August 5, 2006
WHY PROP UP A BA'ATHIST REGIME?:
To Help Israel, Help Syria (ANDREW TABLER, 8/05/06, NY Times)
If Washington wants to break President Bashar al-Assad from Tehran, it should promote economic liberalism as the thin end of the wedge. It should support efforts to combat corruption, cut red tape, and promote transparency and the activities of nongovernmental organizations. Germany has already adopted a similar approach. And here is why an American version might work.Syria’s economic future — and that of the Assad regime — is in jeopardy. The country is weighed down by old-style state socialism and plagued by issues that breed Islamic extremism, including high birth rates, growing unemployment and one of the lowest productivity rates in the world.
State expenditures — most notably military spending — are financed by oil production, which is in rapid decline. High oil prices have given the regime a temporary lease on life, but the reprieve won’t last: Syria will be a net importer of oil within four years. That is likely to change the state’s relationship with its growing private sector.
At the moment, tax rates are high, but the private sector seldom pays them, and in return accepts not having a say in how it is governed. When oil revenues dry up, the state will need to spread its tentacles into the private sector in search of cash, at which point it will undoubtedly face a trade-off that will force it to cede some political rights to its citizens.
What happens to the Syrian people while we monkey around with the thin edge? Posted by Orrin Judd at August 5, 2006 8:27 AM
"It should support efforts to combat corruption, cut red tape, and promote transparency and the activities of nongovernmental organizations." Support whose efforts? Do corrupt politicicians who survive on red tape want transparency? Do our politicians give up their earmarks? Combat corruption American style is always easy: name all briberies campaign contributions, kick backs earmarks.
Posted by: ic at August 5, 2006 10:30 AMIslamic extremism is what breeds Islamic extremism. Those people need Shinto-style reformation, not "stability." Confusion to the enemy.
Posted by: Lou Gots at August 5, 2006 2:58 PMI figured Shia Baathists were AOK around here.
Posted by: ghostcat at August 5, 2006 8:27 PMThere's no such thing. Shi'ism is a revealed religion. Ba'athism is a rational ideology.
Posted by: oj at August 5, 2006 8:30 PMPerhaps they may contain multitudes. There seem to be Syrian elites claiming to be both Shia and Baathist. Including at least one opthomologist.
Posted by: ghostcat at August 5, 2006 9:21 PMHe's descended from the Alawite sect (schismatics from Shi'ism) and not religious even at that.
Posted by: oj at August 5, 2006 9:28 PMKinda like Unitarians. Or, worse yet, those white-shirted young men on bicycles.
Fact is, the Alawites see themselves as Shia.
Posted by: ghostcat at August 5, 2006 9:38 PMBut the Assads don't.
Posted by: oj at August 5, 2006 9:41 PMOh, come on. Self-proclaimed Shia can be secular fascists. Ditto, of course, Christians. Some would argue Jews, also.
Posted by: ghostcat at August 5, 2006 9:47 PMNo, they can't. You can be secular or religious. You could, of course, be a religious authoritarian. The Assads make no pretense that they are.
Posted by: oj at August 5, 2006 10:06 PMSecular/religious is like sane/insane ... it's a continuum, not a polarity.
Posted by: ghostcat at August 6, 2006 1:19 AMNo. it's the polarity.
Posted by: oj at August 6, 2006 8:27 AM"Shi'ism is a revealed religion" oj. What does this mean?
Posted by: erp at August 7, 2006 10:00 AMNot derived from Nature or Reason but Revealed by God.
Posted by: oj at August 7, 2006 10:28 AMoj. You're kidding? Right?
Posted by: erp at August 7, 2006 6:00 PMNo.
Posted by: oj at August 7, 2006 6:08 PM