Roundtable: Backdrop & Reverberations of Soleimani’s Assassination (Part 1: Iran)

Roundtable: Backdrop & Reverberations of Soleimani’s Assassination (Part 1: Iran)

On 3 January 2020, the United States assassinated Major General Qasem Soleimani of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Corps Guard (IRGC). The event was an escalation by the Trump Administration in what many critical analysts consider a decades-long war waged by the United States against the Islamic Republic of Iran. Soleimani himself joined the IRGC shortly after its establishment in the wake of the 1979 revolution. Since then, he has been involved in major battlefield engagements, including fighting in the Iraq-Iran War (1980–88), collaborating with the United States in the initial phase (2001–2002) of the US war in Afghanistan, and (at different times) directing Iranian support for allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.

This is a two-part roundtable convened by Arash Davari, Naveed Mansoori, and Ziad Abu-Rish on the regional backdrop and (admittedly short-term) fallout from the US assassination of Soleimani. Part 1 features scholars of Iran reflecting on the place of Soleimani and the IRGC in the political and institutional dynamics of the Iranian state. They also address the reactions in Iran to the assassination and their intersection with various instances of popular mobilization, including the most recent one against the downing of Flight 752. Part 2 features scholars of regional states reflecting on the specific nature of Iranian policy and reaction to Soleimani’s assassination in those states.

1. Soleimani was a general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. What role does the IRGC, the Quds Force in particular, play in the political, military, and economic structures of the Iranian state? How autonomous is the IRGC as an institution? Has its institutional history changed since 1979? If so, did 2003 mark a turning point? How might Soleimani’s assassination materially change Iranian statecraft, foreign policy, and/or strategic decision-making?


Eric Lob: 
The Quds (Jerusalem) Force is the IRGC’s extraterritorial and clandestine unit that operates throughout the Middle East and beyond to extend the geopolitical influence of Iran and provide it with strategic depth and deterrence capabilities against regional and foreign adversaries, including the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab Gulf or GCC countries. In the conflict zones of Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, the Quds Forces has created and supported Shi‘i militias that have become key players and power brokers in their respective states and societies. As part of the IRGC and Iranian military, the Quds Force plays a prominent role in the political and economic structures of the Iranian state. During the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013), the IRGC gained unprecedented access to state institutions (the cabinet, bureaucracy, and parliament) and expanded and diversified its portfolio of corporate assets as the government pursued crony-capitalist privatization under Article 44 of the constitution.

In April 1979, the IRGC was established as a revolutionary organization and parallel institution to the conventional army while it was purged of real and suspected monarchists or royalists. The IRGC acted as a praetorian guard whose mission was to protect or defend the fledgling revolutionary state from internal and external enemies, including ethnic insurgents and Iraqi forces. During these counterinsurgency campaigns and the Iran-Iraq War, the IRGC became increasingly experienced, battle-hardened, professionalized, and institutionalized as an elite force and a government ministry. After the war, the IRGC ceased to exist as a ministry, lending it a level of organizational dynamism and flexibility that contrasted with other revolutionary organizations (e.g., Construction Jihad), which permanently languished in the bureaucracy with its rigid centralization and red tape. Within the Islamic Republic’s factionalized and bifurcated political system, the IRGC’s de-bureaucratization reduced the influence of the president over the organization and placed it firmly, if not exclusively, under the purview of the supreme leader. Nevertheless, the IRGC continued to receive an operating budget from the government with parliamentary approval while being privy to extra-budgetary funds from the supreme leader’s office and other non-elective institutions.

The supreme leader comprises the commander-in-chief of the IRGC and the armed forces at large and is considered the ultimate decision-maker when it comes to Iran’s national security and foreign policy. That being said, this policy is deliberated over and formulated by a constellation of disparate institutions, including the Supreme Leader’s Office, Expediency Discernment Council, Supreme National Security Council, Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, Ministry of Intelligence and National Security, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. With the exception of the first two institutions (the members of which are appointed by the supreme leader), these institutions fall under the purview of the president, who appoints their heads and ministers with a parliamentary vote of confidence and after negotiations with the supreme leader and other officials. The generals and commanders of the IRGC and other branches of the military are appointed by the supreme leader and follow and execute his orders and directives with input from other clerical and civilian elites. These generals and commanders wield autonomy by weighing in on and influencing policy and carrying it out as they see fit in response to rapidly changing or fluid, geopolitical conditions and dynamics–a scenario that especially applied to Qasem Soleimani and the Quds Force.

Maryam Alemzadeh: As the epitome of a “revolutionary” organization, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has enjoyed an exalted, and eventually untouchable, status within Iran’s political leadership for almost all of its forty-one-year history. The IRGC started not as a centrally organized military, but as clusters of dedicated volunteers ready to take direct action whenever their leaders, or in many cases, themselves, saw necessary. In the midst of civil conflicts and Iraq’s invasion of Iran, this characteristic was both reinforced within the IRGC and appreciated as authentically revolutionary in political circles. This initially exalted status of the IRGC was further consolidated as Banisadr, the IRGC’s strongest critic in the early phase of Iran’s war campaign, was removed from office. After the war, the Guards and Basijis were re-mobilized in the economic sphere. The IRGC intelligence and security branch, which had already grown in size and complexity during the war, expanded as well. The organization acquired the infrastructure to become increasingly independent, further its economic interests and exert influence on presidential politics.

