From Father to Son: Ruling the Syrian State
Al-'Arabiyya TV Channel 10 June 2003.
Radio Damascus 17 June 2000.
Yediot Aharonot 20 December 2004.
Tishrin 13 July 2000.
Reuters 12 April 2003.
Syrian Arab News Agency 27 March 2003.
From Father to Son: Ruling the Syrian State
Given Flynt Leverett’s three images of Bashar: (1) The Closet Reformer, (2) The Loyal Son, or (3) “The Neophyte,”55 it rings clear that he is a little of each. As someone who initially wanted social and economic reform, he still had to operate in the system he inherited from his father and proved incapable of standing up to those elements in the regime who opposed a change in the status quo. As a loyal son, he also sought to maintain regime stability and quickly realized that reform would pose a threat to the carefully crafted order he inherited. More than anything else, Bashar proved to be a neophyte – inexperienced, ruling through emotion rather than sense, lacking in an all-encompassing vision, and incapable of change.
He is as Eyal Zisser observed: “Since his rise to power in 2000, Bashar al-Asad has been responsible for a litany of fiascos both at home and abroad; to make matters worse, his policy has also been marked by vicissitudes and instability.” Bashar’s performance “has been replete with failures that attest to his inability to confront challenges facing him and Syria.”56
From Father to Son: Ruling the Syrian State
Bashar al-Asad’s most dramatic failings came in the foreign policy arena and were the result of Syria’s inability to adapt to three events:
- 11 September 2001
- The war in Iraq
- The crisis in Lebanon.
Since assuming power, Bashar has leapt from foreign policy disaster to fiasco, each one seemingly worse than the last. Through an inept foreign policy, he managed to undo most of father’s achievements in just a few years and rapidly transformed Syria from a strong to weak state – from an essential component for Middle Eastern peace to internationally and regionally isolated.
With the collapse of the Syrian-Israeli peace talks at Geneva on 24 March 2000 and Hafiz’s death in June, most Syria-watchers knew that it would take some time for Bashar to settle into his new position. There was a sense of hope attached to the new president as he could prove not to be so encumbered by all the negativity toward Israel that marked the 30 years of his father’s rule. These hopes quickly faded in October 2000 with the outbreak of the new Palestinian-Israeli war of attrition and Hizballah’s escalation in Lebanon.49 While it is doubtful that Syria initiated Hizballah’s initial actions, it reflected the new balance of power. Hafiz had used Hizballah as an effective pressure tool on Israel but kept them at a distance when it was necessary. Since Bashar took over the Lebanon portfolio in 1998, he formed a close relationship with Hizballah’s leader, Hasan Nasrallah, and was reported to be in awe of him. The elder Asad never met with Nasrallah, viewing him more as just one of several levers of power at his disposal.
From Father to Son: Ruling the Syrian State
The Syrian public’s doubts about Bashar’s ability to fill his father’s shoes gave rise to voices demanding greater freedom and political reform. In 2000, Mundhir al-Muwassali became one of the first to test the limits of the regime’s tolerance. Riyad Sayf, a businessman and People’s Assembly member followed suite and began holding weekly meetings in his Damascus home, calling them “The Forum for National Dialogue” (Muntada al-Hiwar al-Watani). He sought to transform the forum into “The Friends of Civil Society” (Ansar al-Mujtama’ ‘al-Madani) and announced the creation of a new political party, “The Social Peace Party” (Hizb al-Salam al-Ijtima’i). Convening such meetings were illegal according to Ba’th Party law – indeed any meeting of more than five people required an advance permit. Nevertheless, in 2000, these meetings evoked no response from the authorities and similar groups began springing up around the country.
From Father to Son: Ruling the Syrian State
Those who were hoping for dramatic economic reform in Syria's predominantly state-controlled and centralized economy were to be disappointed. The 2006 report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) characterized it as a "stable but stagnant economy."[37] Dr. Nabil Sukkar, one of Syria's leading economists and a former World Bank economist explained that the leadership in Damascus was "afraid to take the plunge" and Syria's introduction into the global economy would mean that the ruling elite "could loosen its grip on power and threaten its privileges."[38] After 50 years of Ba'th Party rule, the Syrian economy has remained inefficient, old-fashioned, and heavily regulated, with large-scale corruption at the highest levels of government. The three revenue streams that Syria relies on are oil production, taxes from government services, and the government-owned industrial companies, which are widely politicized, greatly inefficient, and often loose money. The only exceptions are the three monopolies: tobacco, telecommunications, and banking.
