Two years into Syrian revolution: Al Assad was mistaken to believe revolution was foreign conspiracy

In his classic Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, Ibn Khaldoun, the father of Muslim sociology, wrote that prestige in one lineage lasted four generations before it dissipated.

Two years into the Syrian Revolution, it was doubtful whether the Al Assad lineage would last that long, though the ‘Baath Crown’ pretended to rule with ‘asabiyyah (solidarity, group feeling, as well as group consciousness).

What few doubted was the iron-clad resolve of a president who understood, perhaps better than most, what he and the Alawite community stood to lose. It was his destiny to complete the Sulaiman, Hafez and Bashar Al Assad trilogy though history was poised to record the last two leaders’ ferocious appetites for violence. Will future generations of Syrians comprehend their insatiable hunger for power?

For now, and barely two years after Al Assad told The Wall Street Journal that Syria was stable because of its ideological strength, confrontations continue with no end in sight. Arguably, the president’s enthusiasm for bloodshed and his oft-repeated willingness to fight until death, stood out, although the regime failed to crush the opposition and emerge victorious.

To be sure, and despite a steady stream of defections from the ranks, one of the primary reasons that prolonged the war was the unwavering backing of the army leadership to the Baath government. Of course, while the military and various security forces suffered and continue to sustain significant losses, their willingness to defend the regime sealed their fate even if the time to settle such scores is probably in the distant future.

Nevertheless, despite undeniable losses of large swathes of territory in northern and eastern Syria, Al Assad was persuaded that he would emerge victorious from the civil war. Somehow the conservative United Nations estimates of 70,000 fatalities — which in reality may probably be twice as high — along with the wholesale destruction of a relatively modernising society, were tangential matters. Amazingly, the head of state devoted precious little attention to his nation’s total destruction in several carefully orchestrated presentations, which led commentators to conclude that Al Assad was erratic.

What was equally delusional was his conviction that he and his military could actually win, oblivious to grave errors that incorrectly measured the Syrian thirst for freedom. Although debatable, the president’s undoing probably started after he refused to condemn members of the security forces, who savagely tortured Hamzah Al Khatib in early 2011. It was worth recalling that the 13-year-old was arrested — along with several of his peers — after he scribbled anti-regime graffiti on school walls in Daraa.

His body was returned to his family nearly a month later, bearing signs of horrific torture, which redefined barbarism.

Such misconceptions notwithstanding, another reason for prolonged war was the unprecedented level of indecision within the resistance. Despite Syrian Opposition Council leader Shaikh Muath Al Khatib’s visit to liberated Aleppo last week, interminable negotiations over the establishment of a government-in-exile literally extended the time when anti-regime ranks would be united. Unfortunately, such dissonance played into the regime’s hands, even if Syrians rejected autocratic rule and no longer wished to have leaders who measured their prowess by the number of decades they governed.

Two years into the revolution and with soaring casualties as well as a huge refugee crisis that threatened to linger on for years if not decades to come, contradictory political initiatives loomed over the horizon, as fresh weapons flooded warehouses and further lengthened the war.

Existential crisis

In 2013, Syria faced an existential crisis, even if Bashar Al Assad advanced various political cards that portrayed him as the indispensable player in future negotiations led by Washington and Moscow. Indeed, Syria hoped that Russia would continue to stand by the dejected president, though President Vladimir Putin carried a double-edged sword in his hands. It remains to be determined whether Russia felt any compunction to bleed the Syrian regime dry.

Be that as it may, where President Bashar Al Assad blundered was to believe that the revolution was a foreign conspiracy, though fewer and fewer Syrians shared the “anti-imperialist” ideological tune he cavalierly hummed. Nearly five decades of such rhetoric brought Syria to its current state, which is to say, nowhere worthy of a great nation that once protected its citizens and created wealth. In this opus, Ibn Khaldoun pointed out that injustice, despotism, and tyranny are clear signs of the downfall of a ruler, though he foresaw the possibility to make corrections.

“Throughout history,” he wrote, “many nations have suffered a physical defeat, but that has never marked the end of a nation.”

Yet, when a nation became “the victim of a psychological defeat,” he warned, then that marked its end. There was no chance for such an emotional reversal because the Syrian people are not weak and the mere fact that a significant portion was willing to place their lives on the line confirmed it.

Dr Joseph A. Kechichian is the author of Legal and Political Reforms in Saudi Arabia.