy, subordinating all other
activities to the diplomatic effort. The
scope would be broad, including military and humanitarian assistance to the
opposition, sanctions and concessions, and what may seem to be unrelated
diplomacy and programs with Iraq’s neighbors, including with Iran and Israel
and Russia. The United States will have to prioritize
and may well find itself turning these other programs to support this
diplomatic effort that is focused on Syria.
The
United States has never pursued this type of policy before, ever, anywhere. We should expect that success in Syria will
challenge the United States' own capacity for diplomacy and its understanding of governance in
other cultures.
