Professor at the American University of Paris, author of Dans la tête de Bachar al-Assad (with Subhi Hadidi and Farouk Mardam Bey, Actes Sud, 2018) and Syria: La révolution orpheline (Actes Sud, 2014), Ziad Majed evokes the situation in Syria and within the regime circles and networks.
An interview published (originally in French) in Moyen-Orient, April 2021.
Between 2011 and
2021, the regime of Bashar Al-Assad (in power since 2000) went from threatened
and moribund to strengthened and durable. How did he manage to adapt in a time
of war?
There are several factors
that have allowed Bashar Al-Assad to maintain himself in Damascus and to
survive the revolution and then the war, which he himself initiated against a
large part of the Syrian society.
The first is violence, which has been his only policy since the first day of the popular uprising and long before its militarization. It became unprecedentedly intense from the summer of 2012 onwards when he started his aerial bombing campaigns, the systematic destruction of hospitals, schools and infrastructure in the areas that escaped his control, the sieges he imposed on several localities, and the torture on an industrial scale in his jails. He has thus reproduced a scenario similar to the one reserved for the city of Hamah in February 1982 (which, under his father Hafez, had suffered a siege, destruction and massacres killing and injuring tens of thousands of civilians under the pretext of facing a rebellion of the Muslim brothers). Except that this time the scenario was extended to the national scale.
The second factor is the
loyalty of the intelligence services and the military-security apparatus
meticulously built since 1970 under the father, and the strong "warrior
mobilization" of the majority of the Alawite community (10% of the
population), whose men form the majority of officers in the army, and whose
young people have formed militias since late 2011 to support this army and
impose terror in several cities and villages in the country.
The third factor, and
certainly the most important, is the firm support of his two allies Iran and
Russia. The first mobilized financial
resources and advisors from the beginning, and from the summer of 2012 troops
and Shiite militias from Iraq, Lebanon (Hezbollah) and then Afghanistan. The
latter sent weapons and blocked the United Nations Security Council by
consecutive uses of its veto power. Then this support took another dimension in
September 2015 with the Russian military intervention that radically changed
the configuration of the conflict.
The fourth factor is the
hesitation and division among Western powers. Their messages to Al-Assad have
always been very ambiguous. Between "change of attitude" rather than
"change of regime", and "red line" (concerning the use of
chemical weapons) without sanctioning its violation, then "Assad is the
enemy of his people, our enemies are the jihadists" and "Assad must
distance himself from the Iranians", the messages have always implied that
if Al-Assad changes his attitude or distances himself from Tehran or fights the
jihadists, he will not be worried in spite of his war crimes and his crimes
against humanity. This has had the effect of strengthening him on the one hand
and pushing his allies on the other to be even more firm and determined to win
"their war" in Syria.
Finally, the fifth factor
was the rise of Daech (Islamic State) in 2014, which allowed the Syrian regime
and its proxies in the West to present the "Syrian condition" as a
choice between "Assad or the jihadists" and "Assad or the
head-choppers who kill our children in our streets". This has complemented
conspiracy narratives on the right and in some left-wing circles, and has
instrumentalized the fear of attacks, identity-based tensions and the rise of
Islamophobia in several Western societies, to divide public opinions and put more
pressure on governments, which are increasingly disengaged from the conflict in
Syria.
What is the current power structure? Between the president, the intelligence services, the Baath, the army... How have each of these actors evolved in ten years? How is their control over the system and society exercised?
As in any war situation
that extends over time, mutations and restructurings have taken place within
Syrian power circles.
The president has
obviously remained at the head of the regime's hierarchy, whose decision-makers
since 2011 have become less numerous. The family clan is still in place.
However, it has become "nuclearized". Maher Al-Assad, the younger
brother, is its strongman, given his role in leading the army's 4th armoured
division and the Republican Guard (which constitutes the elite troops and is
mainly deployed around Damascus). The cousins, paternal (General Zoul-Himma
Chalich) and maternal (General Hafez Makhlouf) were removed. The reasons for
their sidelining remain obscure, even if some observers evoke struggles for
influence and Russian-Iranian differences leading to their marginalization. The
brother-in-law, General Assef Chawkat, was killed in 2012 in conditions that
remain unclear (leading to the departure of Bouchra, Bashar's older sister, to
the United Arab Emirates where she has since resided).
The names of Generals Ali
Mamlouk and Jamil Hassan of the intelligence services (general and air force)
have been for years at the forefront of the scene. They have been mentioned
less in the last two years.
The rise in power of the
militias and paramilitary forces supporting the army has put General Souhail
Al-Hassan (head of the Iranian and Russian equipped "Tiger" forces)
in the spotlight. He controls large territories where he imposes his law, but
he is not part of the circle of decision-makers in Damascus. His case thus
shows the fragmentation or forced decentralization of control over the terrain,
where the warrior chiefs have their say in the management of daily life,
without impacting the strategic choices of the regime and its sponsors.
