THE SHIFTING PARADIGM OF U.S. EXTERNAL DOMINANCE IN THE SYRIA KILLINGS

Someone could well ask why the Western powers, especially the United States (U.S.), have such vested interests in the Middle East and, indeed, Syria as it bleeds everyday while the world does nothing.The U.S. today is fairly self-sufficient in meeting its energy needs, so energy consolidation is not a compelling reason for its perennial engagement in Middle Eastern affairs. Perhaps, Goodarzi‘s book Syria and Iran, Diplomatic Alliance and Power Politics in the Middle East (1) has some aspects of the answer.
Goodarzi argues that the Middle East’s attraction to the superpowers and their constant interference is intricately bound up with the region’s huge oil reserves and its geopolitical significance, as it really stands at the crossroads between Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. And in my view the U.S. as one of the superpowers cannot thrust its weight and penetrate the crossroads solely through political rhetoric, but through force projection or the preservation of American military hegemony, evidenced through half of a million U.S. troops, spies, contractors on some 737 military bases in 130 countries.(2)

Why then did U.S. President Barack Obama back off from his well-publicized military option against Syria? Is his failure to exercise the military option not contradictory to a U.S. policy of global preservation of American military hegemony? Obama won the Presidency in 2008 on a platform that he would be the President of peace and not war. He ended the Iraq war by withdrawing most of the troops, and is about to do the same with Afghanistan, except that he wants a long-term security pact that is not easily forthcoming due to Afghan’s President Hamid Karzai’s reluctance to acquiesce. And even now with the uneasy relationship between the U.S. and Iran, Obama argued for diplomacy as a first resort in talks aimed at dismantling that country’s atomic activities.
And in reversing his position on air strikes against Syria to pursue soft diplomacy, willingly or not, Obama gained Russian President Putin‘s support to pressure Bashar al Assad to remove chemical weapons from Syria. More recently, Obama had a hand in the United Nations’ (U.N.) initiation of peace talks in Geneva between the Syrian Government and the opposition forces. Nothing came out of the first round, with the second round in progress. But if these talks continue to fail, what would Obama’s next move be, given the tradition of the U.S. military hegemony? Refer to Obama’s observations in 2012 at the U.S. Holocaust Museum where he said that the U.S. cannot use the military to address every injustice globally, but should resort in the first place to the use of diplomacy, economic, and other methods to save lives.(3) The point of this paper is that the U.S. Administration cannot continue to march into other people’s countries and dictate how they should carry on their affairs.
In restraining U.S. military interventions globally compared to other U.S. administrations, Obama has attracted many swipes from U.S. conservative politicians and commentators because for them he has abandoned the spirit and cause of the Beveridge, Truman, and Eisenhower doctrines which advocate for U.S. dominance of other nations, that is, promoting imperialism. Obama being wedded more to cultural diplomacy than to military engagements and imperialism pushes him closer to the label of an implementer of an ‘anti-American foreign policy’ in the eyes of many conservative U.S. lawmakers.
And as some U.S. policy makers, unmindful of their passion for imperialism, haggle on the possibility of military adventurism in Syria, the tragedy in that unfortunate country rages on, where about 130,000 persons were killed in Syria since 2011.(4) Within the context of mass killings in Syria, U.S. lawmakers may do themselves some good in trying to understand the cultural complexities of Syria and the importance of alliances in the Middle East, specifically relating to the historic alliance between Syria and Iran. In fact, there were 33 different alliances between 1955 and 1979 in the Middle East.(5) Before any Western power, including the U.S., starts to railroad Syria with ground and air troops and drones, it should develop a sense of what Syria is as a nation; something that ought to be done each time America angles toward military adventurism in the name of peace, freedom, and democracy in any country.
