Exactly Who is the Opposition in Syria?

Syria is obviously in the middle of a civil war. It’s the “opposition” who all want the Assad family gone from power and a new __________ government to take its place… versus the Assad regime itself. Russia is still selling arms to the old guard, and both China and Russia have rendered the United Nations helpless in forcing an end to the brutal violence that Bashar Assad (pictured in his younger days above) seems to need to perpetrate against his own people. But notice the blank in the first sentence. Right now, the unifying feature of the “opposition” is a desire for regime change. But what kind of regime change? What kind of government would step in if Assad truly were deposed? Would it be the Islamists or the secularists or would prevail… or someone or something else?

“There’s the Islamists versus the secularists; there’s the young versus the old; there's the inside leaders who are on the streets versus the SNC [Syrian National Council] type leaders ... who have been out of the country for a long time and who are very savvy at talking to the West,” notes Joshua Landis, an associate professor and director of the Centre for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma in the CBC News Website for February 1st (Canadian Broadcasting). The Alawi/Shiite minority (note that much of the senior military leadership as well as the Assad family itself is Alawi) also faces hostility from the Sunni majority, and yet somehow the anti-Assad factions within this Shiite-leaning element needs to be joined with the other protesting citizenry. But there are many factions struggling for attention.

“Of the 14 or more opposition groups in the country, only two, the Syrian National Council (SNC) and the National Coordination Committee (NCC), are being considered by the West as feasible groups to work with to bring about democratic change inside Syria. The SNC and NCC were created specifically to represent the protesters and the political opposition movement, while the other groups have their own long-held agendas or have too few members to be practical alternatives.” Stratfor Global Intelligence, February 20^th.

Obviously, the Western world wants to deal with the SNC and the NCC, which organizations entered into a joint pro-democracy agreement in late December, but again, this union hardly addresses the reality of the factious local groups fighting for their lives within Syria itself. As many in the West have observed, the SNC/NCC still need a broader power base to be effective. Off-shore forces need to meld with those on the ground within Syria struggling every day against brutal armed forces firing bullets, artillery and tank shells at civilian targets.

Easy to say, of course, but in a country where the rebellion seems to explode in local pockets and where the incumbents are going everything in their power to keep the various factions isolated from each other, pursuing unity may be a difficult goal at this point. Homs has been the city where much of the action has been focused, but rebellion is afoot all across the land. Unfortunately, that resistance often has been driven by small local factions, bodies of defectors from the Syrian army and smaller group with differing agendas. As with the fall of Tunisia, getting all these diverse groups to agree on any form of new government is a gargantuan task, assuming that the Assad regime eventually falls. The once militant Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, oddly enough, has surfaced as a primary element in the SNC, and small bands of Christians and Kurds have also folded in… all seeking Western aid in toppling Assad.

To the Western world, watching Egyptian parliamentary elections place a very clear Islamic fundamentalist majority in place, the thought of another unpredictable Syrian militancy with anti-Western feelings (with probable overt hostility towards Israel) is making some leaders squirm with discomfort. To the locals, making sure that the West doesn’t have that much of an influence in the replacement government is an equally strong concern, particularly among those with strong leanings for a Muslim/Sharia style structure.

The growing body of defectors, which some number at as many as 40,000 soldiers, has blended into a fairly uncoordinated set of military units generally described as the Free Syrian Army: “The FSA is a loosely organized militant group that reportedly enjoys some support from Syrian protesters. It was formed July 29, 2011, and consists of mostly Sunni army defectors and armed civilians. The FSA began to claim military-style operations against the Syrian regime in early October 2011. The group's primary goals are to topple the regime, protect protesters and undermine the Syrian army. Its leadership, including commander Col. Riad al-Asaad, is reportedly located in various Turkish refugee camps near the border with Syria. Though the FSA claims to have obtained its weapons inside of Syria, either from defected soldiers or through the domestic black market, it also relies on weapons and supplies smuggled from neighboring countries.” Stratfor.

In the end, we have no real clue how this drama will unfold and if there is a regime change, what that means for the world in general, the Syrian people or the Western perspective. Change is coming… and it will be what it will be.

I’m Peter Dekom, and there is no clear path to a free and democratic Syria.