I was talking a comrade about how many progressive academics got Syria wrong since 2011, and how many felt the fall of the regime was imminent. Most of them have been silent as of late, because developments invalidated most of their premises. Comrade Talal (a medical professor) offered his assessment: "I think, with hindsight, that they missed several critical elements:
1) They underestimated the strength of the Army as a national institution, or rather as a state-defining institution. In both Iraq and Libya, it took massive outside intervention to destroy the armies of the respective countries. In Syria, the army held together as an institution, not withstanding defections (mostly paid for by the Gulfies at the higher echelon levels) that proved to be non-decisive.
2) The missed taking careful note of the catastrophic political disarray of the opposition. Again and again we learn of the importance of political organization in staging successful revolutions. A Grass-root revolt may sound romantic, but absent organization it goes no where, except perhaps to be a mercenary force for foreign interventions, including the Gulfies, Turkey and the US and its stooges a la Jordan.
3) And I do think they misread the class structure of the opposing forces. The revolt was spearheaded by Sunni peasants, aided by urban Sunni middle class. But the government has a wide spectrum of support across different classes and from varied sects, including the Sunnis.
4) And finally, they completely misread the international situation post Libya. The Russians understood in no uncertain term that the game was leading to regime change in Russia (Georgia and before that the Nato spread may have given them a flavor of what was to come in the Ukraine). Syria may have been very bloody, but with the Ukraine we are talking about an active land war in Europe. The tank battles we have witnessed last year and now in Debalcevo are on an astonishing scale: the rebels (read the Russian General Staff) employed hundreds of tanks and we witnessed cauldrons (or Kessels as the Germans call them) on the Eastern front that reminded one of famous WWII battles. Russia and its allies, most prominently Hizb and Iran, would do their utmost not to allow Syria to fall, even at the cost of a regional war. Their necks are on the line.
These observations do not absolve the Syrian regime of its abject incompetency in failing to predict the uprising or in diffusing it, nor do they deny the regimes long-term dilemma of legitimacy and popular representation. I do think the army would emerge with a far stronger role, set free from kelptocratic hegemony and the Baath folklore. We shall see…"
1) They underestimated the strength of the Army as a national institution, or rather as a state-defining institution. In both Iraq and Libya, it took massive outside intervention to destroy the armies of the respective countries. In Syria, the army held together as an institution, not withstanding defections (mostly paid for by the Gulfies at the higher echelon levels) that proved to be non-decisive.
2) The missed taking careful note of the catastrophic political disarray of the opposition. Again and again we learn of the importance of political organization in staging successful revolutions. A Grass-root revolt may sound romantic, but absent organization it goes no where, except perhaps to be a mercenary force for foreign interventions, including the Gulfies, Turkey and the US and its stooges a la Jordan.
3) And I do think they misread the class structure of the opposing forces. The revolt was spearheaded by Sunni peasants, aided by urban Sunni middle class. But the government has a wide spectrum of support across different classes and from varied sects, including the Sunnis.
4) And finally, they completely misread the international situation post Libya. The Russians understood in no uncertain term that the game was leading to regime change in Russia (Georgia and before that the Nato spread may have given them a flavor of what was to come in the Ukraine). Syria may have been very bloody, but with the Ukraine we are talking about an active land war in Europe. The tank battles we have witnessed last year and now in Debalcevo are on an astonishing scale: the rebels (read the Russian General Staff) employed hundreds of tanks and we witnessed cauldrons (or Kessels as the Germans call them) on the Eastern front that reminded one of famous WWII battles. Russia and its allies, most prominently Hizb and Iran, would do their utmost not to allow Syria to fall, even at the cost of a regional war. Their necks are on the line.
These observations do not absolve the Syrian regime of its abject incompetency in failing to predict the uprising or in diffusing it, nor do they deny the regimes long-term dilemma of legitimacy and popular representation. I do think the army would emerge with a far stronger role, set free from kelptocratic hegemony and the Baath folklore. We shall see…"
