Syria
got its independence from the ending of the French Mandate in 17 April 1946. In
the aftermath the young independent country witnessed series of military coups.
The first military coup in modern Syrian
history was led by the Syrian Army chief of staff, Husni
al-Za'im. It overthrew the
country's democratically elected government. This coup was engineered by the
CIA.
Hashim al-Atassi came to power in 1949 by a
coup led by Sami al-Hinnawi who acted as president for one day. It took one
year before another coup led by Adib ShishaklI
took the power from Al Atassi.
In February 1954 another coup overthrew
the government of Adib ShishaklI after he stayed in power for one
day.
Syria
became the northern region in the United Arab Republic, which unified Egypt and
Syria in 1958. In 1961, one more coup broke up the united republic and restored
an independent Syrian Republic.
The
1963 coup brought the Ba'ath Party to the power. It is referred to as “the 8
March Revolution” by the Syrian government and was inspired by a similar Iraqi
military coup.
The
1966 coup came after events between 21 and 23 February ended with the
replacement of the government of the Syrian Arab Republic. The Al Ba'ath Party
were removed from power under the leadership of Salah Jadid.
“Governing Syria has never been easy, as the commanders of punitive
expeditions from Titus to the Ottomans' last general could attest. Two years
into the French League of Nations Mandate over Syria and Lebanon, a Scottish
traveler, Helen Cameron Gordon, toured the country and later described
conditions that would daunt any sovereign, foreign or local. She wrote:
"Her inhabitants are made up of at least dozen different
races, mainly Asiatic, and worse still, of about thirty religious sects, all
suspicious and jealous of each other.
Sir Mark Sykes, in his Dar Ul-Islam: A Record of a Journey through
Ten of the Asiatic Provinces of Turkey (1904), similarly observed:
The population of Syria is so inharmonious a gathering of widely
different races in blood, in creed, and in custom, that government is both
difficult and dangerous.”
Hafez
al-Assad’s coup on 13 November 1970 was the last coup in Syria. he called
it “The Corrective Movement”.
Hafez
Al Assad’s coup was not a unique case, in which a coup seizes the power for
decades after several previous coups. Many countries witnessed this exact
scene, like Iraq, Libya, Venezuela, Algeria, North Korea etc..
This
poses a few questions: How could these military governors seize the power all
these decades? Did they use special techniques to end the frequent coups
phenomena?
How
can we explain that they did that almost in the same era? Did they just learn
from each other or there are some superior entities supported them with unified
recipes?
In
my opinion, these leaders and families stuck in power can’t do such a job
alone. No matter how charismatic these leaders or how smart they are, Muammar
Al Qaddafi, Hafiz Al Assad or Saddam Houssine, Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez and
others can’t do such a complicated job of controlling nations in a semi-royal
way without external help.
According
to the Newsweek:
“After Nasser’s defeat of the region’s old
colonial masters—Britain and France—in the 1956 Suez Crisis, Russian arms and
money began pouring into the region. Soviet engineers dammed the Nile at Aswan,
and helped construct modern cities in Baath Party-run Syria and Iraq. At the
same time, an entire generation of Arab officers, doctors and professionals
studied in Moscow—including future Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Haftar,
who received training in the Soviet Union in the 1970s after graduating from
Benghazi Military Academy. KGB generals helped build the security services of
Libya, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq and Syria in the image of the Soviet secret police.
Anxious to stop the Communist domino effect in the Middle East, Washington
threw money at the problem. Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt—after Nasser’s
fall—became major recipients of U.S. military aid. Turkey, a NATO member since
1952, hosted American planes, warships and, most controversially, Jupiter
medium-range missiles. […]Moscow’s key ally was Palestinian leader Mahmoud
Abbas, who earned a doctorate at the Peoples' Friendship University in Moscow
in the 1970s. Israeli researchers, citing documents that KGB archivist Vasili
Mitrokhin smuggled out of Russia in 1991, have claimed that Abbas was recruited
by the Soviet security service under the code name “Krotov”—although
Palestinian officials dismissed the allegation as an Israeli smear. Agent or
not, Abbas “likes the Russians, he wants to please them,” says Ziad Abu Zayyad,
a former Palestinian minister and negotiator. [...]One by one, Moscow’s clients
began to fall. Iraq’s Saddam Hussein—who had at times received U.S. support—was
the first to go. [...] Cairo has long been a key military, intelligence and
diplomatic partner for Washington. As the recipient of the second-largest
amount of U.S. military aid, Egypt continued this partnership even when
relations with Obama strained following Sisi’s power grab in 2013. While close
ties with Washington have been maintained since then, Egypt has also
acknowledged Moscow’s new-found status by hosting an air drill for Russia last
year—the Kremlin’s first such exercise in Africa. Last November, Egypt also
signaled its support for Putin by becoming one of only four countries to
support Russia’s resolution on Syria in the United Nations. Moscow, in turn,
has pushed to lift U.N. sanctions on Libya, where Haftar, Sisi’s ally, is still
vying to become the country’s military strongman. “Putin will undertake to
revoke [sanctions],” Haftar told reporters after his video conference in
January with Shoigu on Russia’s aircraft carrier."
