Asad Regime Research Articles

The politics of scorn in Syria and the agency of narrated involvement

Recent uprisings across the Arab world raise the question of how populations living under dictatorial regimes moved from apparent quiescence to active revolt. The question is particularly acute for Syria, where the Asad regime has ruled not simply through coercion, but also by enforcing a culture of everyday cynicism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Aleppo in 2008-9, I argue that everyday Syrian narratives that lament or scorn the self are a way of radically identifying oneself with a contemptible situation, and inviting that fact to be witnessed and empathized with. I term the radical identification enacted in these narratives ‘involvement’. In order to understand why these narratives do not merely reproduce a cynical political culture in the same way that private mockery of the regime does, I propose a model of agency that develops the theme of authentic voice. I argue that the self-scorning voice sounds authentically through the combined agency of the involved subject and the empathetic witness. By enacting involvement, narratives that scorn and lament the self defy the culture of political cynicism and prepare the ground for revolt.

Presidents at Work: Shop Displays of Political Portraiture in Prewar Damascus

In Syria, official portraiture depicting members of the Asad regime has long been used as a tool to produce and uphold authoritarian power. Following in his father's footsteps, Bashar al‐Asad generated a wide range of billboards, banners, posters, and stickers in his own image meant for both public and private consumption. Rather than treat this visual regime as a monolith of interchangeable and mass‐produced imagery, I argue in this article for the examination of Asad portraits on smaller and more intimate scales. I discuss the display of these cult images within the domain of small‐scale shops in Damascus, looking at both how these images are embedded in other visual and symbolic contexts, and how they become individually relevant as they are materially embellished and marked.

Investigating Lebanon's Political Murders: International Idealism in the Realist Middle East?

This article reviews the investigation of Lebanon's 2004-2008 string of assassinations, a novel international venture precipitated by the February 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. It argues that shifting realist and idealist impulses on the international level, alongside a vicious struggle in Lebanon, allowed the intrusion of international justice in the form of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), although with meager results up to late 2012. The impact on Lebanon of the uprising in Syria against the Asad regime, a prime suspect in Lebanese assassinations, has both overshadowed the affair and raised the stakes involved in the STL's pursuit of it.Between October 2004 and January 2008, Lebanon endured a series of assassinations and attempted murders of salient local personalities. Those targeted encompassed nine politicians, two journalists, and three security officials, attacked in 13 incidents with a total casualty toll of 58 dead and at least 335 wounded. The most prominent victim was former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, murdered in a spectacular bombing that demolished a street in central Beirut on February 14, 2005. On the reasonable assumption that the incidents were interconnected, the series of political murders in Lebanon 2004-2008 represented the most dramatic assassination campaign in the post-Cold War world, threatening the Lebanese pluralist political system. From the outset, suspicion centered on the Syrian ruling clique, from whom Hariri and his Lebanese Sunni, Christian, and Druze partners had become estranged, and blame later encompassed Syria's Lebanese Shi'a ally Hizbullah.The Hariri assassination led to a UN investigation and a special international/Lebanese tribunal to prosecute those responsible for the Hariri murder and crimes that the tribunal might find to be connected to the Hariri assassination and similar to it in nature and gravity.1 On one level this involved importing international justice - the essence of liberal idealist aspiration for a principled world order - into the brutally realist political jungle of the region, where everything can be reduced to interest and where only zero-sum games of winners and losers are taken seriously. On another level the story has been more complex. Supporters of international investigation and justice have exhibited a shifting mix of realist and idealist impulses; its enemies have claimed victimhood in an unfair world of selective justice while implementing the ferocious realist maneuvers of fingered suspects. This article explores international embroilment in Lebanese political murders and the intermingling of idealist and realist dimensions in the unfolding affair. American diplomatic documents illicitly released into the public arena by WikiLeaks confirm the account derived from conventional sources.Goldsmith and Posner, in The Limits of International Law, propose that international law and institutions simply reflect state interests and rational choices of states following their interests.2 Realism trumps idealism. The argument in this article suggests that among Western states and other countries with pluralist politics, currently the majority in the international community, realism mingles with an impulse toward a standards-based international order. This impulse arises from public and political opinion that cares about human rights.3 International involvement in Lebanon's political murder saga has been characterized by the chance convergence of the interests of major powers with a more principled, idealist concern for international norms.IDEALIST AND REALIST IMPULSES IN LEBANON'S MURDER CRISISTaking responsibility for dealing with Lebanese political murders represented a new departure for the international community and occurred because of a unique conjunction of international conditions in early 2005. French and American interests at the moment regarding Syria gave international moral outrage a critical boost toward action, a conjunction of realism with idealism. …

