The causes of the revolution in Syria are not just political, i.e., a popular uprising against an elite group that excessively monopolizes power. There are also deep socioeconomic causes, most notably a surge in the youth, represented by the sudden increase of the proportion of young people within the overall population, the migration of the majority of the population from rural to urban regions, the grossly unfair distribution of development between regions and the impossibility for many people to attain a decent standard of living.

However, the interactive dynamics are at the level of the political economy. The continued rule of an autocratic power requires rentier economic activities, controlling sectors of the market to raise prices above market rate, which it and its allies will take over to perpetuate the control and continuation of the elite. This can be done by dominating the public sector, as was the case in the era of state capitalism which was established in the 1970s and ran until the early 2000s. This can also be achieved through economic privatization, which started during that period to set the foundations for crony capitalism, similar to the model established in Arab kingdoms, especially since the oil boom. These two types of regimes consecrate tyranny, but each has its own advantages. The state capitalist regime preserves broad government social services — albeit poorly delivered — in education, health, infrastructure and so on; this is because the function of the state is to provide these services. The regime of crony capitalism gives some sort of investment freedom, allowing the key private-sector players to benefit and reap profit, provided that they do not grow so much that they take over the rentier sectors allocated to the tyrant rule and its entourage.

Those who followed up on the events in the transition between the two tyrant capitalist regimes know well how the conflicts between their elites occurred. The modern elites accused the older ones of squandering, failure, obstruction, intransigence and bureaucracy, while the difference between the two was only a generation. Moreover, the regional and international climate of globalization created the modern elite’s ideology and mechanisms. Experience has shown that the old, worn-out elite was, in a way, right to point out to these modern elites that seeking « personal » profit and leaving a high proportion of the population to charitable organizations (although existing under modern denominations) would undermine the foundations of the regime, the economy and the state. Those who rise, revolt, bear arrest, torture and murder, are, in their majority, the most vulnerable social classes, especially if they no longer have anything to lose or fear. However, those who try to lead the process of change are always the elite groups.

It is clear that the elites who have been fully engaged in the project of change in Syria, or « project revolution, » were elites marginalized by the core tyrant on the political and economic levels or were involved in the clashes of the 2000s, since they dared to offend the tyrant elites. However, what is also interesting is the major involvement of the Syrian emigrant elites in the project of change. No wonder the Syrian emigrants outnumber the Syrian population in the country and that their remittances to their families constituted an important income to them and to the country’s economy.

There are numerous indications of the involvement of the emigrant elites. These may be seen, for example, from following-up on sources of funding for the opposition conferences in its early stages and from finding out which member of the elites sought to frame this opposition in such a way that its involvement in the political conflict in Syria was significantly different from what happened in Tunisia or Egypt. It is worth mentioning that no weighty opposition figures who were originally living outside the country stood out in either of these two countries. Moreover, a part of these marginalized elites and those who have emigrated bear the consequences of previous social contradictions in Syria, whether in terms of issues of nationalization and land reform, of the conflict between urban regions and mountainous, rural regions or of the relationship between religion and the state.

The sharpness of these contradictions and the nostalgia of some of these elites for a bygone era, back when they used to rule, led the revolution to adopt a flag symbolizing the past era, as opposed to the current flag of the country.

Unlike Egypt, the military establishment in Syria cannot be considered a key part of the existing power elites. This is despite the fact that these elites hail from rural military origins and had triumphed over urban elites following independence. The military establishment doesn’t really have important economic sectors, and the management of its wealth is not inconsistent with the modernized capitalist elites. It is clear that the power elites have been buying support in the military institution from time to time by employing part of its revenues, as it did with the regional elites. On the other hand, the security forces were a real part of the power and a means of control, even on the military establishment. They were a partner that takes over the revenue collection and extraction of many economic transactions, especially informal ones. Is it not conceivable, for example, to smuggle oil derivatives subsidized by the government without the knowledge of the security services, which then collect important revenue from this activity? This is also the case for the illegal revenue from international phone calls.

Things gradually slipped in Syria from revolution to war. The power elites knew that any concession would undermine the mechanisms that might allow them to take over the proceeds. The sharpness of contradictions with the elites of the Syrian opposition inside and outside the country as well as the involvement of regional countries in the conflict came to feed the dramatically escalating violence. However, the internal war — a euphemism for civil war — has its political economy, which grew bit by bit until it became the dominant character of the country, both in areas that are still under the military control of the regime and in those beyond.

Violence by force of arms is not insanity but has its logic and functions. Opportunities and economic risks have an important role in explaining why the war continues as a political and military aim. Violence has political functions. It aims to change the “rules of the game” within the state’s political frameworks toward two opposing ends: either to install or replace the ruling elites, or to provide social justice or to increase inequality.

But it also has “nonpolitical” functions: eliminating the rule of law. The functions of violence are economic, psychological and security-related at the same time. They are the core of the political economy of civil wars.