Assad’s
family belongs to a minority sect which used to be highly discriminated against
throughout their history. The Syria community is a complicated one, which
contains a lot of contradicting sects, tribes and clans. In a country like
Syria, where people are very racist, a family like the Assad family has no
chance to govern the Syrians in a semi-royal way for decades without very
intelligent techniques.
The
danger in such a situation comes from the fact that the president becomes
completely dependent upon the entities which train, qualify and update the
capabilities of his services and directorates. The power of the president
relies merely on the organizational capabilities of these entities which are
created and updated by a foreign power. The president’s chance to say “no” to
any instruction that comes from his “Godfather” is almost zero. Qualifying the
capabilities of the security services is a constant work and not a one-time
job. It needs to always update according to the local and global developments
and non-stop overseeing of all kind of updates.
However,
if the sponsor has pledged to protect the president and keep his family in
power or prosperity, why would such a family say “no” or even think about it,
no matter how crazy the instructions actually could be?
Charles Glass, Syria Burning: A Short History of a
Catastrophe. ISBN-13: 978-1784785161
In
this chapter, I will describe some techniques that the Assad regime used to
minimize the possibilities of any coup that could take him out of power and
guaranteed that the Assad’s family govern Syria in a semi-Royal way for
decades.
Multiplying
the security services agencies
Hafez
Al Assad had many security services agencies. He inherited some from past
regimes, and created others. The main 4 security directorates are:
·
The
General Intelligence Directorate (Amn Addawlah) was formed few months after Hafiz
Al Assad came to power.
·
The
military intelligence service of Syria (Al-Mukhabarat al-'Askariyya) was
established in 1969. Hafez Al Assad was the minister of Defense at the time.
Its roots go back to the French mandate period (1923–1943).
·
“The
Political Security Directorate (Idarat al-Amn al-Siyasi) conducts surveillance
within the country, looking for signs of opposition political activity. Its
role overlaps to some extent that of the General Security (or Intelligence)
Directorate (Idarat al-Amn al-'Amm), the principal civilian intelligence agency
in the country. The latter also has an external security division equivalent to
the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, as well as a Palestine division, which
oversees activities of Palestinian groups in Syria and Lebanon.”
·
The
fourth intelligence service, the Air Force Intelligence Directorate (Idarat
al-Mukhabarat al-Jawiyya) is only nominally tied to the air force. Its role as
the most powerful and feared intelligence agency in Syria comes from the fact
that Hafez al-Assad was once air force commander, and later turned the air
force intelligence service into his personal action bureau. In addition to
intelligence work, the directorate has assisted numerous terrorist operations
abroad.”[2]
Each
of the above directorates has a branch in every one of the 14 Syrian provinces,
except for several platoons in big cities.
It
is expected that there is a sort of distribution of roles between these
directorates, but this is not the situation. Each of these services was given
unrestricted power to oversee and report everything that was happening. For
instance, the role of “Palestine division” was not really overseeing “activities
of Palestinian groups in Syria and Lebanon “. It has been known as the most
brutal division that tortured thousands of Syrians who were not necessarily
connected to Palestine nor to Lebanon.
In
my opinion, the aim of creating multiple divisions was to make these services
observers of not only the activities of any potential threaten of the regime’s
power, but rather to oversee each other as well.
Every
general or director of these directorates could be a victim of reports written
by a small spy in another directorate. With this technique, the Assad regime
could minimize the possibility of any potential coup or rebellion. It created
horrifying directorates which terrorized the citizens. However, terrorists were
themselves terrorized by the ghosts of their counterparts and colleagues.
