Revolutions in Review: Syria

I blogged some months ago that it appeared the opposition had been able to force a stalemate with the Syrian regime. Even in a stalemate, Bashar’s days would be numbered. But now it appears the rebels are winning. At any rate, even the journalists can see that at best for Bashar, it’s already a stalemate.

My view can be demonstrated with some confidence by matching up accepted principles of military science with news from the front. Let’s begin with some Che would recognize.

·         The opposition forces have the support of the people in the countryside. This confers several military advantages. For one, they will never starve unless the people themselves are starving. For another, spontaneous, immediate intelligence of enemy movements in the controlled territory. Lastly a source of recruits.

·         They are arming themselves with the weapons of the regime. That is, weapons taken from the soldiers of the regime by movement or combat.

·         They have the initiative against enemy columns penetrating the countryside. The columns are subject to ambush – rather they were subject to ambush. It’s doubtful the regime has sufficient resource to pursue this line of attack – the penetration of opposition-held territory – at all anymore. And this indicates it’s no longer a guerilla war anymore.

All the foregoing has been true for some time now. Which brings us beyond the principles of guerilla warfare to more general principles of military science.

·         Because now the opposition forces have the initiative at the point of attack. That is, not only the ability to attack enemy bases, but also to dictate the strategic focus of combat – I mean the struggle for Aleppo. And this suggests further…

·         …that lines for purely military supplies have been established and are in regular operation. The first step in this direction was to acquire border posts along lines of transportation – a step of great strategic importance that the regime could not prevent and cannot recover (even by expanding the war, qv). Clearly a strategic offensive of some weeks’ duration could not have been undertaken without reasonably secure lines of supply.

·         It’s equally true the offensive could not have been sustained without command and control resources significantly better – seemingly by an order of magnitude – than those the Libyan opposition was able to defeat Gaddafi with. Insofar as they’ve contributed to this result, the defections are striking the regime where it hurts.

·         On the flip side, the regime’s resources of heavy weapons can hardly be increasing. The opposition’s monitors would have noticed if more tanks, helicopters, fighter-bombers were being brought in. Each one lost, one-by-one, is irreplaceable. So for the same reason and to the same extent that the opposition’s supply of ordnance is improving – territorial control of entry points and routes – the regime’s situation must be deteriorating.

·         Anecdotal evidence also suggests the regime forces face morale problems. I suppose a man would fight desperately rather than face his accusers with blood on his hands. But desperation is its own morale problem.

Speaking of desperation, mistakes have been made. On still another set of general principles, they tend to weaken the position of the party that makes them.

·         Use of auxiliaries. The Hezbollah from Lebanon have a strategic interest in Syria: it’s on the line of supply from Iran. So they’re not fighting for the regime. Moreover, as soon as they conceive the line of supply to be lost, they’ll abandon the fight. This kind of conflict of interest, as Machiavelli knew, makes auxiliary troops unreliable.

·         Use of mercenaries. The Chechens have no strategic interest in Syria. If they’re fighting there, most likely, it’s only to obtain money and arms for their own struggles, which, as Machiavelli knew, is even more unreliable for the employer.

·         Expanding the war – especially one you are losing. Shelling Turkey was a bad mistake. Though their response has been measured, it has been persistent, and they determine the measure. If you wanted to shell the opposition’s supply lines, why choose one that comes through your border with a member of NATO?

·         Dispersal of forces. It remains to be seen, but my hunch is the late barrage on Homs is a diversion intended to draw troops out of Aleppo. If so, first of all, it’s an admission that the opposition troops are free to move, cannot be prevented from moving, from front to front, combat to combat. Second, an artillery barrage is one thing, armor is another. The former has destructive power, the latter has striking power. If it’s a diversion, it’s recklessly, and if it has no striking power uselessly, destructive.

It’s too bad the U.S. won’t let the Saudis and Qataris give the opposition weapons effective against aircraft. The military leaders of the opposition think this kind of thing would be decisive. Of course, a rocket that can shoot down a helicopter or fighter can, in the wrong hands, also shoot down an airliner. But that is the policy of fear; we’ve been following it too long.

What if the Free Syrian Army had taken counsel of their fears? Obviously they haven’t.