The Hariri Political Dynasty after the Arab Spring

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 Statement by the Hariri Family on 20 April 2005, retrieved from http://www.hariri2005.com (accessed 2 November 2011). See also The Daily Star, 21 April 2005. 2 In 1965, Rafiq Hariri married Nida Boustani, who is of Iraqi origin. The pair had met at the Arab University of Beirut and went on to have three sons together: Bahaa, Saad and Houssam, who died in a car accident in the USA in 1993. The couple divorced and in 1976, Hariri married Nazek Audi, who has Palestinian roots. 3 Prince Nayef died on 16 June 2012. His brother, Prince Salman, was named Crown Prince two days later. 4 In fact, the official participation of Syrian National Council members at the annual commemoration proved divisive even among the 14 March coalition partners (see al-Akhbar, 13 February 2012; see also Seale, 2012 Seale, P. 2012. Asad family values. Foreign Affairs, 20 March, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137338/patrick-seale/assad-family-values (last accessed 15 June 2012) [Google Scholar]; Landis, 2012 Landis, J. 2012. Why the Asad regime is likely to survive to 2013. Middle East Policy, : 71–84. XIX(1), pp. [Google Scholar]). 5 I thank Thomas Pierret for comments on this issue. For more details, see Pierret (2011 Pierret, Y. 2011. Syrie: l'islam dans la revolution. Politique étrangère, 4: 879–891. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]).

The Syrian Uprising of 2011: Why the Asad Regime Is Likely to Survive to 2013

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U.S. Condemns Asad Regime's Violent Crackdown on Protesters

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Teaching &amp; Learning Guide for: Modern Syrian Politics

The study of Syrian politics allows us to engage in multiple debates current in contemporary political science. Syria exemplifies the problematic of nation-building as few states have been afflicted with such a radical disjuncture between territory and identity. As the Syrian state started out as notoriously unstable, its history allows us to understand the techniques and conditions in which stable authoritarian states have been constructed in the third world and Middle East. Syria fits well with the literature on authoritarian persistence and the failure of democratization in the Middle East. In this respect, Syria provides material relevant to topics such as neo-patrimonialism, the role of the military in politics and also single party systems. Syria also provides material for studies of political economy, including such debates as the failure of populist roads to development, agrarian reform, of the role and character of state-bourgeoisies and the difficulties of transition from statistcentred to market economies. Finally, at the level of foreign policies, Syria’s role is quite distinctive, considered by some to be a rogue state and by others exemplifying rare defiance of US hegemony and resistance to globalization.

The Syrian Muslim Brothers and the Syrian-Iranian Relationship

The 'Alawis of Syria are part of the Shi'a stream; this has led to an alliance with Iran, the center of Shi'ite Islam. This alliance aggravated the oppositionist Syrian Muslim Brotherhood (MB), whose members have been in exile since 1982. According to them, the alliance is a stage in a Shi'ite scheme to take over the Sunni countries, including Syria. However, during the past year the MB has changed their strategy, and we are currently witnessing a rapprochement between the Brotherhood and Damascus. The purpose of this article is to examine the attitude of the Syrian Muslim Brothers towards the 'Alawi regime as a sectarian Shi'ite regime and as a part of a Shi'ite/Iranian scheme that intends to take over the Sunni world. The Muslim Brothers of Syria, the prominent opposition to the current regime, are a Sunni Islamist movement, while the the current rulers of Syria, are defined as Shi'ites. This brings to the surface the old Sunni-Shi'ite schism wherein each accuses the other of deviation from the true path of Islam. The situation in Syria, in which a Shi'ite minority rules over a Sunni majority through the secular Ba'th Party, is considered unacceptable by the Sunni Muslim Brothers, who believe that this situation ought to be changed - even by the use of force. The Muslim Brothers believe that Syria should be ruled by Sunni Shari'a (Islamic law) and not by the heretic as the Shi'ite 'Alawis are called. As a result of the violent Muslim resistance to the secular Ba'th regime during the 1960s and against the secular, sectarian Asad regime during the 1970s and 1980s, many Brothers were killed and imprisoned while the Brotherhood's leadership left Syria and has never been allowed to return. Today the Syrian Muslim Brothers reside in London, under the leadership of 'Ali Sadr al-Din al-Bayanuni. The Nusayris of Syria The the dominant elite of Syria, were known up until the 1920s as Nusayris. The term Nusayris is derived from the name Muhammad ibn Nusayr who lived in the ninth century. Ibn Nusayr claimed that 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, was divine, and he placed him above the Prophet Muhammad. The Nusayris also believe in the Trinitarian concept of 'A.M.S. ('Ali. Muhammad. Salman.).1 They believe in the transmigration of souls, and they resort to religious dissimulation, or taqiyya. Since the 13th century they have inhabited the mountain region known after their name, Jabal al-Nusayriya (the Nusayriya Mountain) in northwest Syria and in the Hatay region in southern Turkey.2 For centuries, the though considered an extremist Muslim sect, were ill-treated by the local Syrian Sunnis and by successive Sunni governments, which considered them to be heretics outside of Islam. The Nusayris lived in isolation in their mountains, and their encounters with the local inhabitants, both Muslims and Christians, were rare. They did not cultivate their lands and lived by raiding neighboring villages and robbing travellers, which earned them a negative reputation. At the beginning of the French Mandate period in Syria (1920-1946), the group changed their name to 'Alawis. Some researchers, such as Daniel Pipes, say that the French gave them this name in order to win them over to their side.3 Others argue that the Nusayris were the ones who wanted to change their name to 'Alawis, meaning the adherents of 'Ali ibn Abi Talib, which made them more closely tied to Islam.4 Adopting the name 'Alawis and obtaining fatawa (legal opinions) that related them to Shi'ism were supposed to help them integrate with the Syrian Muslim population and end their heretic status. As they were regarded as an outcast sect, but as and the adherents of 'Ali, they were part of Shi'ism and thus part of the Muslim community. Although during the French Mandate and the struggle for independence, Sunni nationalists had put national solidarity above religious allegiance and recognized the 'Alawis as fellow Arabs, there were still many who referred to them as Nusayris, implying that they were disbelievers and extremists who are related neither to Sunni nor to Shi'ite Islam. …

Syria Unmasked: The Suppression of Human Rights by The Asad Regime

Syria Unmasked: The Suppression of Human Rights by The Asad Regime

Syria unmasked: the suppression of human rights by the Asad regime

Journal Article Syria unmasked: the suppression of human rights by the Asad regime Get access Syria unmasked: the suppression of human rights by the Asad regime. By Middle East Watch. New Haven, London: Yale University Press. 1991. 213pp. Index. £14.95. ISBN 0 300 05115 8. Maurice Gent Maurice Gent 1Financial Times Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Affairs, Volume 68, Issue 2, April 1992, Pages 379–380, https://doi.org/10.2307/2623313 Published: 01 April 1992

Syria unmasked: the suppression of human rights by the Asad regime

Syria unmasked: the suppression of human rights by the Asad regime

The Asad Regime and Its Troubles

The Asad Regime and Its Troubles

Syria under Asad, 1970–78: The Centres of Power

NO OTHER MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRY COULD MATCH THE TURBULENT post-independence history that Syria has experienced. Gaining its independence from France in April 1946, Syria moved uncertainly through the bewildering web of inter-Arab politics until the first military coup in March 1949 propelled it towards the long period of instability that was to follow. Indeed, the coup of November 1970, popularly known as the ‘Corrective Movement’, which installed the Asad regime in power constituted the twenty-first change of government in the twenty-four years of the country's independence. This persistent political turmoil, particularly during the fifties and sixties, contrasts sharply with the stability that Syria enjoyed in the first eight years of this decade.