From Father to Son: Ruling the Syrian State
Bashar sought to maintain and further develop his father's system, as he stated in his inaugural address.[30] He selected a personal staff of younger men from his generation who shared his worldview. Three came from the Syrian Computer Society and headed the tourism, communications, and higher education portfolios, however, lacking their own power bases, they proved unable to exercise significant influence in government circles. With the patriarch of the family gone, Bashar also proved unable to control his immediate family. Confrontations between his younger impulsive brother Mahir and his older sister, Bushra and her husband Asaf Shawkat were widely reported. For the most part, the military elite of Hafiz's era remained in place during Bashar's first years. The only exception were some changes in the 'Alawi officers and their replacement by younger officers.[31] This face-lift, however, was designed more to create a support base for Bashar moving forward.
From Father to Son: Ruling the Syrian State
When Hafiz al-Asad died on 10 June 2000, Syrian television immediately cut to a live telecast of the People's Assembly. The special session was held in order to amend Article 83 of the constitution that stipulated that the Syrian president must be over 40 years old to serve. Bashar was 34. On 26 June 2000, the People's Assembly approved Bashar's candidacy for president. A referendum was also held on 10 June where according to official figures, Bashar received a majority of 97.29 percent of 9,442,054 votes.[27] The transfer of power proved to be a smooth transition.
The system Bashar inherited in 2000 was based on four forces:
The system Bashar inherited in 2000 was based on four forces:
- The 'Alawi community that guaranteed the cohesion and viability of the regime.
- The rural Sunni community located in the peripheral regions who constituted a senior partner in the ruling coalition.
- Other minorities such as the Christians, Druze, and Isma'ilis who were also partners in the ruling coalition and relied on 'Alawi dominance to guarantee their own status and personal and economic security.
- The growing integration of the Sunni urban and economic elite - primarily in Damascus.[28]
From Father to Son: Ruling the Syrian State
Syrian politics were highly unstable from their April 1946 independence until November 1970, when Hafiz al-Asad came to power. During the two decades following the 1948 war in Palestine, Syria experienced 20 military-backed coups or attempted coups, including the state's brief dissolution into the United Arab Republic with Egypt from 1958-1961. In 1963, the Ba'th Party came to power yet intense infighting among Syria's ruling elite and various leadership factions persisted. While Asad - an 'Alawi of the Kalbiyya tribe - was a Ba'th Party member who participated in the 1963 coup and served as Defense Minister during the 1967 war, he favored a more pragmatic approach and seized power in the 1970 Corrective Revolution (al-Thawra al-Tashihiyya). Unlike the previous military coups that saw army units and their commanders fighting each other, the Corrective Revolution was a kind of victory of the army over itself. For the next three decades until Asad's death in June 2000, he brought Syria something they had never experienced before: stability - his regime's greatest accomplishment. Asad's biographer, Patrick Seale, summed up the two phases of the struggle in the titles of two separate books, The Struggle for Syria, 1945-1958,[3] and Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East,[4] thereby drawing the distinction between the initial internal struggle and subsequent quest to dominate the region. From Father to Son: Ruling the Syrian State
Friday 21 January 1994 should have been a normal day for Dr. Bashar al-Asad, the son of Hafiz, president of the Syrian Arab Republic. He was in London practicing ophthalmology when his world was shaken with the news of the death of his older brother, Basil, who was killed in a car accident in Syria. His father Hafiz al-Asad also wanted to be a doctor when he was young but his family could not afford to finance his education so he settled for a military career instead. In many aspects, Bashar was fulfilling his father's dreams much like his older sister, Bushra, who was studying pharmacology. Since Hafiz's heart attack in 1983, questions about succession in Syria became an important topic. Basil had been groomed to take his father's place; with his death, Hafiz's eyes turned to Bashar.[1] With Hafiz al-Asad's death on 10 June 2000 and the transfer of power to Bashar, many wondered what Syria would like in the 21st century after three decades of stable rule under Asad Sr. Flynt Leverett described three conflicting images of Bashar that dominated analytic debates and policy arguments about Syria:
