A dog in\u00a0Lebanon, an old joke goes, was so hungry, mangy and tired of civil war that he escaped to\u00a0Syria. To the surprise of the other dogs, he returned a few months later. Seeing him better groomed and fatter than before, they asked whether the Syrians had been good to him. \u201cVery good.\u201d \u201cDid they feed and wash you?\u201d \u201cYes.\u201d \u201cThen why did you come back?\u201d \u201cI want to bark.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is impossible not to sympathise with Syrians\u2019 desire to be treated like adults. The Syrian regime is not alone, of course, among\u00a0Middle Eastdictatorships in regarding their people as subjects rather than citizens. Under the portrait of the great dictator, little dictators grant some supplicants permits, demand bribes from others and abuse the rest. Syrians can identify with what Italians under Mussolini used to say: \u201cThe problem is not the big dictator. It is all the little dictators.\u201d Little dictators, though, thrive under the big dictator.<\/p>\n
But all dictators are at risk from changed international circumstances, a spark (like a self-immolation in\u00a0Tunisia) or the sudden realisation that the regime is vulnerable. People in\u00a0Syria\u00a0have reasons to demand change, as they have in the past.<\/p>\n
I hope, for their sake, that things turn out better this time.<\/p>\n
During the First World War, Arab nationalists in\u00a0Damascus\u00a0wanted to rid themselves of Ottoman rule. Ottoman officials could be corrupt and arbitrary, but they kept the peace, allowed the Syrians representation in the\u00a0Istanbul\u00a0parliament and put no restrictions on travel within the empire. The nationalists collaborated with\u00a0Britain\u00a0and\u00a0France. They ended up with British and French colonialism, contrived borders, the expulsion of three quarters of\u00a0Palestine\u2019s population, insurrections and wars.<\/p>\n
At independence,\u00a0Syria\u00a0had a parliamentary system, even if landlords, urban merchants, beys and pashas dominated it. Into the mix came the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco), which announced plans in 1945 to construct the Tapline oil conduit from\u00a0Saudi Arabia\u00a0to the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n
Three countries on the route –\u00a0Saudi Arabia,\u00a0Jordan\u00a0and\u00a0Lebanon\u00a0– granted immediate permission.\u00a0Syria\u2019s parliament, seeking better terms, delayed. The project stalled further when the Arab governments launched a war for which their colonially-created armies (with the exception ofTransjordan\u2019s) were unprepared. When they lost, demonstrations condemned the corruption that had deprived soldiers of adequate resources. InDamascus, the protesters forced the government to resign.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0United States\u00a0embassy in\u00a0Damascus\u00a0seized the opportunity to win Syrian approval for Tapline. The Central Intelligence Agency\u2019s man, Stephen Meade, approached the army chief of staff, Colonel Husni Zaim, to arrange a coup. The Kurd and former Ottoman soldier took embassy money to foment an insurrection that justified his seizure of power in 1949. The embassy reported to\u00a0Washington\u00a0that \u201cover 400 Commies [in] all parts ofSyria\u00a0have been arrested.\u201d\u00a0Syria\u00a0signed an agreement with Aramco in May and an armistice with\u00a0Israel\u00a0in July.<\/p>\n
Col Zaim antagonised sectors of society by raising taxes and attempting to give women the vote. Although he did not kill anyone, another colonel overthrew and executed him a month later. That colonel was himself eliminated by a third colonel. Thus began\u00a0Syria\u2019s instability, with military coups as regular as changes of season.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Col Zaim\u2019s suppression of the Communist Party produced, in the last free vote held in\u00a0Syria, the election of the Arab world\u2019s first Communist member of parliament.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0United States\u00a0made two more major attempts in the 1950s to decide\u00a0Syria\u2019s future \u2013 with Operation Straggle and Operation Wappen. Both failed. The era of chronic coups ended with the last one, Hafez Al Assad\u2019s, in November 1970.\u00a0Syria\u00a0has enjoyed continuity, if not freedom, since that time.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0United States\u00a0variously tolerated, encouraged and vilified the senior Al Assad. Now, it is seeking to eliminate his son \u2013 in the name of the Syrian people. The extent to which Syrians are acting freely or being used by the\u00a0United States\u00a0will become clearer when another generation of CIA operatives publishes memoirs or someone passes documents on to WikiLeaks.<\/p>\n
The Bush administration in 2006 began funding Syrian oppositionists and subsidised Barada TV with $6 million (Dh22 million) to cover the cost of broadcasting to\u00a0Syria. Last January, Vanity Fair published an interview with Blackwater founder Eric Prince in which he said: \u201cIn\u00a0Syria, we did the signals intelligence to geo-locate the bad guys in a very denied area.\u201d In March, Reuters reported that the Syrians had intercepted a truckload of weapons sent over the border from\u00a0Iraq. Who sent them? The Iraqi government, now almost as closely allied to\u00a0Iran\u00a0as\u00a0Syria\u00a0is, was not the likely culprit. The other armed force in\u00a0Iraq\u00a0with the means to send weapons across the border was the\u00a0United States.<\/p>\n
Miles Copeland, one of the CIA agents who organised the earlier coups in\u00a0Syria, later regretted his actions. After the publication of his book, the Game of Nations, in 1969, he told Keith Kyle of the BBC: \u201cMy feeling is that on balance this is a bad thing to do, and it\u2019s better to let a country stew in its own juices. If it has a corrupt leader, let them have it. It\u2019s their tough luck. If the people in the country don\u2019t have what it takes to get rid of a corrupt leader, to hell with them. Let them keep him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyle asked whether the overthrow policy changed because it failed to pay off. Mr Copeland answered, \u201cYes. I would say so.\u201d The policy, though, is back.<\/p>\n
Charles Glass is the author of several books on the\u00a0Middle East, including Tribes with Flags and The Northern Front: An Iraq War Diary. He is also a publisher under the\u00a0London\u00a0imprint Charles Glass Books<\/em><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.thenational.ae\/ <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A dog in\u00a0Lebanon, an old joke goes, was so hungry, mangy and tired of civil war that he escaped to\u00a0Syria. To the surprise of the other dogs, he returned a few months later. Seeing him better groomed and fatter than before, they asked whether the Syrians had been good to him. \u201cVery good.\u201d \u201cDid they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n