Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial by Fire.

Kessler, Martha Neff

Inheriting Syria: Bashar's Trial by Fire, by Flynt Leverett. The Brookings Institution Press, 2005. xv plus 166 pages, with chronology and notes. $27.95, hardcover.

For over a quarter century, from administration to administration, Democratic and Republican, the United States has undertaken ambitious policy agendas involving Syria. None has been successful in achieving the overarching U.S. goals of stabilizing the Arab-Israeli arena and making the region safer for American interests and those of our allies. Often the stumbling has involved Damascus. This poor track record is one important reason for reading this concise, thoughtful examination of Syria's young president, Bashar al-Asad, and recommendations for trying anew to deal effectively with Damascus. A former Middle East analyst with the Central Intelligence Agency and senior staff member of the National Security Council, Flynt Leverett is uniquely positioned to provide insight into Syria, its new leader, and the U.S. foreign-policy community that has struggled with the Syrian challenge.

This is not a comprehensive history of U.S.-Syrian relations nor a critique of successive U.S. policies toward Syria. The opening chapter, though, provides the reader with a succinct account of Syria's beginnings as a modern state, the inevitable tensions between Syria and the United States over U.S. support to Israel, and Syria's challenges to Israel and Washington. This opener, while on point for the experienced Middle East watcher, may not be enough for those relatively unexposed to Syria's history, its tortuous political experiences from independence until Asad senior in 1970, its early abortive experiments with democracy, its deep-seated fear of Israeli expansionism and its concomitant distrust of American leaders.

Leverett's primary concentration is on the authoritarian state Hafiz al-Asad built and the constraints and challenges he bequeathed to his successor as a result. Chief among these are the highly centralized, personality-based character of the state and the consequent enfeebled governmental institutions that have failed to move Syria forward. Leverett especially focuses on the office of the presidency, characterized by the author and a high-level Syrian interlocutor as far too weak to manage a serious reform effort.

So dominant were the personality and principles of Hafiz al-Asad that the son's legitimacy resides first and foremost in his family name and, more safely, in being a "keeper of the flame" rather than a determined reformer. Bashar also suffers, Leverett argues, from an authority gap, which would plague any successor, especially a son who inevitably appears less powerful, confident and capable at the beginning of his tenure than his father a 30-year veteran of power politics, some of the most violent and dangerous kind.

An outgrowth of this personalized and familial succession is the burden of Asad family politics. Two generations of a large extended Asad family, many with political ambitions and all with economic interests, have grown used to being at the apex of power and have a history of abusing privilege and the law. All this adds to the complexity of the young president's leadership and puts constraints of a highly personal nature on Bashar, who is already predisposed by personality toward caution.

Some of the most useful insights in this leadership study come from Leverett's early-2004 interviews with Syrian officials, including Bashar himself. The Syrian leader apparently admitted to the author that he was well aware of an old guard inhibiting change and reform. Bashar, interestingly, corrected the widely held perception among American Middle East experts of a Syrian old guard comprising a handful of powerful colleagues of his father. Bashar sees the problem as much broader, involving a network of "mediocre" and "fossilized" bureaucrats. The old guard also extends to a private sector that is to a considerable extent private in name only; important segments of the so-called private sector in Syria have long relied on special arrangements with various parts of the government for the bulk of their business. This unhealthy partnership of status-quo-minded bureaucrats and their preferred allies in the private sector, Bashar noted, is a real obstacle to change.

This open acknowledgement by a young leader who "gets it" is one of the book's biggest contributions and underscores the merit of undertaking a careful read of Leverett's recommendations, chief of which is to engage rather than undercut him. One wonders at the character of this politically vulnerable young man, forthrightly describing malign and powerful entrenched interests to an American scholar and member of a not-too-friendly U.S. security establishment, no less. In Syria, such commentary is risky. Far riskier would be for Bashar to undertake a serious reform effort before he has acquired the requisite power base, sidelined a few of his enemies, and steered Syria successfully through the regional challenges resulting from the upheavals in Lebanon and the morass in Iraq.

The author barely acknowledges the enormity of these tasks and, therefore, the discussion of analytic uncertainties about Bashar's leadership seems unrealistic. The question posed early in the book--"Why has change come so slowly and what does that mean about Bashar al-Asad as a national leader?--is not so hard to answer. His father's tutorials could hardly have prepared him for the tectonic shifts in the Middle East that began with September 11, barely a year after Bashar took over the Syrian presidency. Moreover, most Arab leaders, even the monarchs, have spent years establishing the underpinnings and character of their rule. None, including our allies, have fully reformed their political systems, liberalized their societies or seriously tackled corruption. Some have made a little headway, but we certainly would not want to count the years it has taken.

Virtually every regime in the Middle East is reeling from the impact of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and the resurgence of terrorism in the Middle East and internationally. The flareup of tensions in Israel and the Palestinian areas with the coming of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the new intifada--and for Syria specifically, U.S. and French pressure on the Lebanon issue--have made for a maelstrom of problems and vulnerabilities. Bashar's succession came at an exceptionally difficult time to consolidate power and steer Syria through regional dangers.

