Israel's favorite Arab dictator of all is Assad

[bemildred]

Some sound points about why Syria is different from Egypt, and the effects of tribal organization.

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Well, Assad is right. The situation in Syria is indeed different. The Syrian regime is more like Saddam's defunct regime. The Ba'ath Party that ruled Iraq and the one still ruling Syria both held aloft flags of pan-Arab national ideology. But slogans are one thing and reality is another. All the ideological sweet talk was only talk. For the Ba'ath Party, both in Iraq and in Syria, constituted a political platform to perpetuate tribal, ethnic oppression.

Indeed, the situation in Egypt is completely different. If we put aside the Coptic minority, then Egyptian society is homogenous religiously and not tribal at all. The demoted Egyptian president, Mubarak, never had a tribal-ethnic crutch to lean on. The Egyptian army is also different and not at all like the Syrian or Iraqi armies.

For example, when the United States invaded Iraq, the Iraqi army splintered into its tribal and ethnic fragments. The soldiers took off their uniforms and each joined his tribe and ethnic community. Saddam too adhered to those tribal codes. He did not flee Iraq but went to hide in the well-protected areas of his tribesmen. This is what happens in these societies. In the land of the cedars, as soon as the civil war broke out, the Lebanese army dissolved into its ethnic components and disappeared.

True, Syria is not Egypt. Syria is also different in terms of the price in blood inflicted by the tyrannical Syrian regime. The Syrian tribal government is based on the force exercised by the security branches ruled by the tribesmen and their interested allies.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-s-favorite-arab-dictator-of-all-is-assad-1.352468

[leveymg]

1. Gee. Tribalism seems to explain everything Arab and aggitated, these days. Doesn't it?

Good luck dealing with 15 Arab enemies, now, instead of 5.

[bemildred]

2. Tribalism is real, and it's the way we are, admit it or not.

But it is bad for nation-states and empires, which depend on mushing all those tribes together in big amorphous blobs that can be moved around at a whim, you have to make people "fungible" to have an empire.

[azurnoir]

3. Tribalism apparently rules the day

but for some fear unites all above and beyond 'tribalism' and that fear level must be kept high to insure unity

[shaayecanaan]

4. I would say that Syria is much more sectarian than Iraq...

by and large, in Iraq you have the Kurdish north, the Sunni triangle and the rest of Iraq is predominantly Sunni.

60% of Syria are mainstream Sunni Arabs. The other 40% are Kurds, Turks, Assyrians, Armenians of various Shia, Druze, Christian and Alawi faiths.

That 40% is Bashar's support base, and they back him to the hilt, knowing that whatever his sins, he represents security and stability. I have to say I don't think the price is worth paying, I would rather put up with the insecurity than live in a dictatorship.

There is a story on al-Jazeera of his supporters that is worth watching:-

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/03/201132975114399138.html

[bemildred]

5. Thanks for your views.

Syria is an interesting case, and I know less than I would like. I know Assad is Allawite, and about the Kurds in the NE, and the Druze, but not really how things "work" politically there.