THE INCIDENTAL HEGEMON:

Sex, shopping and the death of a regime (Mark LeVine, 11/17/05, Asia Times)

In a recent edition of the semi-official Syria-Today, the following ad was placed right next to the text of an address by Assad:

Emaar Properties, a Dubai-based joint stock development company, unveiled plans for two major Damascus real estate development projects on October 17. The two developments, "Eighth Gate" and "Damascus Hills", will be the city's first fully planned communities and are together valued at US$3.9 billion. They will be constructed in the countryside near Damascus and will comprise residential, commercial and real estate compounds ... The projects are a joint venture between Emaar and the Syrian-based Invest Group Overseas, an offshore investment and property development company owned by a group of Syrian expatriate investors. Emaar chairman Mohamed Ali al-Abbar said that Syria was an emerging market for Emaar. "Syria has great potential for future development and is a remarkable location for Emaar to develop high quality real estate projects," Mr al-Abbar said.

And so begins the inexorable march towards another neo-liberal paradise in the Middle East. [...]

Indeed, against Emaar's drive to "build a global property-related brand", the Ba'ath Party's "Unity, Freedom, Socialism" doesn't stand much of a chance. The best Assad can offer his people, as he explained in a March 5 speech, is "the protection of national and pan-Arab interests through adherence to our identity, independence, loyalty to our principles and beliefs ... [while] dealing realistically with emergent challenges and developments".

But while Assad offers to "protect our political and social stability", Emaar offers luxury, service and profits. We don't need to guess who will win here, especially when the price for Assad's stability is an authoritarian regime, an economy that is in a shambles - near negative growth, key industries losing more than a quarter of their income in the past year alone - and increasing political and economic ostracization.

Thus does the fact of the End of History itself cause regime change.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 16, 2005 9:01 AM