The extraterritorial IRGC Quds Force, however, has been rather detached from this history and political dynamics within Iran. It was established in the late 1980s, around the time when the IRGC was on the verge of being “mercantilized.” An internationally shunned Islamic Republic sought to establish new coalitions, even if non-state entities were the only possible allies. It set up the Quds Force to serve these purposes. In its first large-scale mission, the Quds Force backed Bosnian Muslims in the Bosnian war of the early nineties.[1] These efforts failed when a peace treaty urged all foreign military personnel to leave the country. The US invasion of Afghanistan and then Iraq created a fertile ground for Iran’s Quds Force to reinforce and expand state-recognized Shi‘i militias outside of Iran and thus to influence regional politics in Iran’s interests.

Soleimani emerged at this point, as a trustworthy strategist and pragmatic commander who could secure Iran’s interest through a network of militias in the region. Under Soleimani, the Quds Force was considerably independent of Iran’s internal affairs. He was trusted to come up with strategies and implement them based on his direct relationships with other countries’ military and political leaders.  Under his successor, Brig. General Qa’ani, the Quds Force is likely to become more dependent on political decision-making within Iran (specifically to military advisors to the supreme leader and the Joint Chief of Staff), thereby entangling internal and foreign politics. On the other hand, in the absence of Soleimani, the Quds Force’s presence will become weaker in the region, which means that it will depend on state decision-makers even further to preserve its international position. As a result of this dependence, Quds Force affairs are more likely to influence and be influenced by internal politics.

Eric Lob: The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 marked a seminal moment for Soleimani and the Quds Force. With the political and security vacuum caused by the US overthrow of Saddam Hussein and purging of the Baʿth Party through the policy of de-Baʿthification, the opportunity presented itself for Soleimani and the Quds Force to create, finance, arm, and train Shi‘i militias inside the country, as well as to groom and guide opposition politicians (who had been living in exile in Iran) from the Islamic Dawa Party and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council to assume key positions in successive governments. The goals of these activities were to: (1) Establish a congenial and tamer government in Baghdad sympathetic to Iranian interests with the specter of the Iran-Iraq War lurking in the background; (2) Render the situation in Iraq for US forces uncomfortable, if not intolerable, and prevent them from marching into Iran—which had been labeled part of the Axis of Evil by President George W. Bush in 2002; (3) Particularly after 2014, defeat ISIS in Iraq and neighboring Syria—a campaign that involved air support from the US military and tacit cooperation with it against a common enemy.

After Soleimani’s assassination, the Iranian government will sorely miss his strategic and tactical acumen, military and political leadership and experience, and long-standing relationships with politicians and militiamen in Iran, the Middle East, and beyond. On the one hand, the assassination will not cause Iranian national security and foreign policy or strategic decision-making to fundamentally change. Iran will likely continue to rely on asymmetric warfare through its arsenal of ballistic missiles, network of regional proxies and partners, and team of cyber hackers to inflict pain on the United States and its allies, compensate for their conventional superiority, and avoid a direct conventional conflict. On the other hand, the assassination will raise the urgency and accelerate the efforts of the Islamic Republic to expel an increasingly belligerent and unpredictable United States from Iraq and other surrounding countries in the region. This desired outcome constituted a chief policy objective of Soleimani as commander of the Quds Force and could potentially come to fruition with the Iraqi parliament and caretaker Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi passing a non-binding resolution to expel US forces from Iraq and by default Syria.

Arshin Adib-Mogaddam: I would describe the IRGC as a network of a particular form of militarized power, hierarchical sovereignty, and polymorphic ideological verticality. The first term speaks to its epistemological origin as a revolutionary-military institution immediately after the revolution of 1979. The institution has metamorphized into a “deep state” that operates, repeatedly, beyond the sovereignty of other institutions of the Iranian state and certainly the government. The hierarchical sovereignty of the IRGC speaks to its rootedness in the revolution, and in particular the Iran-Iraq war which baptized the organization in blood, and determined the world-view of the Soleimani generation. Its ideological verticality conceptualizes the form of power exercised, which is exactly vertical in the sense that the IRGC has transmuted into a politico-cultural institution with its own universities, media outlets, business enterprises etc., but continues to operate in a top-down fashion. 2003 marked a turning point in the sense that it galvanized all those three aspects of the IRGC giving impetus to its transnational effects. The three aspects did not so much galvanize the IRGC as a vehicle to “export the revolution” (sudur-e enghelab). Rather, they galvanized the organization’s military rationale, buttressing its role in Iranian society and beyond as a securitized and securitizing actor. 2003 made it almost impossible for the IRGC in general, and the Quds force in particular, to be “pacified.” The state embarked on the “culturalization” of the organization after the “reconstruction period” in the 1990s for precisely these purposes.

2. What can we learn from Soleimani’s biography about the relationship between Iran’s domestic and global politics? What are the continuities and discontinuities between his earlier activities in the Iran-Iraq war, his participation in the alliance between Iran and the United States in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, the role he played in facilitating IRI support for Bashar al-Asad in the Syrian civil war, and his efforts in the war against ISIS? How does Soleimani’s symbolic significance internationally align with his significance in Iran as a venerated war hero? How are domestic critics of Iran’s regional role, often associated with Soleimani, interpreting this event?


Eric Lob: 
Soleimani rose to prominence as a young division commander during the Iran-Iraq War. During the conflict, he relied on irregular warfare and forged connections with leaders and officials of Iraqi Kurdistan and the Badr Brigade. Following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, these contacts served Soleimani and the Quds Force well in helping Iran gain and expand influence inside the country, create and support Shi‘i militias under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces, wage attacks against American forces, and launch an offensive against ISIS. Soleimani was a pragmatist in the sense that he cooperated with the United States when doing so advanced Iran’s strategic objectives and national interests. In the wake of September 11, Soleimani helped US forces overthrow the Taliban and weaken al-Qa‘ida by offering logistical support and leveraging his contacts with the Northern Alliance and other Afghan militias. Beginning in 2014, US-Iranian interests again aligned in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Soleimani was instrumental to this campaign by providing ground forces in the form of IRGC-Quds Force units and Iranian-backed Shi‘i militias from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria.

