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