Revolutions in Review

From the Mahgrib…

…to the Persian Gulf

The revolutionary time is over and – the furor over the movie notwithstanding – things generally move at the slower pace of domestic politics. It’s becoming clear that the demonstrations were organized and carried out by counter-revolutionary elements – at least those that were not spontaneous, and only to the extent they were not. They bothered some people more than they bother me. How can a revolution expect to get rid of spontaneity? Counter-revolutionary spontaneity is just one price a revolution pays for its own spontaneity.

It’s also becoming clear that they (the counter-revolutionary elements) haven’t gained any real traction against the revolutions this way. They (the demonstrations) are dying out, aren’t they? Nothing of any importance was gained against the United States of America either. Though today the perpetrator is under arrest, I believe, because how he made the movie involved a probation violation. That’s justice!

At any rate it’s now possible to proceed with a review of what the revolutions have achieved, the reaction on the side of Salafism, etc., having proven, if persistent, comparatively weak.

One could say metaphorically that the face of the Arab world has changed. But speculative philosophy can do better. It can say that the prospects of the Arab world have changed. And so by way of summary, with an individual post projected for each of the bullets in the list:

·         Tunisia. Last I heard, they managed to write a constitution without institutionalizing the Sharia. So this is possible to be done in the absence of a secular despotism.

·         Libya. Represents, like Yemen, an instance to prove that strongmen can successfully preserve the national existence of countries that would otherwise come apart at the seams. Not that the strongman has come forth again, but that the seams are bursting. Yet in late news, the revolution has used its strength against provincial and fundamentalist militias. Even if central government cannot be restored on the same footing (but absent the strongman), there is nothing profoundly undemocratic about federalism.

·         Egypt. President Morsi behaves as though he’s already gained control of the state, in both its inward and outward aspects. Who’s to say he hasn’t? It’s far too early to say whether he will betray the revolution either for personal aggrandizement or for Islamic fundamentalism. Yet there’s been no sign whatever he’s tried. On the contrary, he has kept a politic balance. So why worry?

·         Palestine. Ever notice that the Arab Spring never seemed to touch Palestine? To me this means it was already an effective democracy. A nation in arms can still be a democratic nation.

·         Jordan. More constitution, less monarchy. The Hashemites have not tread this path at a revolutionary pace, but they’re not free to leave it either. The King really ought to provide a better example to the aristocracies and monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula.

·         Syria. Did you know that military science, like the theory of revolutions, is also a dialectical science? I could explain that in another post, but to analyze the civil war as such might be out of scope for this blog.

·         Lebanon. Like Palestine, relatively untouched by the Arab Spring, and also possessing beforehand a discernable, if tumultuous, political life. The abasement of the Assad despotism can only strengthen democracy in this country.

·         Iraq. You could ask the same question about al-Maliki that some would like to ask (prematurely) about Morsi. But the American people didn’t spend blood and treasure to set up a despot in Iraq they way they did once or twice in Vietnam.

·         Bahrain. Where agitation for democracy is still a criminal act. The successes of the Arab Spring seem to have stopped at the headwaters of the Gulf and the geographical (and political) frontier of the Arabian Peninsula.

·         Yemen. Both like and unlike Libya. The new president Hadi has restored the former authority of the government without perceptibly making a revolution in the state. Reforms only, but reforms that seem to enjoy a measure of popular support. Meanwhile, Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has been reduced to making war on Moslems.

The decision lies with Egypt and Iraq, the one wealthy in population, the other in oil. (Both of which, by the way, have verbally aligned themselves against the current regime in Syria.) If these centers of gravity are shifted permanently to democracy, the rest are that much more likely to continue in that path or to follow. If that happens in this generation, what will happen in the next? and where?

…Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

It’s not Left Adventurism…

…but it’s not right opportunism either. The revolution in Egypt is passing into the hand s of an individual who, it may be hoped, occasionally asks himself, “What would Lenin do?”

Though the circumstances differ greatly, Morsi’s task of getting rid of the “interim” government does not differ in principle from Lenin’s task of getting rid of the Kerensky government.

The longer the secular liberal parties sit on their hands, the smaller their influence on the result. Morsi is steering the middle course as well as any revolutionary who ever had a chance to gain control of the state. It’s time for them to get on board.

Narrowing Visions

Speculative philosophy’s field of vision over Syria is narrowing.