At the same time, other activities undertaken by Suleiman directly conflicted with the interests of the United States and its allies. After 2003, he financed, armed, and trained Iraqi Shi‘i militias, and supplied them with roadside bombs and other hardware to inflict American casualties in Iraq and prevent US forces from marching on Tehran. Soleimani continued and increased support to Lebanese Hizballah, which the Quds Force had helped create in the early-to-mid 1980s before he became its commander in 1998. During the Syrian civil war, Soleimani was instrumental in propping up the Assad regime and seizing territory from rebels and extremists by organizing and deploying IRGC-Quds Force advisers and operatives, and Shi‘i militias from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon under the umbrella of the National Defense Forces–not to mention convincing Russia to intervene militarily in 2015. The Iranian intervention involved elevated expenditures of blood and treasure, exacerbated sectarian tensions inside and outside of Syria, and created controversy in Iran. Nonetheless, Iran’s leadership considered the conflict an existential one to save its only dependable ally in the Arab world and maintain supply lines to Hizballah in Lebanon.

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam: Soleimani was the nodal point of a very particular historical constellation that delivered his aura and “charisma.” In many ways, his role was manufactured. The Iranian state actively created the metaphysical aura surrounding him, as a Trojan Horse for its strategic preferences in the region—preferences primarily geared to preventing a “Saddam Hussein effect,” i.e., rolling back against movements and leaders that would be a threat to Iran’s borders. Soleimani was made into someone that his predecessor will never be: The charismatic figurehead of Iranian efforts to reshape Syria and Iraq in accordance with Iranian transnational interests. The fact that General Soleimani had a distinguished career during the Iran-Iraq war, which included a role in the liberation of Khorramshahr, an event which is celebrated in Iran as a national symbol of “resistance” to Saddam Hussein to this day, lent itself to passing him the mantle of a “just” warrior. The mantle chimes with Iranian psycho-nationalism and its propensity to dramatize the roles of Rostam and Hussein and to reengineer contemporary, eponymous heroes of this eternal Persian battle for metaphysical justness. Once one steps out of this grandiose narrative, Soleimani could be viewed as an imperial mastermind for Iranian dominance, of course. This has been the dilemma of the aggressive push into the Arab state system that has delivered a radically altered geopolitical landscape. From the perspective of the Iranian state, however, General Soleimani functioned brilliantly, even with his death alongside Commander al-Muhandis, which has galvanized the Iranian-Iraqi dialectic along the “resistance axis” even further.

Maryam Alemzadeh: Although “exporting the revolution” has been a persistent theme in the IRGC’s official propaganda, Soleimani’s Quds Force should not be seen as an extension of the IRGC of the Iran-Iraq War. The thought of pursuing extra-territorial activities has existed since the early days of the IRGC’s establishment. A number of activists involved in the formation of the IRGC had been involved in guerrilla organizations such as the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Lebanese Amal Movement in the months leading up to the revolution. They envisioned an extra-territorial branch for the IRGC to continue liberating oppressed Muslims in neighboring countries—i.e., to “export the Islamic revolution.” The Liberation Movements Unit was soon introduced as a branch of the IRGC to realize this goal. This branch and its radical ideology were quite similar to the IRGC of early war years—passionate about the cause of the “Islamic Revolution” and ready to take extreme measures to realize it. However, the Liberation Movements Office did not last long. The majority of militiamen and politicians, including Ayatollah Khomeini himself, were inclined to focus on internal affairs, unless external activities proved to be of pressing geopolitical significance. Political conflicts and the eventual shunning and elimination of Liberation Movements leaders, including Ayatollah Montazeri and his relatives, happened partly as a result of such inconsistencies.

As opposed to the Liberation Movement Unit’s idealistic agenda, the Quds Force and the extra-territorial activities that took place before its introduction followed a more pragmatic, realpolitik approach to Iran’s regional presence.  The formation of Hizballah in the early 1980s to counter Israel’s influence in Southern Lebanon (which happened shortly after the Liberation Movements Office was dismantled) is one such move. The shifting grounds that the United States created in Afghanistan and Iraq after the September 11 attacks and, a decade later, the Syrian civil war created a chance for Iran to expand its influence in the Middle East. The pragmatism of Soleimani and the Quds Force becomes apparent here. In this time period, alliances were not formed on ideological grounds, but on practical ones. The Quds Force cooperated with the United States and its allies against the Taliban in the early 2000s and against ISIS in 2014-15; they reinforced Shi’a militias in Iraq against the US alliance before and after the war with ISIS; and they fought against US-backed forces in Syria to keep Bashar al-Asad, Iran’s longstanding ally, in power.

This is why Soleimani’s persona had greater significance in the Quds Force than in the Iran-Iraq War. Like every other prominent IRGC commander, he started his career with no military experience and training. He learned warfare by doing it. This met the requirements of a straightforward infantry war conducted mostly on home turf. In the Quds Force, however, he tackled tasks that were much more sophisticated technically and required coordinating multiple, semi-independent militias as well as various state actors. In this sense, his time as an extraterritorial agent cannot be seen as a continuation of the Iran-Iraq war experience; just as Iran’s rational goal-orientation on international grounds is not a continuation of domestic ideologized governance.

