The Syrian analyst, professor, publisher, and general man-about-town Sami Moubayed had a very informative article in Asia Times Online two days ago, assessing the generally very positive recent developments in the US-Syrian relationship.
After detailing several positive steps that each side has taken since January 20, he concludes thus:
- Syrians want to be seen as problem-solvers rather than problem-seekers. They want to show the world – mainly the US – that just as they can deliver on Palestine, they can deliver in Iraq and Lebanon. Syria has said these words in every possible language, and it will continue to show the West that it can deliver in the Middle East. For years the Syrians have been saying that reforms cannot be made unless there are no regional and international threats threatening Damascus.
When regime-change was on the table in Washington back in 2005, reforms were slowed down on more than one level, politics included. The Syrians always said that reforms cannot be made only because they are a requirement of Europe or the US; they cannot be parachuted on the Syrians. If Syria feels comfortable, as it does now, then the reform process might be given a facelift.
Last week, speaking at the Arab Writers Union Congress in Damascus, Haitham Satayhi, member of the Regional Command of the ruling Ba’ath Party, announced that there were instructions to improve relations between the security services and Syrian citizens. There was a determination to combat corruption and “achieve more democracy in the political domain”.
Satayhi added that a special committee has been set up to study and prepare a political party law in Syria to allow for more political pluralism, as promised by the Ba’ath Party Congress of 2005. If anything, this shows that Syria feels very confident, and is not worried, as many in the Western press had speculated, about the international tribunal that will begin on March 1 for the murder of Lebanon’s former prime minister, Rafiq al-Harriri.
Back in 2005, the United Nations prosecutor Detlev Melhis had authored a fascinating report, highly dramatized as the Syrians saw it, to implicate senior Syrian officials in the murder of Syria’s former number one ally in Beirut. Back then the Syrians were worried that the probe was being politicized by the US and Europe, to break Syria. That fear has now become history.
When asked about the issue during his Guardian interview, Assad said that he was unconcerned with the tribunal, fully certain of Syria’s innocence. More reforms and a new relationship with the US mean that 2009 will finally be a year in Syria’s favor in the Middle East.
Well, I’m not sure a “facelift” is exactly what Syria’s reform process needs. Maybe something a bit more substantial and deep-rooted is needed and is, in fact, now tentatively getting underway?
But regardless of that possibly infelicitous choice of words, the argument Moubayed makes is an interesting and significant one. Namely, that when a powerful foreign government like the US is openly or covertly threatening regime change, that not surprisingly stimulates a circling of the wagons in the country targeted along with a rise in practices that are actually anti-democratic. And conversely, when those pressures for regime change are taken “off the table”, then normal political processes can start to resume.