THE DISSIDENT VIEW OF THE ASAD REGIME: AN

C O N F I D E N T I A L DAMASCUS 001360 SIPDIS SIPDIS PARIS FOR ZEYA; LONDON FOR TSOU E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/12/2015 TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM SY LE SUBJECT: THE DISSIDENT VIEW OF THE ASAD REGIME: AN UNREFORMABLE, TYRANNICAL GANG Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Stephen A. Seche, per 1.4 b,d. ¶1. (C) Summary: Conversations with a range of former political prisoners in Syria over the past few months yield a consistent, extremely harsh view of the Bashar al-Asad regime and of Asad himself. They say the regime cannot be reformed and insist that Asad is not an agent for change. Because of its authoritarian nature, the regime acts irrationally at times, which leads it to lurch towards the use of violence, as it did when, in their view, it assassinated former Lebanese PM Hariri. Despite its monopoly on power, the regime is described by many of these dissidents as weak. The dissident critique is persuasive in many respects but seems to ignore the effectiveness with which Bashar has presented himself to Syrians over the past six months as the defender of Syrian dignity, in the face of unfair Western (i.e., U.S.) pressure. These dissidents also express ambivalent feelings about the USG commitment to democracy in Syria and underline the importance of a full return of the occupied Golan Heights. End Summary. ¶2. (C) ASAD IS NO REFORMER: Discussions with a range of former political prisoners over the past few months, all of them still active in the opposition, reveal an unrelentingly harsh view of the Asad regime and President Bashar al-Asad. Prominent dissidents such as Riad Seif, Riad Turk, Yassin Haj Saleh, Habib Issa, as well as lesser-known figures associated with the recently released Damascus Spring detainees, Atassi Forum activist Jihad Masouti, and the long-imprisoned Alawite communist Fatteh Jammous, all insist that the current regime is a tyrannical gang that -- despite Asad's exposure to the West and reputation for championing reform -- is unreformable. Asad himself is dismissed as an inexperienced, incompetent leader, surrounded by stronger actors whom he is afraid to cross. He is incapable of serving as an agent for change in Syria, insist all of these men, given that he is, in the words of Yassin Haj Saleh, the head of "a junta of killers and robbers." Dissidents like Turk discount any evidence that Asad has gotten stronger over the past year, adding that he is making short-term, essentially mistaken maneuvers. ¶3. (C) RULE BY SECURITY SERVICES: These dissidents describe the regime as one that controls all institutions and levers of power and influence. It has ruled by Emergency Law since it took power, remaining totally dependent on a raft of security services, which have penetrated every level of Syrian society. The regime "practices terrorism" to suppress any dissent. People who disagree with it "must be imprisoned or killed," noted Riyad Turk. He and others point out that Syrians generally oppose the regime but are afraid to say so, choosing to keep silent and avoid any type of political activity or public criticism. ¶4. (C) NO AUTHENTIC POLITICAL LIFE: The regime has systematically destroyed any signs of political life or independent institutions, organizations, parties, or media. "The naked will of the regime is the only law," observed Saleh. To illustrate, Saleh added that "the regime is so autocratic that it will not just prevent you from speaking your mind, it will make you say what it wants." The regime deals with Syrian society, despite its efforts to suppress public references to sectarianism, as a collection of tribes, sects, and ethnicities (or through Ba'ath-party-controlled shell organizations),rather than by engaging with real institutions, organizations, unions, and parties that would cross sectarian lines, insists Saleh. ¶5. (C) BUT LOTS OF CORRUPTION: These critics consistently describe the regime as completely saturated in corruption, another factor seen as militating against its ability to institute real reforms or serve as a transitional government leading to a more open, transparent system. Riyad Seif noted that to do business in Syria, even in routine matters, one has to engage in corrupt business practices such as cheating on taxes or skirting licensing requirements, because of a SARG system of onerous laws and regulations -- honored more in the breach than the observance -- that the regime has set up. ¶6. (C) A WEAK, IRRATIONAL, VIOLENT REGIME: Despite its monopoly on power, the regime is viewed by many of these dissidents as weak. Some use the description to point to a lack of legitimacy and internal support, while others point more recently to its international isolation and the damage done by the UNIIIC inquiry and former VP Khaddam. Others say the regime sometimes