What Syria should and should not learn from Iraq

Days after five decades of totalitarian rule by the Assad family dynasty ended, I went to Damascus, Syria. Two decades earlier, in Iraq, I witnessed the United States-led invasion and, as a journalist, covered its bloody aftermath. Looking back, there are things most Iraqis wish had gone differently. If we could turn back the clock to 2003, with what Iraqis know now, I believe they would handle two things better. Syria is in that spot today and it would be well-advised to learn from its oil-rich neighbor.
 
Before discussing those lessons, it is essential to recognize that Iraq and Syria share much in common, making them excellent case studies for students of comparative politics. They share an extensive border stretching nearly 600 km. Both countries are multiethnic and multireligious, including Shia (Alawite), Sunnis, Kurds, Christians, and other less sizable minorities. Kurds comprise the second largest ethnic group in both nations. Both countries are home to some of the oldest inhabited places in the world, where civilizations have thrived for thousands of years.
 
In their most recent history, both countries were governed by Ba’ath parties, the pan-Arab nationalist secular ideology conceived by Michel Aflaq, a Syrian Christian, in the 1940s as a response to imperialism. On both sides of the border, this exclusive ideology that regards diverse Middle Eastern societies solely as Arabs, was enforced domestically through sheer force by authoritarian leaders, despite never achieving the ultimate goal of pan-Arab unity. One slogan echoed in our minds during Saddam Hussein’s tenure in Iraq. It was heard on a daily basis from radio and TV broadcasts, and was seen on billboards and even on hillsides carved in stone: "One Arab Nation, with an Eternal Message." It has a more melodic ring in Arabic: "Ummah al-Arabiya Wahida, Zat al-Risala al-Khalida."
 
Lesson 1: Don’t De-Ba’athify
 
Despite the authoritarian and impractical nature of the Ba’ath party ideology, which was used to subjugate populations, Syrians should avoid replicating what Iraqis did after the 2003 war that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, who was also the leader of the Ba’ath Party in Iraq. De-Ba’athification was a policy enacted by the transitional administration led by American Paul Bremer before power was transferred over to Iraqis. 

When I met Bremer more than a decade ago at his Pennsylvania home, he explained that de-Ba’athification was an initiative strongly pushed for by Iraqi Shias and Kurds, who had been the primary targets of Hussein’s discriminatory policies. The Kurds, for example, he said, had threatened to declare independence if the country was not purged of Ba'athists, and the Shias were equally vehement in their opposition to Ba'athism. It’s understandable why both the Shias, who constituted 60% of the population, and the Kurds, 17%, held such contempt for the Ba’ath party. They endured numerous massacres under Ba’ath rule. Hussein deployed chemical weapons against the Kurds as he pursued his vision of an exclusive Arab nation where Kurdish identity was not recognized.
 
The term "de-Ba’athification" in Arabic and Kurdish is different: "ijtithath" and "rishekeshkirdn," respectively. Both mean “to uproot” and that’s precisely what the Iraqis did. They dismantled all state institutions, including the military, police, and ministries, and fired all those who had held any position under Saddam Hussein. Millions were left jobless. Individuals with university degrees were sent home merely because they had signed a pledge of allegiance to Ba’ath party ideology under a dictator who did not offer a viable second option. The result was that many of these disillusioned public servants joined radical Sunni groups attempting to reclaim what they felt was rightfully theirs. You know the rest of the story and how violent and destabilized Iraq became.
 
In Syria, some statements from the leader of the transitional authority, Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, suggest he will not seek vengeance against the Alawites, the sect to which the Assad family belonged. This has been promising and it appears most public servants have retained their positions.
 
However, over the past few days, we have seen disturbing videos showing armed men attacking, robbing, and murdering Alawites in Latakia and Tartous, the two coastal cities where they are concentrated. This must stop. If there are individuals, regardless of ethnic or religious background, who have committed crimes for the Assad regime, they must be prosecuted in transparent courts of law. They should not be subjected to street justice. And officials, like the alleged Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighter whose video has gone viral on social media platforms advocating for the extermination of Kurds and Alawites, labeling them as pigs, should be publicly condemned and held accountable.
 
The new leaders must convey an unequivocal message that no innocent person should live in fear under their governance and even those who have committed offenses will face fair trials. This is the only path to forge a united Syria where everyone feels included. Otherwise, Syria’s future is predictable. It will go down the bloody path of post-Saddam Iraq.
 
In a country as diverse as Syria, it is easy for competing external powers like Turkey and Iran to exploit the situation, arming and funding warring parties for their own narrow interests. In fact, they are already doing that. Syrians must be astute enough not to fall into this trap. The only way to prevent this is by building an equitable society where everyone has a stake. While the Ba’ath party ideology must be rejected as an authoritarian doctrine, its adherents should be pardoned and allowed to contribute to the new Syria. Suppressed ideas turn into violent actions.
 
Lesson 2: Decentralize. Decentralize. Decentralize
 
I cannot emphasize enough how crucial this is for a diverse society like Syria. We already have evidence that exclusionary ideologies like Ba'athism and Kemalism in Turkey are ineffective. You cannot ignore people's linguistic, cultural, and religious identities. These are intrinsic to who they are. And the only governance model that has demonstrated success worldwide in fostering peaceful coexistence among diverse groups is decentralization.
 
In Iraq, Saddam Hussein attempted to force the Kurds to live under a centralized government where all decisions were made in Baghdad for decades. What did he achieve? Kurdistan was the first region he lost control over in 1991. After 2003, leaders like Nouri al-Maliki tried to undermine the autonomy the Kurds enjoyed under the federal system by not distributing an equitable portion of the country’s oil wealth to the region, but he was not very successful, either. Those policies left the Kurds with no option but to hold an independence referendum in 2017. They opted against declaring independence, but there is no guarantee they will not if they feel marginalized again.
 
Turkey has pursued a military-only approach against the Kurds, who have merely been seeking a degree of self-governance within a unified Turkey for over 40 years. Tens of thousands of people have died, billions of dollars have been wasted, and no rational person would believe that the Kurdish issue could ever be resolved through military means alone in Turkey. Currently, Turkish leaders, including the ultra-nationalists, are showing interest in peace negotiations with Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) who has been in solitary confinement for decades on terrorism charges. Finally, they seem to get it that the only resolution to the Kurdish question is to treat the 15 million Kurds as equal citizens, allowing them to use and study in their native language and ensuring political representation without disbanding their political parties. (I hope they are genuine in their overtures.)
 
Imagine the United States of America. What would happen if you removed the federal system and the autonomy states have over their own affairs? There is no doubt it would lead to a civil war the likes of which the country has never seen. It is also more practical. Delegating power to local governments insulates the country from collapse as people would direct their grievances towards their local representatives for issues that are not part of the central government's powers. 

Implement a genuinely decentralized system for Syria, along regional, provincial, and even municipal lines. The more power you delegate, the more manageable diverse societies become. It is human nature. People tend to trust those who are closer to them, whether ethnically, politically, or religiously. In our region, ethnic and religious identities remain among the most powerful forces of division and unity.
 
Modern Syria, since gaining independence in 1946, has largely been under the rule of dictators who enforced centralized policies that disregarded the country’s diverse composition. In doing so, it undermined Syrian national identity as a unifying force, similar to how "Iraqiness" does not equally excite all in Iraq. After Italy became an independent nation-state in 1861, Massimo D'Azeglio, a nationalist statesman and novelist, famously said: “We have made Italy. Now we must make Italians.” After five decades, Syria is finally free, but the greatest challenge ahead is making Syrians.

Namo Abdulla is a Rudaw reporter and TV presenter

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.

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