While Syria is again in the eye of the cyclone because of its support for Hezbollah and Hamas, its proximity to Iran, and the combatants that Damascus would let in Iraq, and while the question of the change of regime by an external intervention resurfaces, this short study published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Think-tank Dedicated to the analysis of American policy in the Middle East, written for American decision-makers, delivers an opposition map of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. But her true interest is elsewhere: from the study of political opposition forces in Syria, she offers a critical assessment of the democratization policy of the United States in the region.
The author, Seth Wikas, an American researcher specializing in the Middle East, first operates a brief return on the history of the Syrian opposition from the Baasist coup of 1963. In doing so, he especially insisted on the confrontation between Hafez al-Assad-in power between 1970 and 2000, the year of his death-and the religious opposition embodied by the Muslim Brotherhood, present in Syria. This confrontation culminates in Hama’s bloodbath in 1982, a city symbol of the influence of the brothers, half shaved in an operation which is between 15,000 and 20,000 victims. Since then, belonging to the brotherhood has been liable to death. The movement disappears from the surface of political life, its leaders go into exile in Europe, while the Baasist regime, especially since 2000, encourages religiosity, thus hoping to channel the potential for political opposition.
But most of the analysis is devoted to the very recent period. His interest lies in the detailed report of the recovery by the regime of openness attempts which followed the coming to power of Bashar al-Assad. Indeed, the accession to the Presidency of the Syrian Republic of the second son of the late President Hafez, in July 2000, had aroused a certain hope in the circles hostile to the Baasist power. This hope has resulted in the emergence of various ideological and political movements and the multiplication, during the summer, of discussion forums in major Syrian cities. A first joint declaration of opponents of the regime, the “ Declaration of 99 “Made public in September 2000, was followed in 2001 by the” 1000 Declaration Which presented himself more as a reform agenda. This second statement aroused a wave of repression and the closure of forums. Consequently, this multifaceted movement which proposed to accompany a political change is constituted in force of opposition. Despite the repression, the “ Damascus declaration for national democratic change Is published in October 2005. The originality and the strength of this initiative reside in the fact that it manages to federate five political groups – unlike previous initiatives which engaged only individuals – and to cross -check the entire field of the Syrian opposition, from the Muslim brothers to the main Syrian Kurdish parties. This declaration draws the democratic functioning of a future Syria and designates the current regime as responsible for the ailments of the country. By bringing together personalities and prohibited parties and attacking the regime’s taboos, the opposition crosses many red lines ; A new step will be taken by the publication, in May 2006, of the “ Beirut-Damas statement “, A document in ten points in which, a year after the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, Syrian policy in the country of Cedar is strongly criticized. The repression – in the form of arbitration and arbitrary trials – then rages in the ranks of an opposition already deprived of its main figures.
To qualify this dark painting of a weakened, divided and repressed opposition, Seth Wikas indicates in conclusion that, as weak as it is, the opposition has succeeded in shaking certain canons of Syrian politics-for example, by questioning the political monopoly of the Baas party or Syrian policy in Lebanon-and to break the wall of fear despite the repression of which its activists are the subject. Despite the low representativeness of the opposition in a country where the population is young and depoliticized, its internal divisions, its isolation, its lack of means, the author adheres to the idea that a “ silent majority “Would reject the regime, which would, for example, attest, the very low participation in the legislative elections of April 2007 or in the presidential referendum of the following month (renewal of Bashar al-Assad for a new sevennat). The author therefore advises, in a classic way, to isolate the diet and to play external pressures. He also underlines the time lost and the opportunities missed by the United States, and castigates the mediocrity of American diplomats on site and their errors of strategy, for example their choice to unnecessary support programs for Syrian Syrian Civil Society, leading many of his activists to decline any American aid so as not to be considered a traitor and “ foreigner ». If she wishes to really support this fragile opposition, concludes Wikas, the American administration must cooperate more closely with the European Union to compensate thus the deficit of trust from which it suffers from its policy in the region.
While distinguishing itself from a pro-interventionist line, this study, however, reproduces in many ways the general analysis of American policy in the Middle East. On the one hand, it favors an interlocutor, the opposition “ secular », Compassing both more presentable for the US State Department and more easily accessible for the foreigner who investigates that the religious opposition for example. With regard to the religious opposition, one can only regret the congruent part which is devoted to it in the analysis, especially since it is limited to that of its’ known political representatives – the Muslim Brotherhood in exile – and ignores all of the transformations in progress of the supervision and practice within society. This superficial treatment is a criticism which can be extended to the description of the Syrian Kurdish opposition, oppressed minority whose identity and territorial claims are historical. These three categories of opposition (secular, religious, Kurdish) – of which it is obviously difficult to seriously assess representativeness in the Syrian context – are therefore too caricatured to account for the reality of the opposition field, its dynamics, its recovery zones. On the other hand, to this limited vision is added an equally schematic apprehension of Syrian society.
To this caricatured vision of three opposition to waterproof borders (secular, religious, Kurdish) is added an equally schematic apprehension of Syrian society. Seth Wikras reproduces a worn analysis of a Syrian society which would be made up of homogeneous, confessional and/or constituted groups around structured and unifying interests, immutable entities and inaccessible to change. However, the Syrian political game is incomprehensible outside the cultural and social dynamics of a society which, under the double effect of economic opening and regional conflicts, has experienced profound changes since the beginning of the decade. Admittedly, we must support the women and men who fight for democracy, but one cannot be too wary of the risks induced by too simple characterization of the political and social forces at work. To better appreciate these, American decision-makers would have every interest in looking at university work recently published on this poorly known country, and which this review will soon report.