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The Assad regime’s maximalist position is largely unchanged.
By: Caroline D. Rose
A growing list of
Middle Eastern governments has announced a reset of relations with
Syria following more than 12 years of civil war in the country and
fruitless regional efforts to isolate President Bashar Assad’s regime.
Almost overnight, neighboring countries that initially supported the
Syrian opposition, cut ties with Damascus, denounced the regime’s mass
atrocities and human rights abuses, and imposed punitive economic
measures last month started rolling out the red carpet for Assad, his
family and high-level Syrian officials. Since then, Damascus and
regional governments have held a string of high-profile meetings and
forged several preliminary agreements. The Arab League formally
readmitted Syria, and Assad’s regime launched bilateral working groups
with neighbors like Iraq and Jordan to collaborate on issues such as
counternarcotics and border security.
Regional
officials have presented these initiatives as an effort to achieve
normalization with the Syrian regime. However, it is unclear what a
political, diplomatic and economic reset with Damascus would really look
like. And when the Assad regime seeks to preserve the status quo, whose
version of “normal” will win out?
A Reset?
In recent years,
several Middle Eastern countries have toyed with the idea of
normalization with Syria to bring the country’s civil war (and the
accompanying regional disruptions) to a close. The United Arab Emirates
supercharged this approach starting in 2015, becoming one of the first
regional neighbors to bring high-level Syrian officials – including
Assad himself – to the table for discussions on an agenda to bring Syria
back into the regional fold. Egyptian officials tossed around the idea
of allowing Syria to rejoin the Arab League. Countries like Jordan were
more cautious but were still keen to keep communication channels open
and test the regime’s responses. For example, Jordan reopened the
Jaber-Nassim border crossing and invited Syrian diplomats to Amman for
discussions.
![The Arab League]()
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These efforts
gained momentum after a catastrophic earthquake struck northern Syria
and southern Turkey in February. The tragedy provided a justification
for many countries considering normalization to open direct
communication with Damascus to coordinate humanitarian policies and
provide immediate aid to Syrians through regime-held territories and aid
channels. Since then, countries have set their sights on full
normalization – reopening embassies, appointing ambassadors to Damascus,
and exploring ways to coordinate with Syria on border security, trade,
climate change and other issues of shared interest. Many regional
players believe that engagement on peripheral issues could induce a
genuine change in the Syrian regime’s behavior and potentially its
position on a number of substantial, more controversial issues related
to Syria’s civil war: the safe return of refugees, counterterrorism
against Islamic State, Iranian and Russian presence in Syria, and an
inclusive political settlement that could chip away at some of the Assad
family’s hold on power and bring about a more comprehensive political
system that represents more of the country’s ethnic and political
groups. Yet it is difficult to imagine a path forward when it’s clear
that the regime’s maximalist position largely remains unchanged.
What the Syrian Regime Wants
The key variable
in the future of Syria is the fate of the Assad family. The Assads
ascended to power in the 1970s with the rise of Baathism, and they
solidified their grip on the country through the creation of a vast
patronage system. However, Syria’s history of sectarian rivalries,
competing tribes and complex patronage networks are a constant threat to
the Assad family’s continued rule. Despite the family’s survival
through more than a decade of civil conflict – weathering foreign-backed
opposition and recovering nearly 70 percent of the territory lost
earlier in the war – the Assads still feel the fragility of their
position. Rigged national elections, repeated purges of close allies
(including some blood relatives) and frequent arrests of perceived
opponents have helped the Assads maintain their position and create a
narrative of legitimacy and invincibility among skeptical Syrians in
regime-held territories.
![Territorial Control in Syria | May 2023]()
(click to enlarge)
This, in turn,
has bled into Syria’s foreign policy and its engagements with its
neighbors. While the Syrian regime has always wanted its regional
counterparts to lift economic restrictions and end its diplomatic
isolation, it refuses to offer – or even appear to offer – any sort of
concession that might undermine its political credibility. The Syrian
regime’s vision of normalization is vastly different from that of its
neighbors. For Syria, normalization will uphold the status quo inside
the country – the exclusion of the opposition from substantive
governance initiatives, maintaining the regime’s hold over a majority of
the country (and empowering it to consolidate additional territories),
and keeping the reins of political power in the hands of the Assad
family, all while reaping the benefits of renewed commercial ties and
foreign investment from neighbors that will provide relief from the
country’s economic crisis.
Though Middle
Eastern countries are optimistic about achieving normalization with
Syria, it is more likely that they will have to accept Assad’s
maximalist vision. With such disparate incentives among countries in the
region, they cannot simply hit the reset button and transport bilateral
relations with Syria back to 2011, before the war began. |