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Alawites, who constitute much of the officer corps and control the government of Syria, make up only 12% of the population of that country. Ominously, they are regarded by true-blue Sunni Arabs (who make up 70% of the population of Syria) as not-real-Muslims, in something like the way that Ahmadis (Qadianis) in Pakistan are regarded. This bodes ill for their future, should their grip ever slip. And it could slip.
The Syrian regime has chosen to rely for its survival on an alliance with Shi'a Iran. It was Iranian muftis who issued a ruling a few years ago declaring that the Alawites were, indeed, Muslim. The Sunni Muslims, by contrast, wiped out an entire graduating class of Alawites from the Syrian military academy. They also threatened the power of Hafez al-Assad until finally he levelled Hama, with the Alawite-led army instructed to shoot down anyone who shouted "Allahu Akbar."
When "real" Muslims massacred 82 Alawite miltary cadets at a graduation ceremony, as part of an anti-regime, anti-Alawite campaign, Hafez al-Assad surrounded Hama, an Ikhwan center, and told his troops to kill anyone who moved. Twenty thousand were killed. And in Haleb, or Aleppo, the second city of Syria, corpses were dragged through the streets, and everyone had to come out -- Armenians, Sunni Muslims, everyone -- from their houses, or stand on their balconies, and applaud the spectacle.
Qualis pater, talis filius? Not quite. Bashir the son is a most myopic ophthalmologist. He may think that he is safe as long as he lets Sunnis use Syria as a point of entry into Iraq to fight the good fight (and any fight that directs Muslim interest and energies away from the Alawites of Syria, disguised as "Ba'athists," is a good fight), and simultaneously lets Syria be used the other way, as a place through which Iranian weaponry, money, and agents are delivered to Hizballah in Lebanon. In such a way do the Alawites hope, by giving at the office, to stay in power (and to keep those reliable Armenian drivers and other Christians whom they can trust).
Bashir al-Assad has recently ordered that his picture no longer be omnipresent in every window or on every wall in the country. And for a regime such as his that is an unusual and possibly good sign. But will it be enough to cause the Sunni Muslims, who have been alarmed by the stories (some no doubt exaggerated) of Shi'a missionaries making great inroads among Sunni Muslims in Syria, to be less alarmed? Will the Syrian alliance with Iran make the Sunnis less nervous? And what if Mr. Big, Saudi Arabia, together with other Gulf Arab states, decides to really turn on the Alawites, and blare propaganda against them as...Infidels?
And meanwhile, one waits, and waits, for the American government to understand that the Alawites can be threatened -- threatened qua Alawites. They can be told that if they do not back away from Iran, then the Americans will encourage the Sunni Arabs (who fear Iran) to do everything they can to paint the Alawites as Infidels. And if the situation in Syria were to again become as it was in the early 1980s, it is doubtful that Bashir al-Assad will be able to suppress Sunni opponents the way his father did.
So far Bashir al-Assad's eagerness to assuage Muslims, both Sunni and Shi'a, outside Syria, appears to have worked. He is still in power. Alawite generals still strut about. But for how long? Every Alawite house has a picture of Mary. Every Alawite village is known. Do the Alawites want a bloodbath, or do they want to decide now to retreat into their own Syrian redoubt and no longer do Iran's bidding, or for that matter the bidding of Sunnis, deciding instead to preserve themselves and save their weaponry, for a war within Syria to preserve themselves from the real Muslims?
Should the Sunnis win, not a single Alawite village will remain unscathed.
It's the Alawite choice: continued support for, and collaboration with, Iran, or enduring what may happen if the Americans do not try to discourage, but rather to encourage Sunni propaganda to go to work on unsettling the Alawites.
Posted by Hugh at October 2, 2008 3:39 PM
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...the Alawite-led army instructed to shoot down anyone who shouted "Allahu Akbar."
i wish we could get our army to do the same thing...
Posted by: theygottago![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at October 2, 2008 5:07 PM
If the Alawites lose power and the Assad government is toppled, where would he and his pretty wife escape to? They probably would find sanctuary in France.
Posted by: norman at October 2, 2008 5:09 PM
They would escape. The Alawite villagers, even the families of many of those officers, would not.
Posted by: Hugh at October 2, 2008 5:12 PM
Sounds like the Alawites are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Do the Alawites want a bloodbath, or do they want to decide now to retreat into their own Syrian redoubt and no longer do Iran's bidding, or for that matter the bidding of Sunnis, deciding instead to preserve themselves and save their weaponry, for a war within Syria to preserve themselves from the real Muslims?