Only in 2012, one year after the bloodshed began, did Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad concede that Syria is in a state of war. Not surprisingly, the state of war has now become perennial. This state of war is a battle between the Bashar al-Assad and the rebels from diverse groups in Syria, and the possibility of a civil war is not improbable. Before making any definitive conclusion on the expectation of some impending civil war, note that Syria has the following diverse religious groups: Sunni Islam (74%); Christians (10-11%); Alawite Islam (9-10%); Druze (3%); Ismaili Islam (1%); Ithna’ashari/Twelver Shi’ite Islam (< 1%).(6) Sectarianism is on the rise while simultaneously there is now a vociferous call for Bashar’s removal from office and the institution of significant political reforms.
Over the last 47 years, Syria has experienced Ba ‘thist dictatorial rule that commenced with the February 1966 coup perpetrated by the minority Alawite Arab Nationalist Ba ‘th party of which Hafiz al-Assad was associated. The minority Alawite party constituting only about one-eighth of Syria’s population remains in political control over a country predominantly Sunnis. Bashar al-Assad’s father Hafiz al-Assad removed his Alawite partner Salah Jadid in November 1970, to initiate the dominance of the Assads.
Harris (4) claimed that Hafiz al-Assad made Syria a regional power at great cost to the Syrians through political desertification, personal fiefdoms for his friends, and an economically-deprived economy; and that also bred inter-religious group resentment. Phillips (7) provided further insights into the roots of the current uprising, and Hafiz sustained his political power through constructing social and economic inequalities to promote his strategy of divide and rule. For instance, on his accession in 1970, Hafiz had the support of a large cross-section of Sunni Arabs largely working class and peasants who were about 65% of the population as well as the non-Sunni Arab community such as Christians, Druze, and Alawites. He sustained this coalition support base through jobs and subsidies for the poor by expanding state institutions. But he fiercely excluded the Turkish Kurds and the Sunni Arab elite who were part of the governance structure in previous administrations. Bashar al-Assad inherited his father’s legacy in 2000 with the hope of bettering it, but instead has not performed as a political leader for his country, graduating from rigidity to adventurism.(4)
While economic and social conditions did not change much from his father’s era, Bashar al-Assad cemented greater inequalities among the diverse religious groups, ensuring that the favored minority Alawhite group becomes the largest benefactors of economic gains. According to the World Development Indicators of the World Bank (http://data.worldbank.org/country/syrian-arab-republic), some economic and demographic features in Syria in the year 2010, the year prior to the current conflict, were: Population: 21,532,647 million; GDP in current US dollars: $59,147,033,452; GDP annual growth: 3.2%; GDP per capita in current US dollars: $2,747; life expectancy at birth: 75 years. (8)
Phillips argued that the ills brought on Syria were related to Bashar’s reversal of his father’s socialist policies. In my view not genuine socialist policies, but ‘convenient’ policies that both father and son used to sustain their regime. Consequences of this turnaround include the creation of a liberalized economy, a reduction of subsidies to the poor, increased unemployment, and reduced incomes for those in the state bureaucracy. But those within the corridors of power, mainly Alawites, became enriched more so than in the Hafiz era. And Bashar made no effort at striking a balance between the established Alawite elite and enhancing the declining status of the Sunni Arabs. The upshot was the Sunnis’ inevitable resentment against the corrupt Alawite elite. Indeed, any Western power including the U.S. contemplating an engagement with Syria must also factor the historic Syria-Iran connection. And for about 35 years now, the U.S./Iran relationship has been uneasy.
Written BY DR.PREM MISIR
This article was first published in Modern Diplomacy

References
1. Goodarzi JM. Syria and Iran: diplomatic alliance and power politics in the Middle East: IB Tauris; 2009.
2. Johnson C. Nemesis: The last days of the American republic: Macmillan; 2007.
3. Robinson D. White House Defends Obama on Syria, After McCain Criticism 2014 [January 31, 2015]. Available from: http://www.voanews.com/content/white-house-defends-obama-on-syria-after-mccain-criticism/1850311.html.
4. Harris WW. Review Article: Syria. 2007.
5. Walt SM. The origins of alliance: Cornell University Press; 1990.
6. VOA. Syrian Violence Becoming ‘Overly Sectarian’, Report Finds 2012 [January 31, 2015]. Available from: http://www.voanews.com/content/sectarian-violence-ravaging-syria-un-report-finds/1568481.html.
7. Phillips C. Syria’s Torment. Survival. 2012;54(4):67-82.
8. IBRD. Syrian Arab Republic 2010 [January 31, 2015]. Available from: http://data.worldbank.org/country/syrian-arab-republic.

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