Eric Lob: The Trump administration attempted to justify the assassination of Soleimani by labeling him a terrorist and claim legality on the grounds that the IRGC had been designated a terrorist organization in 2017—even if the attack never received Congressional approval and violated Iraqi sovereignty. Apart from being a senior government and military official, Soleimani was considered a war hero in Iran with popularity or approval ratings hovering between sixty and eighty percent in domestic and international polls. One reason for his venerated status was that he was perceived as a defender or protector of Iranian interests in the region, including containing the threat of ISIS. Another was that the Quds Force operated outside of Iran and, consequently, did not repress its activists, protestors, and other citizens, unlike other branches of the IRGC. Nevertheless, given that the Iranian authorities responded in an unusually heavy-handed manner by killing hundreds and arresting countless more during the mass protests in late 2019, some citizens refuse to differentiate between the Quds Force and the rest of the IRGC, with the wounds and memories of repression still fresh and seared into the mind. Some Iranians recall that Soleimani had signed a letter with other IRGC officers threatening to crush the 1999 student protests and orchestrate a military coup against President Mohammad Khatami if he failed to take action.

Some Iranians have criticized the Iranian government and military for funding and supporting Shi‘i militias in the region and the Assad regime in Syria at the expense of domestic development and prosperity. However, such criticism has been drowned out in an increasingly securitized, geopolitical climate. Between 2017 and 2019, the Trump administration issued the travel ban against Iranians, designated the IRGC a terrorist organization, withdrew from the JCPOA or nuclear deal, and re-imposed and intensified economic sanctions against Iran as part of a campaign of “maximum pressure.” These measures were followed by escalating military tensions between the United States and Iran, culminating with Soleiman’s assassination. During this period, Iran experienced two waves of widespread demonstrations, which were met with heavy repression, and two ISIS-claimed terrorist attacks against the Iranian Parliament and Khomeini’s mausoleum in Tehran and a military parade in Ahvaz. As the Iranian government confronts rising external and internal pressures and threats, critics of Iranian foreign policy risk being stigmatized and repressed as traitors or enemies of the state.

3. What does rallying around the flag—or a national hero—tangibly mean for domestic affairs in Iran? For instance, do you see parallels between our current moment and the outset of the Iran-Iraq War, the last instance of full-scale war in Iran? Or has Iran’s domestic sphere fundamentally changed in the past forty years?

Maryam Alemzadeh: In the early rounds of mobilization for the Iran-Iraq War, revolutionary-ideological motivations and nationalistic drives had successfully converged. This convergence was not surprising, as post-revolutionary states have been historically successful in mobilizing citizens for war campaigns. With the end of the war in 1988, the tide of revolutionary fervor had already subsided and a consumerist and implicitly secular economy and culture was introduced into infrastructures. In the decades after the war, IRGC leaders recognized the need to shift from a strictly religious-revolutionary discourse to a nationalist one. A successful venue for this campaign arose with the Quds Force’s participation in the war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria from 2014 onward, and Soleimani was illustrated as the national hero that was revered even by those not loyal to the government’s political Shi’ism.

But it was not simply the IRGC’s general discursive turn and the threat of ISIS that elevated Soleimani’s status to a widely respected figure. To this favorable context, we should add Soleimani’s specific positioning within the IRGC and the Islamic Republic, and the professionalism that his performance implicated. Soleimani’s dedication to Ayatollah Khamene’i and the Islamic Republic’s ideology was clearly stated. In this, he resembled every other IRGC commander that the disgruntled public has known and distanced itself from, over the years. However, he was not a figure to appear in the media frequently to emphasize this dedication. Whether intentionally or not, he appeared detached from the IRGC and the Islamic Republic’s omnipresent propaganda. Simultaneously, and heightened by his international reputation, he was perceived as a skillful and effective military commander—a characteristic which the critics of the IRGC do not generously attribute to just any guard.

With this in mind, it becomes clear that rallying around Soleimani’s figure does not necessarily signal a spike in the regime’s legitimacy. Citizens who were ideologically distanced from the Islamic Republic’s core might have been attracted to the figure of Soleimani exactly because they assessed him to stand in contrast to the average state- or military man: efficient and professional (not just loyal), and detached from the IRGC’s perceived empire of propaganda and corruption. The sharp turn of protestors against Soleimani, this time as a figure endorsed by the state, attests to this observation.

Eric Lob: It may be tempting to draw parallels between the current crisis and the outset of the Iran-Iraq War. However, the high costs of that war, which many Iranians lived through and from which they still suffer, have made them reticent to engage in another conflict, particularly against a conventionally superior adversary like the United States. Soleimani was a venerated figure, as attested to by the ubiquitous displays of public outcry and support during his funeral. By assassinating him and threatening to attack Iran’s cultural sites, the United States committed a strategic blunder by increasing Iranian nationalism and unifying Iranian elites and citizens only weeks after the Islamic Republic faced mass demonstrations at home and in other parts of the Shi‘i world, including Iraq and Lebanon. Yet, the fundamental changes that have occurred in the domestic sphere during the past forty years will likely erode this solidarity. During this period, elite factionalism has steadily intensified and will probably continue to do so ahead of the upcoming parliamentary election on 21 February 2020—even if the hardliners ostensibly possess a discernable advantage thanks to US escalation. This factionalism has permeated and polarized society with some citizens ardently supporting the state and others openly defying it during the protests of 1999, 2009, 2017, and 2019—not to mention more latent episodes and forms of resistance that occurred before and between those years.