Underneath this narrow
circle, which is at once familial, confessional (Mamlouk being the only
non-Alawite of the generals mentioned) and within the military-security
establishment, there is still today the state bureaucracy in the areas that
remained under Assadian rule and the cells and "institutions" of the
Baath Party. These appear as the only "civilian" symbols of the
state. They pay salaries, run the few remaining sectors of the public service and
share the privileges that their loyalty to Al-Assad offers them (smuggling,
food and fuel vouchers, reductions in the price of imported goods, tax relief,
etc.).
We can also add the prison
institution and its management to this structure, as the real foundation of the
Assad dynasty's philosophy of power. This institution, where there are
currently more than 85,000 detainees, has remained intact and the model of the
terrible prison of Palmyra in the 1980s has imposed itself from 2011 as a
source of "inspiration" to all Syrian prisons, leading to the
establishment of an industry of torture and death.
What are the internal
power struggles? One thinks, for example, of Rami Makhlouf, Bashar al-Assad's
cousin who fell from grace in May 2020 despite his economic power.
In parallel to the
mutations at the level of individuals and their roles at the heart of this
system, transformations have taken place in the economic sphere, while the
religious institutions in which the Syrian regime has invested for decades have
proved docile.
Muftis, imams and church
leaders were called upon as early as 2011 to support the regime. Some figures
reluctant to the repression have been ousted from their positions. The Grand
Imam of the Umayyad Mosque Mohamad Al-Bouti was even physically eliminated in
2013, as was Druze Sheikh Wahid Al-Bal'ous, who was assassinated in 2015. But
in the end, the "official" religious networks served as the basis for
propaganda presenting Al-Assad, as "guarantor of diversity" and
"protector of minorities".
In the economic field,
several changes have been observed. Rami Makhlouf, the president's cousin, has
gradually lost the monopoly on major construction sites, projects and services
that he had obtained from the Syrian state since Bashar came to power in 2000.
He remained, however, the most powerful businessman until 2018. He has since
paid the price of his vast network of influence, which has become worrisome in
the eyes of Bashar and Maher. He is also paying the price of the rebalancing
that is taking place between Russian and Iranian businessmen. And above all, he
is paying the price of the ambition of Asma Al-Akhras, Bashar's wife, who is
increasingly visible on the public scene, and who is placing her people in
positions taken from Rami. The pretext for this "reshuffle" is
"the fight against corruption", the cousin having become for two
decades the symbol of this corruption and its mores.
Thus, new and old
businessmen have taken over from 2020 a destitute and "humiliated" Rami.
They are mostly Sunnis and Christians, whose proximity to Russian companies,
Iranian services, or to Maher and Asma explains their rise. Whether in real
estate, oil, gas, telephony, phosphate, finance, arms or drug trafficking,
agri-food and "import/export" activities through front companies or
allies, Businessmen such as Samer Fouz, Mohamad Hamcho, the Qaterji brothers,
Badih Droubi, Mohamad Sawwah, Mohamad Soleiman, Soleiman Maarouf, Georges
Haswani and the Khoury brothers, among others, control today the markets and
what remains of the Syrian economy. And to maintain their positions and privileges,
they not only share their profits with their masters, but they also have to
finance militias, each in their own region, pay Baath party officials in order
to keep certain bases of the regime tight-knit and loyal.
Parliamentary
elections were held in July 2020. What analysis can be drawn from this election
in a dictatorial system? What role do the parliament and its 250 members play
for the government?
Theoretically,
totalitarian or despotic regimes use elections to show that their system works,
that it is institutionalized, that people take their elected officials
seriously (or pretend to do so), that electoral rallies consolidate the
legitimacy of the authorities, and that order, obedience and discipline are
always respected.
In addition to all this,
in the current situation in Syria, the regime wants to show its subjects that
it has not been weakened despite the upheavals and "challenges", and
that it is still in control of the situation and the political temporality.
The elections also allow
him to mobilize the cadres of the Baath party and its allied formations,
federated in the "National Progressive Front" that he has created,
and to co-opt through their contacts and networks local notables, tribal leaders
or simply new clients.
The 2020 elections were a
perfect illustration of this, with mostly baathist deputies and elected
officials close to Maher Al-Assad and Asma Al-Akhras.
A new confessional
equation has also emerged as a result of these elections, reflecting in a sense
the new Syrian demography after the expulsion of millions of Sunni Arabs from
the country (a majority of the seven million refugees), and the displacement of
more than two million to the northwest, north and northeast (all or most of them
Sunni Arabs as well), in addition to the three million (Sunni Arabs and Kurds)
who already lived there.
The parliament currently
has more MPs from religious minorities (especially Alawite and Christian) than
previous parliaments (35% compared to 24%), more businessmen and "new
rich" (from all communities) and several personalities supported by the
Iranians and the militias they manage in Syria ("men-at-arms")[1].
