* Democratic Institutions Are in Crisis
* Syria: End of Assad Dynastic Rule
* South Korea in Temporary Turmoil
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Democracy Under Attack World-Wide
In his latest The Washington Post column, the distinguished CNN host Fareed Zakaria writes: “It has been quite a week across the world.”
“South Korea’s president placed the country under martial law but was rebuffed by parliament, which is now taking steps to impeach him…
“In France, the prime minister and his government received a vote of no confidence for the first time in more than 60 years…
“These seemingly disparate events do have a common underlying theme: a crisis of democratic institutions.”
Liberal democracy has suffered in recent years as public trust in institutions has declined, Zakaria points out. Mainstream political parties are fading, and populism is on the rise.
South Korea and France are known as reliable democracies, which makes last week’s events all the more notable.
“Liberal democracy has been marked by its emphasis on procedures, not outcomes,” Zakaria writes.
“We honour the process even when we dislike the outcome . . .
[In America, Trump attacked both the process and the outcome!]
“The drive to quickly get what we want, even at the cost of bypassing procedures and undermining institutions, is deeply dangerous…
“That is true when it is [President-elect Donald] Trump appointing slavishly loyal apparatchiks to head key departments of governments…
“And it is true when [President] Joe Biden pardons his son after promising the American people he would not interfere with the workings of the justice system…
“If, out of frustration with our current, transitory problems, we give up on the enduring institutions that have built liberal democracy, we will be turning our backs on one of humankind’s most significant achievements in modern history.”
French Lessions
France’s government crisis has resulted from two big causes. Most immediately, Prime Minister Michel Barnier [ he led the EU-delegation during the Brexit negotiations] was ousted during a stalemate over spending cuts, in which he faced opposition from his left and right.
More broadly, this turmoil is happening amid months of protracted political deadlock, after summer elections – in which far-right and leftist coalitions gained much ground – left France without a parliamentary majority.
The decline of centrist and mainstream parties was a major factor.
The early-September appointment of compromise-solution Barnier had installed a prime minister, but the situation still appeared fragile (CNN/Fareed’s Global Briefing/Chris Good, Dec. 7).
The Economist assesses: “France’s plight holds lessons. The country’s traditional parties of centre-left and centre-right have fragmented. In its recent presidential elections, half of voters have opted for extremists in the first round. President after president has failed to get the budget under control. An aging population and growing threats to national security mean that the fiscal burden will grow. The country’s crass and obstructive political discourse only accelerates the drift to the extremes –and thereby makes solutions harder. In one way or another, much of Europe is caught in the same wretched trap.”
Damascus Falls to Rebel Forces
Syrian rebel forces declared they had ousted President Bashar al-Assad after seizing control of the capital Damascus on Sunday, forcing him to flee and ending his family’s decades of brutal, autocratic rule after more than 13 years of civil war.
In a seismic moment for the Middle East, the Islamist rebels also dealt a major blow to the influence of Russia and Iran in Syria in the heart of the region – allies who had propped up Assad during critical periods in the war but were distracted by other crises [Ukraine, Lebanon] recently (Reuters/ Suleiman al-Khaladi & Timour Azhari, Dec. 8).
“We celebrate with the Syrian people the news of freeing our prisoners and releasing their chains,” the rebels said.
Leading rebel commander Abu Mohammed al-Golani said there was no room for turning back.
“The future is ours,” he said in a statement read on Syria’s state TV after his forces took over Damascus.
The pace of events stunned Arab capitals [but not only] and raised concerns about a new wave of instability in a region already in turmoil following the spread of conflict after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the ensuing Gaza war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed Assad’s fall was a direct result of blows that Israel has dealt to Iran and its ally Hezbollah [However, this does not address the question of Russia’s inaction vis-à-vis its ally].
French President Emmanuel Macron said “the barbaric state has fallen” and paid tribute to the Syrian people.
Daunting task ahead
When the celebrations fade, Syria’s new leaders will face the daunting task of trying to deliver stability to a diverse country with competing factions and ethnic groups that will need billions of dollars in aid and investment to rebuild.
Syria’s long civil war, which erupted in 2011 as an uprising against Assad’s rule, turned cities to rubble and killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Stakeholders range from Turkey, Iran and Russia to the United States to Islamists to Kurds.
One possible challenge could be a resurgence of the Islamic State which imposed a reign of terror in large swathes of Syria and Iraq and directed external operations during its prime.
The US administration was monitoring developments but has not adjusted the positioning of the roughly 900 troops in south-eastern Syria so far.
The Iran Factor
Underscoring the lightning changes, Iran’sembassy was stormed by Syrian rebels.
Iran, whose elite Revolutionary Guards have faced deadly Israeli strikes in Syria, gave a measured response.
Its foreign ministry said Syria’s fate is the sole responsibility of the Syrian people and should be pursued without foreign imposition or destructive intervention.
The Lebanon Connection
Lebanese-based Hezbollah, which provided crucial support to Assad for years, withdrew all of its forces from Syria on Saturday as rebel factions approached Damascus.
The collapse of Assad’s rule followed a shift in the balance of power in the Middle East after many leaders of Hezbollah, a lynchpin of Assad’s battlefield force, were killed by Israel over the past two months.
The Russian Angle
Russia, a staunch Assad ally, intervened decisively in 2015 to help Assad during Syria’s civil war. But it has been tied down by the Ukraine war.