From the one side, the actions of the great powers, not-so-great powers, and international and regional organizations of states, have limited Syria’s power of self-determination. Both sides in the struggle have asked for help, but with help necessarily comes interference. More precisely, bringing in outside entities subjects the struggling parties to the interests and determinations of those entities, and limits their freedom to act just to that extent.

From the other side, nothing seems to matter to the outcome of the revolution so much as how long Bashar can manage to continue to live. It could be months; it could be many months; it could be years; but it won’t be many years.

Here’s why….

·         Alawite disaffection. Such reports started coming some weeks past. Thus even his natural sources of strength are drying up.

·         Middle class/administrative class disaffection and agitation in Aleppo and Damascus. Formerly a source of strength, if only negative strength, now some of them are willing to express positive disagreements with the regime.

·         The continuous defection of men and officers of every rank, including the very highest, from the military. Somebody said on TV the other day he’d counted 13 general officers among the defectors.

·         The traditional, and now renewed, enmity of the Turks.

And that’s just lately. I didn’t think Bashar could make himself any stronger by pursuing his course of violence, but he certainly made himself more alone. Is it at all possible be could leave anything resembling a regime behind him? No: what’s left of his apparatus will evaporate in a cloud of disassociation.

Thus the determinations of individual subjectivity place another limit on speculative philosophy. How does Bashar manage to deal with it all? What sort of man is he really? …but who cares?

The revolution cannot rely on a purely military solution via either the occupation of territory or the annihilation of Bashar’s forces in the field. Similarly, one of the points of shooting down the Turkish jet was to warn the West about intervention with air power. But the revolution can force, maybe are near to forcing, a stalemate. And that gives time, though it may be a very bloody time, for the indicated result.

The Crisis

In a crisis, a revolutionary must know what to do. One of the things to know is whether it is really a crisis, and not to be panicked by an unexpected reverse or mere threat. This much speculative philosophy can also know. But to predict the result is beyond its power, precisely because it is the time for individuals to act, and philosophy cannot predict even the action, much less the result, of the determinations of individual subjectivity.

It’s good to know that, even in the time of crisis, the Egyptian revolution is still behaving like a revolution. And more particularly that it recognizes the counter-revolution for what it is, and is able to see the courts and the military as the face or maybe the agent of the counter-revolution.

It’s a crisis because the counter-revolution brought it on. Consider their actions, words, and decrees:

·    The courts dissolved the body that was charged with making a new constitution, on grounds of what is left of the old constitution. Logically, to say nothing of the political meaning of the decree, it’s begging the question, which is what the constitution and the state should and will be. (I understand the convention had already become frustrated with itself, and so nothing was done at the time.)

·    The military too are using what is left of the old constitution, that is, the instrument created by the state the revolution was against, to justify their efforts to crush the revolution.

·    The courts have dissolved parliament. What if parliament dissolves the courts? Seems to me the French solved a similar problem in a similar way.

·    Meanwhile, all the functions the courts have taken away from the revolution, including the legislative power, they have given to the military.

·    Thus the military will appoint the constitutional convention, they say. What if the president appoints his own? Suppose further two constitutions are drawn up. Then who decides?

·    And the military want to write themselves an existence separate from and alongside the civil state into the constitution, to include their own budget under their sole control. How will they fund it? Why don’t they give themselves the power of taxation to boot?

All that’s left undone is “firmness,” fraud, arrests, violent confrontation, and a coup – in that order. There’s no reason a really efficient despotism can’t be oligarchic. Burma, for instance.

All this – the counter-revolution putting forth its strength – suddenly makes the revolution seem rather weak. It once looked (to me at least) as if the Brotherhood might be able to leverage the parliament and the presidency together to complete the revolution. It’s now apparent that the revolution never gained control over the state apparatus, nor any part of it. Even if parliament refuses to dissolve itself, it has no physical assets with which to oppose the counter-revolution.

So now the only thing to do is return to the Square. Unfortunately the police are one of the state elements that did not come under the revolution’s control. Thus begins the cycle of fraud, arrests, violence.

Someone could ask, will the secular revolutionaries go to the Square? Maybe they have gone. Or does the counter-revolution seem to them the lesser of two evils? At least some of them must have voted for Shafiq. Poor fools! Soon they may find their reward.