Arshin Adib-Mogaddam: At this historical juncture rallying around the flag means that Iran is creating heroes born in war, rather than peace. Connecting to my answer to question one, this has securitizing, rather than liberalizing effects on Iranian domestic politics and foreign affairs. Soleimani was a soldier, after all, and his role was defined by the traumas and terrors of the battlefield, which he and his generation absorbed during the devastating Iran-Iraq War and thereafter. Having said that, these institutions of Iran’s contemporary political culture are continuously challenged by what I have called a pluralistic momentum, a bottom-up process from Iranian civil society acting upon the state which has repeatedly extracted concessions in favor of Iranian civil rights—less so through repeated spasms of violence in this state-society dialectic (which have not had a “democratic” dividend) but through techniques of everyday resistance to some of the confines held up by the state. It is this pluralistic momentum that has continuously differentiated Iranian institutions, to the degree that they have ceased to function in a one-dimensional mode. Even the IRGC has to engage in perception management and public relations, despite of their near-monopoly over the instruments of violence. That near monopoly can easily subdue with impunity whenever the state feels cornered, which particularly happens when the international context is deemed to be threatening to the sovereignty of the Iranian state. In these junctures, the “deep state” lashes out. But it is always also careful to embed such spasms of violence in a “justified” narrative. This speaks to a notion of public accountability, however confined, that the original IRGC did not have. Hence the cultural apparatus and media conglomerates tied into its organisational structure today.

4. How have different institutional and non-state actors in the Islamic Republic responded to past violations of Iranian state sovereignty and/or assassinations of leaders? What have been the immediate responses to Soleimani’s assassination in Iran? Are there salient discrepancies across familiar factional lines (e.g., reformists and principalists) and/or unexpected cleavages within Iranian society? Or is there an unambiguously unified front?

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam: Ironically, the differences between reformists and principlists in Iran are rooted exactly at the rhizome of the sovereignty of the Iranian state. Here, their opposing versions coalesce, whenever necessary, to rescue their common project of defending the Islamic Republic as a competing locus for a better future for Iranians. In other words: The reformists have an objectively different idea of sovereign rule in Iran, geared to notions of civil rights, democracy etc, whereas the principalists essentially hold on to a “deified” sovereignty, next to the popular one. However, despite these opposing views, the interests of both factions meet where most of their quarrels end: At the juncture of Iran’s interests, in particular the survival of the state, its legitimacy and the main tenets of the country’s strategic preferences abroad.

Eric Lob: Given the importance of Soleimani as a national figure and the dangerous precedent that the assassination sets in terms of conducting drone strikes against senior government and military officials, the incident may have momentarily unified Iranian elites across the political spectrum, along with segments of the population. Nonetheless, as indicated earlier and depending on what happens next between Iran and the United States, elite factionalism will likely continue and further intensify ahead of the upcoming parliamentary election on 21 February 2020. At the societal level, outraged and emboldened activists and citizens could mobilize again against the state in response to its heavy-handed response to protests in late 2019 and its economic mismanagement and austerity measures (among a host of other grievances) in the face of increased US sanctions. Less visible to the Iranian and international media and public were disaffected Iranians who refused to watch or partake in Soleimani’s funeral processions and mourning ceremonies. As previously mentioned, some Iranians associate the Quds Force with other branches of the IRGC that have repressed activists and citizens. These Iranians remember the letter that Soleimani signed urging Khatami to quell the 1999 student demonstrations. These Iranians also perceive the activities of Soleimani and the Quds Force as a liability to Iran’s international image and domestic development, not to mention regional and global stability.

5. How might we assess the relationship between the uprisings last month and the ostensible “rally around the flag” effect at play in Suleimani’s mourning ceremonies? Is this a moment—as was proposed in a recent article in the New York Times—when the disunity of the uprisings has turned into national unity? Likewise, provided that there are mourning ceremonies in Iran and Iraq, has the United States created conditions for solidarity? Is that solidarity likely to be expressed in interstate relations between Iran and Iraq? 


Arshin Adib-Moghaddam: 
Undoubtedly, the fissures in Iran’s polity will remain. But the Soleimani effect was very valuable analytically as it clearly demonstrated the deep resonance that the metaphorical power of the Iranian state continues to radiate. The millions mourning his death are exactly the constituencies that are embedded in all strata of Iranian society. Does anyone really think that the death of any of the Shah’s generals would have brought similar numbers to the streets in the 1970s? This very simple thought-exercise explains why there was a revolution in 1979, and why there has not been one since, despite the immense pressures to that end from the outside.

Eric Lob: As alluded to earlier, Soleimani’s assassination may unify and distract some Iranians in the short term, but will not necessarily mend the social fabric during the aftermath of the popular uprisings and state repression in late 2019 nor will it address or remedy their root causes. It would be a mistake to assume that Iranians rallying around the flag during a moment of national emergency and crisis in the face of escalation by the United States would cause the grievances of activists and citizens to dissipate, especially after hundreds were killed and countless more arrested during and after the Aban protests. So long as these wounds continue to fester without meaningful reform, and economic hardship endures as a consequence of US sanctions and Iranian mismanagement and corruption, it is difficult to rule out another wave of popular uprisings, which have been occurring with increasing frequency and intensity. Only one week after Soleimani’s assassination, protests have erupted in Tehran and other cities in response to the government’s failed attempt to cover up its unintentional downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet that killed 176 people, many of who were Iranians. As in the past and while making conciliatory statements and gestures, officials have not responded to these protests with resignations, reforms or other tangible actions, but with riot police, tear gas, live ammunition, and other repressive measures.