The three conflicting profiles of Bashar that Leverett puts forward accurately describe the positions being debated in Washington policy circles:

* Bashar, as neophyte, is simply not up to the job. He does not really have a vision for Syria or a foreign-policy agenda. This weakness and inexperience are regarded as dangerous to regional stability by those who judge him to be a "neophyte."

* Bashar, as loyal son, is characterized as a product of his father's Syria, motivated to protect entrenched interests and to pursue his father's foreign policies. Some even see him as worse than his father for having fallen under the spell of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Bashar is the "second Asad edition" of the problem and thus wholly unable to be part of a solution.

* Bashar, as closet reformer, has a bit more nuance. He wants reform and changes in Syrian foreign policy but is constrained in initiating change by the old guard. Some who hold this view think he may eventually succeed in this quest. The pessimists speculate that Bashar is Syria's Gorbachev, stymied by a terribly shaky economic and political system that seems unreformable.

There are stakeholders in these interpretations of Bashar. The author suggests that each image "carries its own implications for U.S. policy; the lack of analytic consensus thus exacerbates the lack of consensus as to the appropriate course of policy." One suspects it is the other way around in today's Washington, and that those who want to see a clean sweep of the Syrian leadership promote the "loyal son" and/or "neophyte" profiles in pursuit of acquiring support for regime change. Conversely, those who ascribe to an interpretation of Bashar as sincere reformer probably shudder at the prospect of further U.S. adventures in the region. A careful read of the author's copious endnotes helps one understand where the various portraits of Bashar come from. It is less clear where the author comes out. He writes that elements of all three profiles apply, but as a result of his regular references to Hafiz al-Asad's legacy and the script he provided Bashar, the "loyal son" image reappears in the reader's mind regularly.

At a time in Washington when policy interests chase down facts, near facts or fiction, what suffers is honest analysis, common sense and nuance. Fortunately, that is what Leverett offers in the discussions of Bashar's performance thus far in managing Syria's domestic- and foreign-policy. Both the domestic and foreign policy chapters are excellent recaps of events over the past five years, with all the necessary commentary concerning divisions within the U.S. administration over policy toward Syria and very useful insights gleaned from Leverett's interviews with the Syrian leader and other officials. The author is at his best in assessing the strategic calculations the Syrians made during this period in reaction to seminal events. He does less well in helping the reader understand Syrian motives and their historical context. But then, at bottom, this book is for a readership inside the Washington beltway--a thoroughly considered, diplomatically argued presentation of the author's vision of an effective U.S. policy toward Syria.

The approach Leverett promotes is one of conditional engagement--as he describes it, "hard-nosed, carrots-and-sticks engagement," the essence of which is "to contrast the benefits of cooperation with the likely cost of noncooperation." He cites the successes of this approach in getting Sudan out of the terrorism business and convincing Libya to meet its obligations in the Loekerbie/Pan Am 103 case and abandon its WMD program.

The two broad realms of tension between Washington and Damascus are Iraq and terrorism. The author takes on both, parsing each issue by issue, giving recommendations on carrots and sticks, step by step. His logic is convincing, particularly in its application to the clear benefits for the United States. Throughout the book, Leverett gives the reader important insights and information on exactly what U.S. policy has been and currently is. To non-official Middle East watchers this is often a murky area, given the general inattention Syria has received. This makes Leverett's thorough rationale for the approach he recommends particularly persuasive. One good example concerns terrorism: Specifically, the United States should indicate it would be prepared to take Syria off the state-sponsors list, provided the Asad regime expelled terrorists from its territory, renewed counterterrorist cooperation with the United States against al-Qaeda, and broadened that cooperation to include rolling back Syria's own terrorist links. Many readers may assume that this is already U.S. policy, and at least some U.S. diplomats will suggest that it is. But the fact of the matter is that the United States has never made such an offer to the Asad regime. Indeed, during the Clinton administration, the policy was that Syria would be removed from the state sponsors list only in the context of a peace agreement with Israel. Since the Bush administration has been in office, it has declined to offer the Syrians the kind of roadmap for getting off the list advocated here.

Much of what troubles U.S.-Syrian relations is related too directly to the Arab-Israeli issue to be handled apart from successful peace negotiations between Israel and Syria. And, in the author's view, conditions in Israel, Syria and the region are not ripe for a renewed effort on that front. Leverett, however, believes, based on his own discussions with Bashar, that Washington could help the new leader carve out enough maneuverability and political cover on contentious Arab-Israeli issues to deal with other bilateral problems. Washington essentially would provide what amounts to the "kiss of future promise" and Leverett thinks that might be just enough to help the young man move forward.

This is where the logic of Leverett's recommendations, even though based on what Bashar says, strikes deep distrust among so many other Syrians, particularly powerful figures in the old guard, the Asad family, and the military and the bureaucracy. Without tangible success in regaining the Golan Heights and containing an aggressive Israel, Syrians are not likely to grant Bashar much leeway in giving "concessions" to Washington. Distrust of the United States is a major component of Hafiz al-Asad's bequest to his son, and, even if Bashar has overcome that part of the tutorial, his countrymen remain deeply suspicious of the United States. They see America as an unstinting ally of Israel, a country prejudiced against Islam and Arabs, and one that has a history of backing away from its peace promises.

Martha Neff Kessler

Central Intelligence Agency (ret.)