• THE FINAL WORD
Bashar’s First War… will it be his last? Adel Al-Toraifi
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he Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), established by Uppsala University in the early 1970s, stipulated specific criteria for the classification of wars and conflicts, and provided mechanisms for measuring them (the UCDP is). According to the UCDP, recognized by numerous international organizations and bodies, one criterion for a war is the death toll, which must exceed 1,000 people killed directly in the armed conflict. Five months on from the beginning of the popular uprising in Syria, and the death toll has now exceeded 1,000, according to some sources. This means that what is happening in Syria is more than just protests, but rather a military operation, which has also resulted in the deaths of at least 120 police and military personnel, according to official reports. The Syrian authorities can cast doubt over the accuracy of these figures, and may decline to call what is happening there a war, yet the fact of the matter is that the regime has deployed its army, divided districts between its troops, and imposed a curfew. There can be no doubt that this is Bashar Al-Assad's first internal war, or let us say his first internal conflict, as he has been forced to mobilize his army in order to quell areas of civil strife. However, this is the second time that Al-Assad has issued his military with orders to move, following the humiliating withdrawal from Lebanon in April 2005. Currently, the regime is fighting to survive, and although five months have passed since the beginning of the popular uprising in Syria, the authorities seem to be unable to quell the insurgency, whilst at the same time they are facing tremendous international pressures and sanctions for regime change. There is almost unanimous agreement that no matter what happens, the Al-Assad regime will not be as strong as it was in the past. Yet, others believe that the regime's days are numbered. Prominent Egyptian playwright Ali Salem wrote an article entitled, "This is the era of collapsing dictatorships," in which he said that the Arab regime—any Arab regime—can no longer manage its affairs via a military dictatorship or by means of deceit. In this article, he referred to one of my previous articles, in which I asked what would happen if the Assad regime successfully remained in power (“What if the demonstrations in Syria fail?” 28/04/2011). Mr. Salem considers what happened in the Arab world to be nothing more than an extension of the collapse of dictatorships and totalitarian regimes, which began after World War II and continued through to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Salem said that he believed that the wave of change arrived late in the Middle East to uncover the false slogans of our regimes. Ali Salem is correct in his assessments, for a number of Arab regimes—not to mention the Ba’athist and the Arab socialist regimes—based their legitimacy on a mountain of lies, and there can be no doubt that these lies have today been exposed.
However, allow me to add that the crisis is not only in the presence of dictatorial regimes, but that the existence of dictatorships in the past was a justification for such lies. The problem is more than the existence of dictatorial regimes, or such regimes resorting to deceit in order to gain false legitimacy. Rather, the problem can be seen in everyone believing outdated ideas, such as nationalist or extreme religious views, or "the resistance," and other such ideas, as well as in people's inability to move beyond such ideas and viewpoints. The result of this is that people continued to be ruled by dictatorial regimes, which told them what they wanted to hear, but acted otherwise. The Syrian regime may succeed in remaining in power despite all the surrounding circumstances. Its Iranian allies may offer assistance and advise it on the mechanisms through which it can circumvent international sanctions through trading in the black market. Al-Assad might emerge from this crisis as a weak and illegitimate figure in the eyes of the majority of his people, but as long as there are still those who defend his rule, he will remain a ruler, even if this is a ruler of a small piece of land. He is convinced of his own position, and will continue to believe that others, even his own people, are acting against his interest. The real problem with Al-Assad is the values and principles that he and his party believe in. We should remember that a number of such regimes, which are regarded as lacking legitimacy by their own people, have managed to remain in power not only because of their physical capacity or because they know how to lie and deceive, but because many people are ignorant of how to establish a form of legitimacy that is acceptable to everybody, and that looks out for the general interest. In Syria, the minorities and a section of the middle class—both of whom sided with Al-Assad, not out of faith in him but rather out of fear of their own futures— have perhaps accepted their dictator remaining in power. However, this gives rise to a question: What is preventing another dictator, or another totalitarian regime, ruling them however he likes? It is clear that some people would prefer to be ruled by a dictator whom they know rather than the unclear form of government—whether this is sectarian or religious—that may emerge in the future.
There can be no doubt that this is Bashar Al-Assad's first internal war, or let us say his first internal conflict, as he has been forced to mobilize his army in order to quell areas of civil strife
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