Outside of Iran and around the region, Shi‘i politicians, militiamen, and citizens mourned and condemned Soleimani’s assassination. The US drone strike not only killed Soleimani, but also Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and other senior commanders and officials of the Iranian-sponsored, Shi‘i paramilitary group, Kataʾib Hizballah, which is part of the Popular Mobilization Forces and vowed revenge. Tehran called for Kataʾib Hizballah and other militias in Iraq and elsewhere to exhibit restraint in order to avoid a direct confrontation with the United States. While funded and supported by Iran, these proxies and partners do not necessarily march to its orders. These groups could attack the United States if they deem that doing so is their prerogative and in their interests. Another factor that could disrupt or impede transnational solidarity between Iran and Iraq is the issue of Iraqi and Arab nationalism and sovereignty despite the religious affinity that exists between Iraqi and Iranian Shi‘a. As demonstrated during the widespread protests in Iraq that began last October, some Iraqi Shi‘a oppose Iran for meddling in Iraqi politics, corrupting the system, and violently suppressing the protests–in which Soleimani allegedly played a key role. Given that Suleimani’s assassination violated the sovereignty of Iraq and made it a battleground for intensified conflict between the United States and Iran, the Iraqi parliament passed a non-binding resolution to expel all foreign forces or those of both countries. In the end, Iraq’s national identity and sovereignty will continue to rival, if not supersede, its political loyalties and religious ties to Iran.

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam: One of the reasons why modern forms of psycho-nationalism have tried to think Iraq and Iran apart—Ba’thism in Iraq and Pahlavism in Iran—is exactly because the historical narratives are so conjoined. Ctesiphon is the ancient equivalent of Najaf for this common historical plane. In many ways, Iraq is to Iran, what Switzerland is to Germany. There are immensely rich transnational territories to traverse that go beyond sectarian clichés. Undoubtedly, regional peace in West Asia can only be achieved once such post-national embeddedness is diagnosed and then furthered. The Westphalian nation-state after all has done more harm than good, as it is premised on a particularly divisive form of psycho-national difference. In this sense, thinking beyond borders can only be a good thing.

6. If Soleimani’s death was, in fact, a moment of unity and transnational solidarity, how have the downing of the passenger flight and ensuing protests (if at all) changed those sentiments? That is, how would you explain the appearance of these various crowds (Aban, Soleimani funeral, Amir Kabir University) in such short proximity?


Eric Lob: 
Although the unintentional downing of the Ukranian passenger jet triggered the current protests at Amir Kabir University and elsewhere in Tehran and Iran, they can be viewed as an extension of those that occurred in Aban 1398/November 2019, if not before. With hundreds killed and countless more arrested by security forces, the wounds from those protests have not healed nor have their grievances related to authoritarian politics, economic mismanagement/corruption, and social restrictions been addressed. The Soleimani funeral may have provided the Iranian government with a brief respite from popular protests. However, only one week later, government and military officials have found themselves in the same predicament, if not worse, due to their lack of competence, transparency, and accountability during the incident and investigation involving the downed airliner–deficiencies that Iranians perceive as being symptomatic of the wider political establishment and system. As in the past, these officials have responded to the latest protests with riot police, tear gas, live ammunition, and other repressive measures that will likely further enrage and embolden the protesters and public. While offering their condolences, senior officials have refrained from taking the type of tangible actions–including dismissals, resignations, and reform–that many Iranians expect–an outcome that risks further inflaming tensions between these officials and the protestors. Though exacerbated externally by the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign, the Iranian government’s legitimacy crisis is the byproduct of its unwillingness to institute meaningful and substantive reform during the past forty years, as evidenced by the protestors calling for the supreme leader’s resignation and refusing to desecrate the American and Israeli flags.

Maryam Alemzadeh: For the reasons discussed above, it was not surprising that Soleimani’s assassination claimed a prime spot in many Iranian minds, replacing the violent repression of the Aban protests. In addition to Soleimani’s cross-sectional appeal among people, the fact that the killing was read as an act of war helped mobilize more citizens—at least to attend Soleimani’s funerals, if not to enlist for an actual war. When the IRGC anti-air missiles shot down a passenger plane by a disastrous mistake, everything that Soleimani’s persona had pushed to the margins came to the center of attention again. The mistake was immediately connected to the many mistakes that the IRGC’s learning-by-doing had caused during the Iran-Iraq War, including the shooting down of Iranian Army jets; it was traced to a decades-long preference for loyalty over skill.

Soleimani, although revered by non-loyal citizens because of his being detached from such flaws, was now seen as a figure heavily endorsed by the state. The state propaganda apparatus has been seizing every opportunity to benefit from Soleimani’s killing—to further demonize the United States, to repress internal dissent, and to claim all Soleimani’s mourners as its loyal subjects. Even if the plane crash had not outraged the public so shortly after the killing, the state’s move in owning Soleimani would have probably backfired eventually. For the ideologically loyal, the event and its state endorsement prompted a renewal of their allegiance. For others who respected Soleimani, however, it robbed them of the rationale for respecting him in the first place.