plays at being weak to blackmail allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as well as its antagonists in the West, who fear possible instability and a takeover by radical Islamists. In reality, insist these critics, it is the despotic nature of the regime in Syria that has driven people to Islam, including its fundamentalists pockets, since it provides one of the few refuges in an oppresive environment. All acknowledge the weakness of the internal opposition and its inability to bring down or even seriously challenge the regime. ¶7. (C) Many of these men describe the regime as irrational. For Turk, this irrationality springs from its autocratic nature and from the fact that it allows no real political life in Syria; hence, the regime "only knows orders." Any concern with the actual results of those orders is secondary, leading the regime to constant lurching towards overreaction and "reckless adventurism in the region," noted Turk. Others attribute the condition to Bashar al-Asad's inability to act as a "rational dictator" the way his father did. Instead, according to this view, Bashar has created a "multi-headed dictatorship" that ends up making irrational decisions because he cannot dominate the competing security services and bureacracy as his father did. ¶8. (C) A SPECIAL OBSESSION ABOUT LEBANON: Lebanon has always played a special role for the regime, according to these dissidents. The regime gained its stability in Syria in the 1970's through its role in Lebanon. Lebanon provided opportunities, through smuggling and corrupt business deals, to generate huge amounts of money that the regime used to buy loyalty. It also provided Syria with a stage on which to project its critical regional role and shore up its internal legitimacy. By the regime's calculations, "if you're thrown out of Lebanon, you risk being thrown out of Syria," noted Saleh. The regime killed Hariri because he "was becoming a threat to the security state it had imposed in Lebanon," mirroring the one it imposed on Syria, argued Turk. ¶9. (C) U.S. SUPPORT: Most dissidents say that U.S. attitudes towards the regime are unclear and reveal vacillation between hostility to it and fears over instability if the regime were to fall. Many express concern that in the end the U.S. will make a deal with the regime that will effectively sell out the opposition. Some, like Habib Issa and Riad Seif, offer a more positive assessment of U.S. intentions, noting that the U.S. has no history of colonialism or wars with Syria and has championed democracy in the region, but join with the others in insisting that the U.S. is unfairly biased towards Israel. Because of that perceived bias, and U.S. "support for dictators" in the region over the past four decades, many express skepticism about the sincerity and effectiveness of USG support of democratization. ¶10. (C) THE GOLAN ISSUE: These dissidents also consistently point to the importance of Syria eventually obtaining the return of all of the occupied Golan Heights from Israel, through negotiations. They accept that it could be done in a staged process, as was done with the return of the Sinai to Egypt. The dissidents maintain that a democratically installed regime would be better positioned to make peace with Israel than is the current minority regime that manipulates the Golan issue to marshal internal support. They also regularly raise the Palestinian issue and the need for strong U.S. leadership to ensure that Palestinians get their rights. ¶11. (C) COMMENT: The most notable aspect of this dissident view, in addition to how consistently its tenets are shared, is the harshness of its assessment of Bashar al-Asad. In many ways the dissidents are tougher on him than they are on Hafez al-Asad, despite their recognition that the father was a more brutal tyrant. The son is derided for his ignorance of politics and weakness. Bashar is also viewed as a hypocrite who has duped the more gullible Syrians and Western observers, paying lipservice to reform that he neither believes in nor is capable of implementing. Overstating their case a bit, the dissidents rarely make distinctions between economic and political reform, lumping them together, instead of assessing, like other Syrian observers, that Bashar favors moderate economic reform (but is largely cynical in his gestures at political reform). The dissident critique is persuasive in many respects, despite the fact that the critical perspectives of all of these men have been shaped by the long incarceration, debilitated health, and serious economic losses that they have suffered. It should be noted, however, that their view seems to ignore the effectiveness with which Bashar has presented himself to Syrians over the past six months as the defender of Syrian dignity (and stability),carefully blending nationalist and Islamic issues to garner popular support. SECHE