A Syrian refugee is pictured at the Al Zaatri refugee
camp in the Jordanian city of Mafraq, near the border with Syria, 31 July 2012.
(Photo: Reuters - Muhammad Hamed)
Time and time again, promises made by the Syrian regime and its armed
opposition to deal a decisive blow to the other side have failed to materialize.
Is this savage war destined to go on forever?
Both sides have a long list of justifications for their failure to resolve the situation. All of these seem to be military or technical, but may really have more to do with politics and ideology. Warring sides can never achieve military victory if their ideas do not prevail first.
Syrian opposition groups became embroiled in an armed rebellion and therefore lost the moral high ground needed to succeed. They became proxies, used against their own country in a regional and international war. Since they chose the path of war, it became easier for local criminal gangs and terrorist groups from all over the world to manipulate them.
Both sides have a long list of justifications for their failure to resolve the situation. All of these seem to be military or technical, but may really have more to do with politics and ideology. Warring sides can never achieve military victory if their ideas do not prevail first.
Syrian opposition groups became embroiled in an armed rebellion and therefore lost the moral high ground needed to succeed. They became proxies, used against their own country in a regional and international war. Since they chose the path of war, it became easier for local criminal gangs and terrorist groups from all over the world to manipulate them.
Their ideology and their operations became tainted, revealing a repulsive image of intentional killing and destruction, of authoritarianism and obscurantism. With this, the armed opposition had to resort to rallying support around a sectarian and religious agenda to justify its insane war.
It became the militia of the oppressed Sunnis in Syria. Seeing as those who have rushed to raise the Sunni banner include the Muslim Brotherhood, Salafis, and Jihadis, Syrian Sunnis will have no choice but to become fully compliant with Brotherhood and Salafi authoritarianism in all its forms.
This is what underlies the armed groups’ failure to reach a decisive victory. They are unable to offer a national alternative which could win over a critical mass of Syrians belonging to various religions, sects, ethnic groups, and political orientations.
For the Syrian regime, sectarianism is not a suitable framework for a political ideology. It may use it implicitly for effective rallying, but it cannot officially adopt it without losing its national legitimacy. If it does, it will condemn itself to a very rapid and inexorable downfall.
However, the Syrian regime is waging war without a clear message. The regime’s approach is to react to the opposition’s ideology; when the latter was liberal, the regime responded with reforms along those lines. It spoke of constitutional changes, elections, widening the framework of the government, and calling for dialogue. Whether these solutions were enough is not what’s important here. The crux of the matter is that the regime played the game according to the opposition’s rules. It then tried to deal with the rebels’ sectarianism by denying it, refusing to acknowledge the presence of a civil war.
Meanwhile, Hamas dealt a blow to the Syrian government by abandoning Damascus without attracting scorn from the other two sides of the Resistance triangle, Iran and Hezbollah. Even the government’s inspired idea to promote opposition figures, Communist Qadri Jamil and Social Nationalist Ali Haidar, to become ministers was wasted because even they could not galvanize public support for a regime waging a war that had not been defined.
On two very separate occasions, President Bashar Assad revealed positions which could be the basis for a decisive victory. He described the war in Syria as “a struggle between Arab nationalism and political Islam.” Then he stated that the conflict was “in defense of the only secular state remaining in the East.” However, both these positions turned out to be vacuous; neither developed into the regime’s central message, and they failed to rally support.
I would go as far as saying that retreating from these two positions had to do with the ideological ties imposed by the crucial alliance with Iran, which is neither Arab nor secular. But effective alliances are based on diversity. We must not abandon a message which is vital for the resolution of this situation for the sake of any ally.
This brings us to the third element missing from the elusive message: a progressive social ideology. Due to the regime’s alliance with the local capitalists, this message is totally absent. If Damascus wants to win, it has to join the crowds in Tahrir Square. It has to define its war in terms of the Square’s stand against political Islam. It has to take a stand on much more radical positions on Arab nationalism, secularism, and social justice. It also has to rally the support of the nationalists, secularists, and socialists in Syria, the Arab world, and the world in general. This struggle should not be restricted to the intellectual, political, and media spheres. It should become part of the international struggle against imperialist and terrorist aggression.
Raise your banners. We want to join the struggle!
Nahed Hattar is a Jordanian writer.
The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect Al-Akhbar's editorial policy.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
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