The
above-described directorates were the secret police. There was the regular
police directorate which was responsible for the regular issues and enjoyed
much less power than the secret police. Other secret police divisions were
added in Bashar Al Assad’s era like the Anti-terrorism division or Anti-drugs
division. Again, they were just a replication of the main directorates with
different names and same function.
This is the other tactic which modern security services developed to complete their control over the nations. It is one step further. It implies not waiting until the opposition arise before facing it. Rather, the security services predict this raise and breakthrough any “potential” movement in the very early stages. In each potential rebellion there should be insider agents, and, in some cases, these agents even play the main role in starting the rebellion itself. This is a very advanced tactic but very smart as well. During the Syrian revolution’s years, thousands of such double-agents were discovered. Some of them were the main triggers and leaders of the rebellion.
In some advanced stage of this process, the services started to create some factions and movements in parallel with the natural ones and give them power or legitimacy. I mentioned some examples and will mention others throughout the book. Important here: These “Trojan horses” don’t necessarily need to be aware of this game. They play their role naturally. The services gave them possibilities in many ways. They trigger the media to create some Aurora and noise around them. It prevents their competitor to appear by assassinating them, arresting or using any other tools. The modern strategy is: There should be always opposition and we can’t prevent that. Let’s then create some opposition to keep it under control, while minimizing the influence of any other opposition which we have less control over it.
This is a common method which is applied by almost all international intelligence agencies. Throughout this book I mentioned many examples of this technique, applied by United States, the Syrian regime, Iraqi regime and others…
The third technique which guaranteed
the exceptional position of Assad’s family was mind control. I will not go
through this as it needs another book to describe it. However, reading George
Orwell’s 1984 could describe the scene to a large extent. There were not “telescreens”, but the Syrians had the
impression that they did exist. There was a popular saying which said “Don’t
speak, walls have ears”.
The Syrian regime controlled all
media sources. In Hafez Al Assad’s era there were 3 main newspapers belonging
exclusively to the government and Al Baath Party. They were directed by the
intelligence services. Photos of the
“Big Brother” and his inspired sayings were everywhere: on walls, on the first
page of every single publication, even children’s school books.
Praising the “Correction Movement”
was inserted in each curriculum, including 3rd grade biology books .
During the first 2 decades of Assad’s power, the Syrians had one single TV
channel which broadcasted 12 hours a day. Later, another one in the English
language would be launched, which broadcasted around 6 hours a day. Until the end of the last century, the
Syrians barely had any other source of visual media or news. Assad’s exclusive
channels broadcasted only the materials which praised “Big Brother” the
government’s one-sided view. The Soviet fingerprints were clear in creating
such a media control system in the exact way that it was created in sister countries
like Iraq, Libya, Algeria and so on.
The extreme brutal events of Hama
1982 guaranteed the necessary fear to keep the Syrians away from any
oppositional thinking. Using quick and intensified brutality secured afraid and
reluctant nations from any political activity against the government. They also
were keen to teach their children from their early childhood to “love the
homeland and its Master, the Big Brother”. Abstaining from that could mean
losing these children in unknown places, where “they wish to die, but can’t”.
No matter how much the exact
causalities of the events of the ‘80s, or what exactly happened there, the
rumors that the Syrians believed were enough to domesticate them for decades
with no troubles.
The international weakness during the
Syrian existence in Lebanon renewed the Syrians’ conviction. It assured them
that the whole world was complying with their dictator. Some of the Syrians
started to link this power with divine powers and became convinced that Assad
was just a Frankenstein Monster which couldn’t be defeated or toppled.
By the time the Internet and satellite
receivers came to life it was too late. The Assad already achieved a full
generation of a brainwashed nation. Even when part of the nation started to be
informed and enlightened, the majority of the nation stayed loyal to the “Big
Brother” and his inspired family. However, there was an increasing feeling that
things couldn’t stay like this for long. Some action should have to be taken to
compensate for the loss of control over the nation.
When you try
to read the political landscape of a foreign country, you have to learn
–besides the words- the direction of writing. Some nations write from right to
left. Others write from top to bottom. If you learn the meanings of words while
insisting on reading from left to right, you would almost understand nothing.
When somebody
asks me questions like: “Is Assad’s regime secular or Islamist?” or “How much
did Assad get in the last elections?”, I answer: “You know what, you don’t need
to know the right answer. The question itself is wrong”.
Hizbollah–Syrian Intelligence Affairs: A Marriage of Convenience, a study by Carl Anthony Wege
College of Coastal Georgia