In the territories controlled by the regime, the political opposition is non-existent. What about the opposition in exile?
The political opposition
inside Syria was crushed by the regime in 2011 and 2012. Figures of this
opposition or influential leaders of the Syrian civil society have been
assassinated or kidnapped (and have been missing since). Others left for the
areas liberated from the regime before perishing or disappearing in the jails
of Daech, the Al-Nosra Front or some Islamist formations of the armed
opposition; and finally, some have gone into exile after months or years of hiding
in Syria.
Inside the country, there
is still an armed opposition under Turkish control and civil society networks
that run municipal services or schools and medical centers in the northern
areas of the country that are still away from the control of the regime and its
Russian and Iranian allies.
As for the outside, the
opposition structures and platforms that were set up (such as the national
coalition and other alliances) at the end of 2011 still exist, but their
legitimacy and credibility are no longer there. They are subservient to Ankara
and have no room for political maneuver.
How do you analyze
the socio-economic situation of Syrians, exhausted by the conflict? Is a new
revolutionary spark possible? Or is Bashar al-Assad, "re-elected" in
June 2014 with 88.7% of the vote, promised a "bright future"?
The socio-economic
situation is terrible. Poverty and unemployment rates exceed 60% (going up to
80% in the north). The destruction of infrastructure, tens of thousands of
homes, hundreds of schools and hospitals, and the collapse of the agricultural
and industrial sectors, as well as the decline in tourism and the fall in oil
prices, are reducing revenues and budgets and making living conditions
extremely difficult throughout the country. In addition to this, there is the
record devaluation of the Syrian pound, the great crisis in the Lebanese
banking system (where Syrian fortunes are deposited), and of course the
mismanagement and corruption of the Syrian government and administrative
bodies.
Bashar Al-Assad can of
course cry conspiracy, play the victimization card in the face of American and
European sanctions, and claim that reconstruction will begin soon. But it is
clear today that the impact of the sanctions on the national economy is not the
cause of its collapse and that these sanctions severely affect, on the other
hand, dignitaries of the regime and businessmen affiliated with the family clan
or with Russian and Iranian officers and companies.
The "bright
future" promised by Bashar will therefore wait, even if a new
revolutionary spark does not seem to be on the agenda, given the fatigue of the
population and its colossal losses.
In February 2021, a
Syrian torturer was sentenced to prison in Germany, and in March a complaint
was filed in France against Damascus for using chemical weapons. How is the
regime dealing with international justice? How far can its impunity go?
There are more and more
legal cases and complaints in Europe today against officers and officials of
the Syrian regime. The documentation and collection of evidence of war crimes
and crimes against humanity committed by its army and intelligence services has
been "professionalized" and is ongoing in Syria itself and in the
refugee camps. There are also arrest warrants issued in France for Ali Mamlouk
and Jamil Hassan (mentioned above). So the efforts to bring the regime to
justice before the European courts with universal jurisdiction are
accelerating.
For the moment, the regime
is ignoring the complaints and arrest warrants, and is counting on both Russian
protection and the "realism" of certain Western leaders who, in his
view, are not concerned about war crimes and crimes against humanity, as long
as he can establish stability and convince them that he is the last bastion
against the "jihadists. He is also counting on the history of impunity
that has long prevailed in Syria and the Middle East.
But at the same time, he
regularly eliminates in his own machine, officers involved or witnesses in
crimes[2],
just as he had liquidated those who led his troops and intelligence services in
Lebanon after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri
in 2005[3].
The objective is to cut the links that would allow the hierarchy of his
military and security apparatus to be traced to the highest level.
These eliminations show that he is worried about the accumulation of complaints, files and evidence against him. His isolation on the international scene, the sanctions he is undergoing and the impossibility of reconstruction without Western (or American-approved) investment, given the sanctions mechanisms, may in time turn him into a cumbersome "protégé" for Russia, forcing it to reconsider its Syrian choices and priorities, including his fate. And this certainly worries him considerably...
[1] Awad, Ziad and Favier, Agnès, Syrian People’s Council Elections 2020: The Regime’s Social Base Contracts, Middle East Directions and GCSP, October 2020.
[2] Like General Issam Zahreddine
(responsible for the bombing in Homs that targeted and killed the American
journalist Mary Calvin and her French colleague Rémi Ochlik), General Mahmoud
Maatouk (the director of the terrible Saidnaya prison where thousands of
political detainees died under torture), General Nadim Ghanem (the coordinator
of the aerial bombardment campaigns in the north which led to the use of
explosive barrels), and Lieutenant Soumar Zaidan, one of the executioners of Aleppo.
[3] Like Generals Ghazi Kenaan, Rustum
Ghazali and Jameh Jameh.