When a civilian carries a weapon, he does so primarily for security and psychological reasons, because he doesn’t feel safe, not as an individual or as part of an armed group. But weapons provide strength that cannot be sustained except through the acquisition of money. So the function of weapons gradually changes from maintaining or replacing a ruling elite to securing the production and reproduction of the same group.

The war economy is based on the acquisition of natural resources and the imposition of levies and taxes on trade and on relief, not only with the outside world but at checkpoints inside the country. The war is also based on violating public and private property under various pretexts, from defending the state to revolutionary legitimacy and the necessities of victory.

The war economy has gradually grown in Syria. On the one hand, the ruling elite were unable to fund all their fighters’ needs, including within the army. The war economy was (and still is, for example, through the sale of the “right” to loot some neighborhoods of Homs after the truce) a way to ensure the continuity of loyalist fighters. On the other hand, the opposition’s failure to organize politically and militarily resulted in the elites and foreign powers manipulating the opposition and in letting loose the armed brigades that, to ensure their continuity, saw it necessary to loot factories (instead of running them) and seize stocks of agricultural crops, oil wells and so on.

Of course, the conflict in Syria goes beyond the country’s borders and the elites. The Syrian ruling elites and their competition are globalized, meaning their interests are closely related to foreign elites, regional and international, but they rarely play the leading role in these relations. Contrary to the elites of major countries or even those of the Gulf states, Egypt and Morocco, they don’t depend on multinational companies. But the world’s elite have interests in Syria: the potential of oil and gas and its transportation routes (the proceeds of Syria’s geographical location with regard to Iran, Qatar and Turkey, for example), and even the wheat, where the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is looking forward each year to estimate Syrian production. Also, regional countries in particular have direct interests.

Regarding the regional and global elite, it is not interested in the nature of the Syrian elites with which it is allied. Investment preferences are determined by developments and by those the outside world thinks can secure its interests in the medium term. The history of Syria since independence is full of such examples.

That the foreign elite had few interests in Syria has turned the “revolution” into a war and turned Syria into a pole that attracts extremist movements and a means to spend the oil surpluses of neighboring countries by buying arms. The foreign elite don’t mind that, as long as these movements are fighting inside Syria. But that position may change when the matter grows to a point where “terrorism” boomerangs on these countries themselves, and when the humanitarian problem in Syria becomes too costly in terms of relief efforts and in terms of support for the militarily and politically warring elites.

It is not clear whether that transformation has already begun. If it did, it could stop the war and return things to politics between the warring foreign elites and between the Syrian elites themselves. The marginal cost of continuing the war is still far less than the cost of stopping it. On what grounds the foreign elites can agree on is still not clear, whether it is sharing the country or sharing the interests in it.

In any case, getting out of internal wars is harder than rushing into them. The political economy of war must be dealt with to meet the conditions to gradually dismantle its mechanisms and return to the situation of the state. A large part of the difficulty about the different approaches on how to completely get out of the war lies in the fundamental question: What should be mainly addressed? The greed or the grievances?

Some say giving priority to addressing the greed would legitimize and neglect the grievances. “Conspiracy” is the foundation, and whoever bears arms of this or that party only did so because of greed or for dominance. However, this approach eliminates the importance of the causes, i.e., the grievances, which are expressed by those who carry weapons, whether horizontal (i.e., out of a sense of belonging to a national, sectarian or local group) or vertical (i.e., due to poor social distribution in general). These grievances could mainly be psychological. In other words, a certain group may feel that getting out of the war will eliminate its existence.

In this context, no cease-fire or political solution can succeed in the long term if doesn’t have mechanisms to address the grievances. For example, the Oslo Accord did not address the rights of the Palestinians and dealt with matters as an urge to rule, except in certain areas, or an implicit demand to only improve economic conditions. For its part, the greed mechanisms cannot be fully addressed except when state sovereignty covers all the earth and when all citizens accept the concept of the public interest. Therefore, any solution must start with addressing the grievances and the interaction of these grievances with greed, the old ones and those that originated in war, including grievances and greed of the fighters from all parties, because the solution will come from them and their elites, not the cultural elites.

So, it is legitimate to ask whether the Geneva I document paves the way for a solution in Syria based on understanding and resolving the grievances, the grievances of groups and regions. Does the Geneva I document limit the greed that is fueling the war aimed at controlling the country? Will a military victory by the government’s or the opposition’s elites establish a lasting solution and return the state and its mechanisms? Will it even result in a sustainable truce?

Any solution must first and foremost be based on addressing the grievances suffered by individuals and groups. Addressing these grievances will allow us to address the greed, internal and external, as was the case before the revolution turned into civil war. But the solution requires an elite whose primary “greed” is to serve all citizens without discrimination and to preserve the state.

 

The article was translated from an original publication in Arabic in As safir