Fellow Thanassis Cambanis visited government-held Syria in October at a pivotal moment, gaining a rare glimpse into the part of the country still controlled by President Bashar al-Assad. We asked him about his impressions.
Conclusion: There are no good options for Syrians in the foreseeable future. Many would like to join their countrymen in emigrating.
… two key points surfaced again and again on this trip. First, Assad’s government has not changed any of its fundamental ways, in terms of how it runs the country, stifles dissent, and is completely uninterested in changing the nature of its system. And second, many Syrians who don’t particularly care for Assad’s way of running the country, who in fact fear the president, also fear the rebels on the other side, whose vision they find sectarian, intolerant or even nihilist. That middle ground of public opinion is still not free to speak on the regime side, but they could hold the key to a future Syria that reflects something freer and less corrupt than Assad’s government, and at the same time less sectarian and extreme than the jihadists on the opposition side. The war in Syria, sadly, looks like it might go on for another decade.
While he doesn't mention it, US foreign policy is simultaneously idealist and realist. Publicly, the US advertises its idealist aspect of promoting freedom and spreading democracy while submerging is realist aspect in the deep state. That policy is dominating the energy rich region under the regional dominance of US allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia, the former of which is a Jewish Zionist state pretending to be a liberal democracy while the latter is unabashedly undemocratic and Wahhabist. The idealism doesn't mesh with the realism. Bashir al-Assad is admittedly not a good guy, but he is hardly worse that the governments the US is supporting in the region, with terrible human rights records. Snake pit.
The Century Foundation — Foreign Policy
Thanassis Cambanis | Fellow
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