By Naqi Akbar
Almost two months passed when the Baathist government under the Assad clan of Latakia melted away to give way to the Hizb Tahrir al-Sham or HTS, practically Syria as a country or a nation-state stands nowhere, and does not matter much when a lot of developments are happening in the immediate neighborhood; the occupied territories under the Israeli control.
For the people of Syria, it has been an end to a fairly long rule of one family, or party. For them, it is a newly found freedom and they despise anyone who denies them that freedom and welcome anyone, who created the conducive environment for ensuring this. For obvious reasons, the anti-Israeli nation-states are condemned and the ones on the opposite side of the fence are lauded for their role, perceived or otherwise. As things stand, the Syrian nation-state ceases to exist effectively; but what is next once the freedom ‘honeymoon’ is over?
The answers to the quagmire that led to that situation as well as what precedents have been set internationally can be a reason for debate in the ensuing paragraphs.
To begin with, the Syrian experience with the Baath dates back to the resurgence of Arab nationalism in the Middle East, which automatically, based on the so-called value system, divided the Middle East into conservative monarchies’ settled by Western powers and supported by the United States. States like Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, where the newly trained and educated army, and Airforce officers (late Hafez Al Assad, himself a combat pilot with Syrian Air Force) saw the world from a different angle. For obvious reasons, they aligned with the then-ascending Soviet bloc. The composition of weapon systems with monarchies as well as free officers’ dictatorships in the above-mentioned leftist states illustrates the geo political composition of the Middle East in the period between 1948 (the creation of Israel) till the 1979 upheavals in the Middle East, like Camp David accord breaking away Egypt from the rejectionist front and fall of a pro-Israeli Shah in Iran; which panicked the Arab monarchies about anyone taking control of Tehran.
That period again prompted the new line up in the Middle East, which prompted or rather forced the Americans to solve the problem in a cosmetic manner. The Oslo accord and the emergence of the Palestinian Authority was one such cosmetic surgery in the Middle East.
That new lineup acted badly for the nation-states timelines not only in their domestic political journey, but also in the context of the geo-political positioning. To elaborate more, nation-states signified as front-line states by the respective great powers got stuck in a political stalemate which in turn made things difficult for the respective nations.
For example, Pakistan’s identification as a front-line state against Soviet designs, unconsciously made that state a hostage to the US designs, from the Cold War to the Afghan war and up until the so-called war on terror. During that period, in normal circumstances, the transition from a front-line state of the ’60s and ’70s to a welfare democratic state could have been hiccups-free. However, due to the above-mentioned geo-political developments, Pakistan lost the required balance between the various factors in play in the polity and society and consequently landed itself into a “hybrid quagmire”. While in Pakistan, all that happened in a much-sophisticated manner, Middle Eastern affairs were more crudely handled.
Initially, Saddam was the West favorite and thus allowed to unleash all types of repression, until it fell from grace. The political contradictions caused a situation where the disgruntled elements in Iraqi society welcomed the US invasion. Precisely the same thing happened in Syria; where the ensuing factors were not the US support for the equally repressive anti-Israeli dictatorship, but rather the other camp led by post-1991 Russia and flanked by Iran and its regional proxies.
Under normal circumstances, Iranians could have been sermonizing the Syrian establishment to reform and allow a multi-party rule, an agreed constitution, and a breathing space for the general public to express their will. However, the Russians and Iranians ended up supporting a politically repressive dictatorship. In a way, they blocked the natural corrective process of a society as well as a polity.
Having observed the underlying currents in various societies, it can be safely argued that the antiestablishment narrative, if not correctly handled has the potential to create a situation similar to the one witnessed in Libya and again witnessed in Syria, where the Turkish influence seems to undo all other factors for the time being.
As was evident, the disconnect between the Syrian people and the government coupled with international game plans, precipitated a situation, where the political trends that played into the vacuum had in turn scant regard for the strategic interests of the Syrian nation-state. To elaborate it further, the world over people disagree with a type of government. Either there are forums like elections or there is a magna carta situation like a mass protest, which is translated into a strategic national social contract. The 1979 revolution in Iran was one such transition where the army was not dismantled rather cushioned with revolutionary forces best encapsulated in the form of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The gadgetry in the Navy, Army, and Air Force (particularly Air Force Phantoms and Tomcats which are still kept airborne) was not destroyed or returned or senselessly cannibalized by the Iranian revolutionary government, but rather kept as a legitimate strategic capital of the Iranian nation.
However, what seems to have happened in Syria after the HTS takeover has been the complete wiping out of army, navy, and air arms assets belonging to the Syrian nation-state with active intelligence assistance from rebel groups to the IDF. The Syrian experience is dangerous on the count that anger on the streets can be dangerously manipulated by vested interests of all kinds. As things stand; as said before, the Syrian society might degenerate into a civil war situation, which might resemble that of the Libyan experience, a breeding ground for undesirable seeding by unscrupulous international players.
There are lessons for the establishments and the political movements, whether they want to lead the societies to the points of no return or allow the natural processes to take their due course for the necessary corrective action. In societies, where the political institutions are weak and leaders are mediocre, the dangers of falling into that abyss are great and dangerous.
Conclusively, national leaders need to be on alert that firing a few tear gas shells and picking up a few enraged minds in the middle of the night cannot solve problems, rather consensus-building is necessary, to keep the nation-states intact for better days.