Syria’s former President Bashar al-Assad is in Moscow with his family after Russia granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds.
A deal has also been done to ensure the safety of Russian military bases.
Rebels’ Progress
Syria’s civil war had been considered “frozen” for years. The past week’s renewed fighting will have an impact on everything from domestic/external displacement, the Assad’s regime’s drug deals and the larger balance of power in the Middle East.
After about five years of what was often described as a frozen conflict, the front lines in Syria’s 13-plus-year civil war has changed dramatically over the past week.
Since 2017 when fighting began to die down, forces which opposed the regime of Bashar Assad had mostly been restricted percent of the country (DW/Deutsche Welle/ Cathrin Schaer, Dec. 7).
But the rebels have advanced rapidly, surprising experts and observers after they launched attacks on government-held areas.
By last Saturday, rebels were moving towards the city of Homs, putting them on the verge of cutting Syrian government lines in half, separating the Assad government in the capital Damascus from coastal strongholds in Latakia and from Tartous, where a Russian naval base is located.
It was not a healthy sign for Assad when closest ally Russia asked its citizens to leave Syria!
Human rights monitors said that by Tuesday last week, more than 700 people had been killed as a result of the renewed clashes. And for now, a final outcome was hard to predict.
But no matter what happens next, the frontlines in the Syrian civil war have shifted and are unlikely to return to their previous stalemate state.
“The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham ( HTS ) and opposition advance will end sooner or later and new frontlines will firm up, but the Syrian geopolitical chessboard has been reset and all stakeholders will be looking to reposition themselves in the coming days and weeks,” Charles Lister, duirector of the Syrian programme at the Washington-based Middle East Institute (MEI) wrote last week in his newsletter on Substack.
The HTS is the largest group among the rebel forces.
More mass displacement
The long-running Syrian civil war displaced about half of the country’s pre-war population inside the country and made between 6 and 7 million Syrian refugees outside the country.
Most refugees sought shelter in neighbouring countries Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan.
Last week as front lines became more volatile again, observers at the United Nations said around 120,000 people were already on the move.
“From Aleppo to Idlib to Hama, our partners report that surging hostilities are endangering civilians, driving internal displacement, disrupting the continuity of essential services and obstructing the delivery of life-saving humanitarian aid,” the Danish Refugee Council said in a statement.
“The UN estimates 200,000 to 400,000 Syrians could be internally displaced unless hostilities cease.”
How many more will be displaced, and where they go, will depend on how rebel fighters behave in areas they now control.
HTS, which believes in an Islamist political system, has reached out to minority communities and told them they have nothing to fear.
Its main goal is to defeat the Assad regime, it says.
Should HTS stick to this, refugees in neighbouring countries like Lebanon and Turkey, where they now face disadvantage and prejudice, may be more inclined to return to Syria.
However, should fighting escalate and rebel groups engage in abuses, a humanitarian crisis and increased migration around and out of the country is also likely.
It is also possible that Assad regime supporters and soldiers will be trying to leave Syria.
Opportunity for “Islamic State” extremists?
During the Syrian civil war, extremists from the radical group known as the “Islamic State” or IS took advantage of precarious security conditions to establish control over the central Syrian city of Raqqa.
Now the Syrian rebel coalition has said it was continuing work to complete the transfer of power in the country to a transitional governing body with full executive powers.
“The great Syrian revolution was moved from the stage of struggle to overthrow the Assad regime to the struggle to build a Syria together that befits the sacrifices of its people,” it added in a statement (Reuters).
South Korea’s Attempted Coup
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s former defence minister was arrested on Sunday over his alleged role in Yoon’s declaration of martial law last week, prosecutors said.
Yoon survived an impeachment vote in the opposition-led parliament late on Saturday, prompted by Tuesday’s short-lived attempt to impose martial law, but the leader of his own party said the president would effectively be excluded from his duties before eventually stepping down (Reuters/ Hyunjoo Jin, Dec. 8).
The leader of Yoon’s People Power Party (PPP), Han Dong-hoon, in a joint press conference with the prime minister [who is from the majority opposition], said on Sunday that Yoon will not be involved in foreign and other state affairs before his early resignation.
Ex-Defence Minister Kim Yong-hyun who stepped down on Wednesday after Yoon rescinded martial law, was seen as a central figure in the political debacle. He had proposed martial law to the president, according to a senior military official and the impeachment filings.
Hours before Saturday’s impeachment vote, Yoon addressed the nation in a televised speech to apologise for his martial law decree, saying he would put his fate in the hands of his party.
Han said the comments were effectively a promise to leave office early, adding that the ruling party would consult with the prime minister to manage state affairs.
Prime Minister Han Duck-soo said on Sunday the cabinet would do its best to “maintain trust with our allies”, referring to the United States and Japan.
Yoon had shocked the nation last week Tuesday night when he gave the military sweeping emergency powers to root out what he called “anti-state forces” and obstructionist political opponents. He rescinded the order six hours later after parliament defied military and police cordons to vote unanimously against the decree.
Yoon’s martial law declaration plunged South Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest economy [after China, Japan, India] and a key U.S. military ally, into its greatest political crisis in decades, threatening to shatter the country’s reputation as a democratic success story.
Comments:
Leave a Reply