Unfortunately, you can’t dissolve the military. But sweeping the courts out of existence, or at least denying that they exist, is the right thing to do. The revolution can judge through its own tribunals. It’s been done. Here’s a case in which, in order to take the state into its own hands, the revolution has to take the law into its own hands.

Moving to the Left

The liberal/secular vote, split in the first presidential round between two candidates with about 20% each, from here looks now to be the largest bloc of uncommitted voters in Egypt. One can’t say simply they are the largest bloc of voters, for that would mean they should have outpolled the Brotherhood for control of parliament. Neither can one say whether some of them will sit out the election either, even though that would resemble left adventurism.

Yet, had these parties settled on a single candidate, that candidate would be running against Morsi, rather than the counter-revolutionary Shafiq. It’s a typical failing of liberal revolutionists – allowing relatively minor differences of policy to create a split, rather than pursuing a sounder, unified political and electoral strategy. I am thinking of the German parliament after the 1848.

As it is, their opportunities are not entirely lost, as both remaining candidates are moving to the left in order to gain adherents in their bloc. For Morsi, this means less Sharia, more civil liberty. For Shafiq, it means dissembling, as he can have no real intention other than to govern in behalf of the big bourgeoisie.

Meanwhile the courts continue to display their alignment with counter-revolutionary elements. Acquitting the police, letting Mubarak and his family – just barely – live, failing to punish the despoliation of Egypt by Mubarak’s big bourgeois friends: this just energizes the revolution. A revolution with energy is not likely to be defeated if allowed to go to the polls.

Then what? Even the Western journalists are beginning to see how difficult it will be for Morsi to govern. And without a new constitution, the revolution itself will not have been won.

The vision of the Arab Spring perhaps out shines this reality – but that’s what visions do, don’t they? It’s harder to envision the courts taking Shafiq off the ballot than it is to envision people in the Square agitating against a ballot with his name on it. But if the courts did, and the name weren’t, the whole election would take a giant step leftward.

The People of Egypt Cast Their Votes

[Draft completed May 24, but I did not post it because I thought it might take a few days to count the votes. Posted now without further comment.]

I could wait until after the votes are counted and post on the results, but since this is speculative philosophy…. Anyway, a lot of anecdotal evidence is ready to hand. A few things it suggests follow.

·    Many of the Brotherhood’s voters are poor, and some are voting specifically economic interests. Overall this is favorable to the revolution. The fact that a few of them think Allah will provide jobs just illustrates the contradiction analyzed in an earlier post.

·    Just guessing, but about half the Brotherhood’s voters among the poor are women. So have no fear they would ever curtail the political liberties of women. What party would ever disenfranchise its own political base?

·    Given the choice of candidates, the vote can be expected to reveal splits in the Brotherhood bloc. This gives the liberal/secular parties an opportunity to gain concessions, possibly in matters of civil liberty and religious law. There’s still a constitution to be written.

·    It’s unclear how the individual elected through this process will govern. There is no new constitution, nor a proposal that can be put to a vote, nor even it appears a process for drafting one anymore – this latter thanks in part to the interference of the courts. So the revolution is incomplete, and the election of a president, even a revolutionary one, will do comparatively little in itself to complete it.

·    If you want to complete the revolution, you also have to reduce the military to obedience to the revolution via a constitution. Certain candidates won’t do this. Others might, but I can’t say from here whether any of them are on the record in this sense. The military’s claim to a special role or status under the constitution has an historical basis, but that is one of the things the revolution was made against. Without a constitution, this battle will be the president’s to fight – or not.

·    And so it’s easy to see that the people of Egypt have a choice between a president who will personally fight the courts and military, and one who will not. In other words, a choice between revolution and counter-revolution. I continue to maintain the Brotherhood is a sound revolutionary party on these points, a little Islamic law more or less not to the contrary.

·    Yes, they have a party plank for making Islamic law one of the principles of the constitution. This causes a great deal of hand-wringing among Western journalists. But their wishes are not under consideration.

All this presupposes a result in which the Brotherhood have not split so much they cannot elect their candidate in the next round. You can’t rule out a run-off between the leading liberal/secular candidate and a Brotherhood candidate either until they count the votes in the current round. One can say the revolution will roundly defeat any of the candidates from the former regime in the run-off, or it will look and feel like fraud – whatever Mr. Carter happens to observe – and the revolution will have to start over from Square one.