They can hold onto allies wherever they are or retreat and try to preserve themselves. But how do they preserve themselves for a war with the Sunnis? There's a whole lot more Sunnis, not only in the Middle East but in Syria itself.
The Alawites might trust the Christians but can the Christians trust the Alawites? If there's a bloodbath won't many Christians be caught up in it?
And what about Lebanon? What happens to Lebanon if the Alawites lose Syria?
Syria was never an ally of the US. During the Cold War they were firmly in the Russian camp. What benefit is there in the US helping Syria or any other Iranian ally? As the saying goes: they made their own bed. Let them lie in it.
We do live in interesting times.
Posted by: PMK at October 2, 2008 5:43 PM
Syria is the one country that Christians in the ME still have some safety. Many Christians from Iraq had to flee Iraq as a consequence of American negligence and unconcern for them in Iraq.
Given America's negligence and unconcern for Christians in the ME, and its solitude for Saudi-Sunni concerns, what will happen to these Christians if America were to support anti-Alawite and Sunni factions? Is a Christian free ME American policy?
Posted by: DP111 at October 2, 2008 6:48 PM
Do we really need another Iraqi style bloodbath in the Middle East? Hugh forgot to mention the 1.8 million Christians (about 100,000 of those Iraqi) in Syria. If the Muslim Brotherhood comes to power, what do you think will happen to them? The same thing likely as what occurred in Iraq.
Posted by: Conservative Man at October 2, 2008 6:51 PM
I have to say that the argument for threatening Syria rulers with Sunni fatwas is extremely shortsighted. Boneheaded actually. Haven't we learned anything. A Muslim Britherhood controlled Syria would be an utter disaster for US interests and religious minorities, especially Christians. Haven't we done enough in Iraq. Christians and Sabaens have survived there for millenia against enormous odds, and now are on the verge of extermination thanks to our gift of pseudo-democracy.
Posted by: Joe Isaac at October 2, 2008 8:54 PM
I am reminded by some posters of something that I have not only never for a moment forgotten, but have repeatedly mentioned in articles and postijngs at this website and, in fact, I think was the first person to emphasize this point about the Alawites. To wit: that the the Alawite despots, for their own reasons, protect the Christians of Syria and this too has to be entered into Infidel calculations.. But the Syrian regime has for the past several years apparently decided to become, if not Muslim, at least to collaborate with Iran, the leading Muslim Shi'a power, and not only that, but to help transfer Iranian arms and money to Hezbollah in Lebanon, a force that threatens Israel and all the non-Shi'a -- Christians, Druse, Sunni Muslims -- in Lebanon. And Hezbollah also keeps Lebanon on edge, and is a permanent excuse -- as are Alawite-Sunni hostliities in Tripoli --for renewed Syrian armed intervention in Lebanon, which remains for the Syrian rulers and courtiers a cash cow to be milked.
The article above does not advocate the undoing of Alawite rule. Instead, it suggests that in dealing with the Alawites in Syria -- and not just witha particular Alawite, Bashir al-Assad -- that they be made to understand that the American government understands what the Alawites are all about, and what worries them,and why they act as they do, and then to use that knowledge not to allay their fears, but to exploit them, to encourage them to worry, to encourage them to think that the Americans might indeed encourage, if there is not a change in Syrian policy, a Sunni propaganda campaign against the Alawites.
This is a way of taming the regime, making it more circumspect in what it does beyond the borders of Syria. One wishes that Bashir al-Assad beings to think about what might happen, to him and to other Alawites, if they continue on the same path. Still better would be to make Alawite generals alarmed about what Bashir al-Assad has been doing, and begin to wonder if they should work to replace him, with an Alawite, of course, an officer or two or four of them (inevitably whatever junta comes to power will be reduced, after a while, to a single despot), who will to save the Alawite position inside Syria do what the Americans (and also, they will know, what the Saudis and other Sunni Arabs of the Gulf) want, which is to end Syrian collaboration with Iran, especially in arms transfers to Hezbollah, and concentrate instead in retaining power in Syria. Even Wafa Sultan, much as she detests Islam, has suggested that the best outcome one can expect, in the long run, for Syria is a Sunni-run government, held in careful check by an Alawite-controlled army.
Posted by: Hugh at October 2, 2008 9:29 PM
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