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam: In the absence of a structured form of agonistic politics that can reveal itself within institutions of the state, political expression in favor of fundamental changes to the very sovereignty and legitimacy of the state are pushed onto the “streets,” which are less governable. This is a form of “street politics” that has been unfolding itself in Iran for decades now. It is a part of the bottom up process that I mentioned, which will continue until state institutions manage to absorb and diffuse this pluralistic momentum in a grand spectacle of democratization. Until then, it will continue to manifest itself, even in an anarchic, unstructured form, that does not yield to the mold of “reformism.” Of course, it is in this de-institutionalized locus where violent protests can be fostered, exactly because of the political “loneliness” of this space, one that is devoid of leadership and headquarters. The Soleimani effect is comparable, but in the reverse direction. It molds a wider constituency that is distinctly transnational (in the way the former movement is not) into several commonalities: Resistance against the United States, Israel, support of Palestine, etc. It is a form of post-national politics that benefits the political status quo in Iran, and is thus functional to the legitimacy and sovereignty of the state in the way that the Amir Kabir University example, obviously is not.

____________________________

[1] Establishing the Lebanese Hizballah was arguably the first IRGC-led extraterritorial project, but it was implemented before the Quds Force existed.

 

[This roundtable was originally published by Jadaliyya on 14 January, 2020. Click here to read Part 2 of this roundtable, featuring scholars of Iraq, Yemen, and Syria reflecting on Iranian policy in these countries and the fallout from Soleimani’s assisination.]

Roundtable: Backdrop & Reverberations of Soleimani’s Assassination (Part 2: Iraq, Syria, and Yemen)

Roundtable: Backdrop & Reverberations of Soleimani’s Assassination (Part 2: Iraq, Syria, and Yemen)

[On 3 January 2020, the United States assassinated Major General Qassem Soleimani of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Corps Guard (IRGC). The event was an escalation by the Trump Administration in what many critical analysts consider a decades-long war waged by the United States against the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is a two-part roundtable convened by Arash Davari, Naveed Mansoori, and Ziad Abu-Rish on the regional backdrop and (admittedly short-term) fallout from the US assassination of Soleimani. In this part, Omar Sirri, Stacey Yadav Philbrick, and Samer Abboud reflect on the specific nature of Iranian policy in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria, respectively, and reactions therein to Soleimani’s assassination. Part 1 features scholars of Iran reflecting on the place of Soleimani and the IRGC in the political and institutional dynamics of the Iranian state.]

Question 1: What are the broad outlines of Iranian foreign policy in and their effects on the political, military, and economic status quo in your country of research prior to the US assassination of Qassem Soleimani?

Omar Sirri (on Iraq): Parastatal armed groups define Iraq’s political theatre. The public attention afforded these actors often stems from the Iranian support they receive—at least the most powerful ones, like the Badr Organization, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Kita’ib Hizballah, and others. Such groups have for years been implicated in violence against domestic and foreign foes alike, coercive practices that many suggest serve Iranian interests first. These Iraqi groups are key actors in the Iran-US conflict, as was most recently made clear with the US strike on Kita’ib Hizballah at the end of last year that killed at least twenty-five people.

Iran’s economic interests in Iraq, by comparison, receive little attention. Iraq is a huge recipient of Iran’s non-oil exports. Mini-marts and supermarkets in Baghdad, Basra, Suleimaniya, and elsewhere are packed with Iranian imports—including dairy products, potato chips, and chocolates. Probably the best-known good that has flooded Iraqi streets in the last decade is the Saba, an inexpensive vehicle from Iranian automaker Saipa. It is particularly popular among young and aspiring taxi drivers facing few-to-no job prospects. The car is also infamous, gaining a “rotten reputation” for its inadequate air conditioning during sweltering summer months, and for the inexperienced (and “bad”) drivers who operate them.

Such market penetration has helped to reshape social and economic life in Iraq—including the environment—in ways we have not fully appreciated or grappled with. Arguably, and ironically, the “free market” regime that Paul Bremer and the Bush Administration established in Iraq in 2003 most benefited Iranian exporters. A rudimentary understanding of macroeconomics suggests that such trade policies—which include incentivising cheap imports—make developing a productive and sustainable national economy practically impossible (let alone one crippled by decades of war and sanctions). These “free-market” policies are what helped decimate industry and agricultural production in Iraq after 2003.

This is why Iran’s support for parastatal armed actors also known as militias are not the only reason Iraq’s revolutionaries are calling for “Iran out.” It is not hard to find Iraqis who refuse to purchase Iranian goods out of principle—much like active supporters of Palestinian rights who never buy Sabra hummus. But today, such atomized resistance has found a collective outlet in the revolution, such as through grassroots “buy Iraqi” efforts being promoted by protesters in Tahrir Square and elsewhere.

Popular resistance to Iranian intervention in Iraq did not start with this revolution. For example, civil society activists have for years been organising against devastating Iranian (and Turkish) environmental policies, namely river water diversion and damming. While climate change is having catastrophic impacts on Iraq’s environment, Iranian policies are hastening these outcomes. Against minimal Iraqi government efforts to resist these hardly-neighbourly interventions, activists have sought to build a regional and international solidarity campaign to save the land of the two rivers from those whose interests are helping bring about its destruction.

Stacey Philbrick Yadav (on Yemen): Yemen’s political, military, and economic status quo is defined by a punishing civil war. The collective effects of five years of intense military conflict, diplomatic paralysis, and international indifference have left the country politically and socially fragmented with an economy in ruins as millions of civilians struggle to meet their most basic needs. Iran neither created this war, nor will Iranian policy end it (alone). Yet Iran’s alliance with the Houthi movement (Ansar Allah, as they prefer to be called today) and the former’s adversarial relationship to several of Yemen’s Gulf neighbors jointly shape the conflict dynamics that have caused so much suffering over the past five years of war. As noted in the second question, this idea—that the Houthis find an ally in Iran—differs from the proxy framing in that it recognizes that the Houthi insurgency predates substantial Iranian involvement. It has existed as an armed movement since 2004, and developed out of a broader populist movement during the 1990s. President Ali Abdullah Saleh (r. 1990–2012) alleged an outsized role for Iran throughout the 2000s in order to generate security assistance and create political cover for some of his domestic policies. (This worked, even though US officials knew Saleh’s claims were exaggerated.)

