Yesterday's protests in Syria spread beyond the southern city of Daraa to Damascus, Homs, Latakia, Hama and Sanamein, despite the brutal shootings of demonstrators by the internal security service, and President Bashar al-Assad's days are numbered.
Notwithstanding the demands of the demonstrators for greater political freedom, the Assad regime is being brought down by the failure of its economy. Syria's agriculture sector employs some 30 percent of its labor force, and much emphasis has been placed in recent years on achieving food self-sufficiency and stemming rural migration. However, Syria's most important cash crop is cotton, which demands much water, and a five-year drought has had catastrophic consequences.
Syria's limited oil reserves are also dwindling.
Add to this volatile mixture the fact that Assad is an Alawite. Alawites, who comprise 10% of Syria's population, are considered by many to be a Shiite sect; however, there are those Sunnis who say that Alawites are not even Muslims. Syria's population of some 22 million is 70% Sunni, and there is much pent up hostility toward Assad, who, like his father, has sought to preserve power by populating the military and secret service leadership with fellow Alawites.
Assad is finished. Unlike the situation in Libya, he cannot attempt to bomb dissident "tribes" into submission, although his father succeeded with a variation of this tactic in 1982, when the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood revolted in Hama, and Hafez al-Assad responded by killing as many as 40,000 of the city's inhabitants. Today, with the entire world watching, Bashar Assad, the son, cannot dare consider this kind of massacre, particularly given that protests are no longer confined to Daraa.
The implications of Assad's demise? Multifold, although there is no way of knowing how it will all pan out. Shiite Iran will almost undoubtedly lose a key partner, and without Assad's proximity and patronage, Hezbollah, already facing budget cuts as the result of reduced Iranian funding, will be dramatically weakened.
Assad and his family will soon go into exile, but who will receive them? John Kerry? Vogue? Maybe Iran - at least until the dissidents again take to the streets in Tehran, which will not be long in coming.
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Thanks, Jeffrey
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting post!
Thank you, Marina, for the feedback!
ReplyDeleteHere in Los Angeles on Friday, on NPR--National Public Radio, the developments in Syria focused on pro-Assad forces in the street and a commentator with a British accent explaining that there were those amongst the demonstrators who had weapons who were firing at random and that security forces were trying only to avery total chaos. The commentator added that, and I paraphrase, one cannot encourage security forces to protect the people and then condemn them for having to shoot when renegades within a peaceful (albeit raucous) demonstration begin to shoot.
ReplyDeleteJust noting that the coverage seemed to imply that: the opposition to Assad was smal, the vast majority support Assad, and that "security forces" are only doing the bidding of the majority. Wondering what lies behind this slant from a source like NPR.
Thanks, HM. Note the Obama administration's quandary, which I have attempted to describe in today's blog entry.
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