A definitive statement was made last week by Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton that any settlement of the conflict in Syria could
not involve Bashar al-Assad. Nonetheless, it has to be acknowledged
that the Assad family and its fellow Alawite clan members have been
key for over forty years in holding together the always fractious
Syrian community. Removing the extended Assad family and its
heavily armed and militarized sect relatives would require the
creation of an entirely new unifying structure.
There is in some quarters the mistaken belief that the Syria’s
Alawite minority has held a traditional power role in that country.
The reality is this grouping contains only 10-12% of the population
and owes its national political and military position primarily to
the Baath Party connections and success of the most recent family
patriarch, the late Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father. Hafez rose
from Syrian Air Force Intelligence to a key role in the military
wing of the secular Baath Party.
The Alawite sect before the rise of Hafez al-Assad was
disadvantaged not only politically, but also economically.
Generally they were a poor people scraping a living from their
mountainous region in northern Syria or working for rich Sunni
landowners on the coast. A high number of Alawites became officers
as a result of advancing in the ranks of the Syrian armed forces,
which in the late sixties had grown in relationship to a Baath
Party now strongly influenced, if not controlled, by the military.
The high number of Alawites in the officer ranks gave them a new
political advantage.
With an eye to strengthening the internal national structure, a
particular effort was made initially, in spite of the minority
Alawite dominance, to appoint Sunnis to leading positions. Alawite
leadership originally was quite conscious of the dangers implicit
in any political imbalance. The natural clannishness of the
Alawites and the parallel suspicions of the Sunnis, however, tended
to encourage conspiratorial notions on both sides. As a result,
antagonism between both elements grew and persisted. The Sunni
Islamist uprising in Hama in February 1982 was seen by the Assad
government as an organized plot by the Syrian wing of the Muslim
Brotherhood. The result was an all-out assault on the city by
government forces, killing reportedly over 20,000 Sunni and
establishing precedent for today’s conflict.
The Alawites’ religious differences with their Sunni countrymen
are not as stark as some would suggest. The Alawites have pursued a
moderate and non-aggressive interpretation of the Twelver Shia
belief, though recently they have played the fellow-Shia card with
the Iranians to whatever benefit they could gain. Of course the
same manipulation has worked similarly in reverse. While these
demographic factors remain predominant in discussion, the fact is
that the kinship of Syria’s Kurdish minority with their ethnic
fraternity in Iraq and Turkey presents a cross-border allegiance
and nationalist drive that without a strong central government in
Damascus could alter the face of all three countries.
The Maronite Christian grouping of the powerful Franjieh clan of
northern Lebanon has worked closely with its Alawite neighbors on
the Syrian side of the border. A particular friendship exists with
the extended Assad family. Thus it can be seen that future Syrian
governance will have to take into consideration many subtle
political and economic ties. The problem that exists now, however,
is that the Alawite community is convinced it is faced with a
possible return to its 1950s pre-Baathist life of exploitation by
the Sunni majority.
Foreigners are generally unacquainted with the complex familial,
clan and tribal relationships that so greatly influence Middle
Eastern village life. The Assad family has been important in tribal
life in the northern mountains of Syria since Bashar al-Assad’s
great-grandfather established his and his kinsmen as “protectors”
of their village region. In modern times a split occurred between
Hafez and his younger brother, Rifaat, the head of security
affairs, that ended up with the latter fleeing to France, then
England. This division could be an important factor in Syria’s
future should Rifaat’s wing of the family wish to contest for
Syria’s leadership if and when President Bashar al-Assad
departs.
This type of conflict within the Assad family ranks exists to a
certain degree within the Alawite sect as a whole. But such
complication pales in comparison to the divisions within the much
larger and complex Sunni community. Hafez al-Assad was very
attentive to rewarding key Sunni politicians and military officers.
As a result there is a large cadre of former pro-Assad Sunni
personalities capable of influencing any post-Assad period that
outsiders might envision. In fact, most of the major Sunni leaders
of today once held important roles in earlier Assad
governments.
According to Jordanian official sources, the proliferation of
weapons within the Syrian rebel groups present great danger for a
peaceful evolution in any form of cessation of the civil war.
Specifically it is expected that it will be especially difficult to
disarm and demobilize the various local militias that have been
formed. An additional question involves the future of Syria’s
existing armed forces – particularly the special security force of
the Presidential Guard and the elite 4th Armored Division commanded
by Bashar’s brother, Maher al-Assad.
Iran will do its best to ensure its continued connection through
Syria with Syria’s Lebanese acolytes, Hezbollah. At the same time
Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which have been stalwart in their
assistance to the Sunni refugees and fighting groups, certainly
will wish to have a major impact on a future
democratically-responsive Syrian government. Once again the need
for a strong central leadership will reward the best organized and
strongest political cohort in the country. And who that is has just
as much to do with the quality and character of its foreign allies
as it has with the internal group’s own composition.
