Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: The Assads and the West

The overthrow of Assad in Syria is part of the war in Palestine and, after the war in Lebanon, constitutes the long-awaited escalation and regionalization of the war in the Middle East with the creation of an independent Palestinian State at stake. It is also part of the effort of Israel and the US to halt the advance of the Axis of Resistance with surgical strikes on the leadership structure of the countries and organizations of the Axis of Resistance. In this light, the overthrow of Assad is a link in the chain of strikes against Nasrallah, Haniyeh, Shinwar, etc. The difference in Assad’s case, however, is that it was a total overthrow of the secular, pro-Western but anti-American regime that had ruled Syria for fifty-four years, with Assad remaining alive and in exile. Assad’s overthrow is comparable in magnitude to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003.

In relation to Syria’s future, the coup in Damascus threatens to return the country to the era of perpetual chaos before 1970. Having a common cultural background and ethnic mosaic with Lebanon and with the constant interventionism of the West, the US and Israel, in the political affairs of the country, the governance of Syria after 1917 and especially after 1945 has been a constant headache for Syrians. Frequent coups from 1945 to 1970 left Syria divided and a weak sidekick in the Arab-Israeli wars. It was the Baathist Hafez al-Assad who, with his son Bashar, brought stability to the country’s political life for 54 years, ruling it with an iron fist and making it the main Arab ally of the Palestinians and a key opponent of Israel, even more so than Saddam Hussein.

The heavy price for the political life of the Syrians was the persecution of the subversive elements of the Sunni majority who, with the support of the US and Israel, sought to overthrow the intransigent Assad for one reason and one reason only: they did not accept abandoning the Palestinians in favor of a co-dominant regime in the Syrian Golan Heights occupied by Israel since 1967, as Sadat of Egypt had done in 1978 with the Sinai Peninsula.

This was also the only reason that the West demonized and fought the Assads, cutting off the internal from the external political life of Syria in communication. The Western-originated internal political question “how did the Syrians endure fifty-four years under the Assads?” is interpreted accordingly by the foreign policy question “how did the Assads endure fifty-four years of governing the ungovernable Syria with the US and Israel undermining them by instigating provocations, coups, “Arab springs” and inhumane suffocating sanctions of the Caesar’s Act type?”.

Today, the West has rushed to celebrate, perhaps prematurely, the overthrow of Assad, forgetting or ignoring the secular and culturally pro-Western character of his rule: an Alawite himself, he was a protector of all minorities, especially Christians, when Christians have been persecuted by the Western-oriented Islamic State of Iraq and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian Territories. Assad’s policy of protecting all minorities was in complete agreement with the policy of the EU, which, however, with double standards, accused him of the shortcomings of the Syrian judicial system in relation to his Western-oriented anti-regime opponents.

Today, the secular character of the Syrian state is being questioned. Having history as a guide, no one is optimistic about the unity and stability of the country. Those who today are considered winners from the overthrow of Assad may tomorrow find that their victory is pyrrhic and be forced to regret, as happened in 2003 when they overthrew Saddam Hussein. Then, many of those who today celebrate Assad’s fall short-sightedly will perhaps recall the days of stability in Assad’s Syria.