Syrian Bashar al-Assad’s fall after nearly a quarter-century in power highlights once again the discrepancy between Middle Eastern leaders and peoples’ will. For decades, psychopathic elites have hijacked the public’s dreams of freedom and democracy, but those dreams persist.
In the wake of World War II, coups racked the region, with those leading them often depicting them as victorious national revolutions. Dictatorships are not strong, but they are brutal. Terror promotes their longevity. The moment they cease terror, they collapse. So, too, does the entire state as dictators eviscerate government institutions to concentrate all power unto themselves. From Saddam Hussein in Iraq to Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia to Bashar al-Assad in Syria, dictatorships have shown their fragility. The current authoritarian regimes in North Africa and the Middle East remain fragile; this is why an intelligence agent-turned-writer like Jamal Khashoggi so threatened a rich country like Saudi Arabia.
When the Arab Barometer’s 2021-2022 survey asked whether respondents agreed with the statement, “Democratic systems may have problems, yet they are better than other systems,” more than 70 percent of those in Lebanon, Jordan, Mauritania, Tunisia, the Palestinian Authority, Sudan, Libya, Iraq, Egypt, and Morocco agreed or strongly agreed; dictators, monarchs, or chaotic and failed democracies rule each of these countries.
To believe Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani will become a democratic statesman is self-deception.
People in the region probably understand that the governance problems in post-2003 “democratic” regimes are not necessarily intrinsic to democracy. The failure is due both to ineffective leadership and the political leaders’ disbelief in democracy itself. Leaders who do not believe in democracy will not strengthen it. The leaders in Egypt, Tunisia, or the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, who took power through popular uprisings and revolutions against the authoritarian regimes, proceeded to hijack the principles of those uprisings and revolutions; they remained semi-democratic only until they could capture the state or territory enough to establish authoritarian rule. Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi or Iraqi Kurdistan’s Masoud Barzani may embrace the rhetoric or trappings of democracy—both in terms of self-description and occasional elections—but no amount of lipstick can beautify the authoritarian face.
The Syrian rebels, as Western media calls them, or the revolutionaries, as the Qatari- and Turkish-funded media celebrates them, have a long record of human rights abuses and crimes. To believe Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani will become a democratic statesman is self-deception. Syrians have the right to be euphoric after toppling a dictator who had impoverished the country and transformed it into killing fields. However, this euphoria only helps the new elites of “rebels” and “revolutionaries” to please their backers in Doha and Ankara, to justify a Syria that fits their regional and geopolitical interests rather than those of Syrians.
Once, would-be democrats complained that Western countries intervene to prioritize stability over democracy. Today, the problem is the region’s own authoritarian regimes who intervene in Syria to ensure Syria remains undemocratic.
Syrians need a system that represents them and their aspirations. Regional states present cynically and Western media present naively Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and the Syrian National Army as the best choices Syrians can have. But they are not what Syrians want. Syrians want the ability to choose a democratic system that addresses their aspirations and respects the country’s diversity rather than serves the interests of regional states that fear both.
Syrians want the ability to choose a democratic system that addresses their aspirations and respects the country’s diversity rather than serves the interests of regional states that fear both.
The uprisings and revolutions across the Middle East and North Africa region reveal a pattern where elites and external powers hijack the people’s democratic aspirations. To break this cycle, international actors must not leave Syria to countries like Turkey. If toppling Assad means replacing Assad with al-Jawlani on one hand and Russia and Iran with Turkey on the other, this will be a disaster. In Syria, the survival and success of experiments like the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces are critical for preventing another stolen revolution. Their success is the reason why the Syrian National Army and Turkey jointly attack it to eradicate the prospects of democracy in Syria’s future. Ultimately, the fate of the Middle East depends on ensuring that the peoples’ aspirations lead not to renewed authoritarianism but to a sort of democratic transformation. Syria is another experiment, but already looks doomed.
If the Trump administration wants to have a say over the future of Syria, conditioning U.S. aid will not suffice; protecting the Kurdish-controlled areas and its democratic paradigm will challenge other countries’ efforts to impose an extremist Islamist order on Syria. If those countries succeed, Syrians will be an existential threat both to its and regional minorities, as well as U.S. interests in the region.