Iran’s support for the Houthi movement accelerated substantially when the movement was excluded from the externally-brokered power-sharing agreement that followed Saleh’s 2012 resignation. By the end of the 2012-14 “transitional process”—according to a framework designed by the GCC to limit the power of both the Houthi movement and Southern secessionists (al-Hirak al-Janubi)—other militias aligned with the movement already held a good deal of territory in North Yemen.

During the war itself, Iranian involvement in Yemen has been most pronounced in areas under Houthi control and has extended from military support toward governance functions. Some of the reported policies of the Houthis are not direct extensions of Iranian policies. For example, Iran’s representative institutions have not been replicated, nor are Yemeni women experiencing the kind of (circumscribed but sanctioned) mobility to which Iranian women are entitled. Houthi rule in the north appears to combine elements of martial law, practices modified from Iranian models, and some conservative social practices familiar to North Yemenis of different religious backgrounds.

Iranian policy thus appears to be less about making an Islamic Republic of Yemen in Sana’a than about adopting the low-cost strategy of supporting a winning ally as it attempts to govern. It may seem odd to describe the Houthi movement as “winners,” given that their militias have been stalled along largely stable battle lines for several years. But to the extent that they have survived a deeply asymmetric war for five years, hardened by almost a decade of insurgent war against the Yemeni state, the Houthi movement should be seen as a formidable ally. Moreover, since both military and diplomatic dynamics suggest that the Houthis do not aspire to govern the whole of Yemen but rather seek considerable regional autonomy and a part in power-sharing, any negotiated settlement that includes the Houthis would leave Iran with some path to continued political influence on the Arabian Peninsula—all with minimal direct military engagement.

Indeed, Iranian military engagement is outmatched by that of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both of which have played a much more substantial military role in the conflict, though it is far less common to see their relationships to Yemeni actors described in the same language of proxies. Certainly, the Gulf Cooperation Council’s desire to limit the power of the Houthi movement during Yemen’s transitional period (2012–14) had something to do with its member states’ concerns about Iranian influence on the Arabian Peninsula. Yet it was also inflected by the anti-Shi‘ism of Gulf regimes and by the domestic political preferences of some of the Gulf states’ own Yemeni allies. The Islah Party, in particular, was a significant beneficiary of the transitional process, even its relationship to the Muslim Brotherhood made this politically challenging to some Gulf allies. To treat any foreign policy—whether Iranian, Saudi, Emirati, or US—as existing outside of the pull of domestic constituencies is indefensibly statist.

Samer Abboud (on Syria): Iranian policy toward Syria has been principally focused on the battlefield and ensuring the survival of the Syrian regime. Any alternative to the current regime, especially one molded in the vision of US, Saudi, or Turkish interests, would have been strategically catastrophic for Iran. Iran has pursued a policy of regime survival through two modes. The first is military support and coordination with a whole range of military actors operating on the Syrian battlefield. There is obviously a deep connection with Hizballah and the Syrian and Russian militaries. Beyond this, Iran has supported and financed a number of militia groups composed of Syrians and non-Syrians who operated in specific Syrian locales. The Syrian regime-organized National Defense Forces (NDF) was also partially funded by Iran and some of its leaders were believed to have gone to Iran for military training. The second is a combination of indeterminable financial support, trade and barter deals, and the funneling of Iranian private sector investment into Syria. In other words, the effort to preserve the regime has been total. Since early 2017, Iran, Russia, and Turkey have been involved in a series of “talks,” commonly referred to as the Astana Process, that have the veneer of peace negotiations but are really about the management of the Syrian battlefield and in ensuring tripartite consensus over key issues of regional contention in Syria. For example, both the major Russian-led offensive in Idlib governorate that began in April 2019 and the Turkish intervention into northeastern Syria in October 2019, were military moves discussed and approved within this tripartite mechanism. This process is mostly issue- or time-specific; the parties meet to discuss specific “problems” and agree on a strategy moving forward, thus minimizing tripartite conflict and laying the basis for a Syrian future under tripartite suzerainty as the mechanism has no foreseeable termination. No major decisions about the Syrian battlefield are occurring outside of the Astana process. As such, Iranian, Russia, or Turkish capacity to act unilaterally is limited. Parallel to this, there are efforts toward some form of political transition. The best example of this is the United Nations-led Syrian Constitutional Committee (SCC), founded in 2019. But this is a mostly cosmetic process that is lower on the Iranian policy radar.

There is no serious reason to believe that these dynamics of Iranian intervention in Syria will change at all after the assassination of Qassem Soleimani. He was neither the sole architect or visionary of Iran’s role. The status quo is not seriously threatened by Soleimani’s assassination.

Question 2: Much of the discussion about Iranian-allied groups in regional states is framed within the model of proxies. What is your assessment of the utility of this model in understanding the relationship between specific power brokers and/or other groups and the Iranian regime?

Omar Sirri (on Iraq): The term “proxy” gives the sense that a local actor is solely doing the bidding of an external actor. At least this is how it is used in popular representations and mainstream media. But Iraqi political actors (armed groups among them) that are allied with and/or and backed by Iran cannot be exclusively characterized as such. This is because Iraq’s domestic political actors— Iranian-supported or otherwise—have embedded their own private interests into the everyday sources of power in the country. They derive a great deal of their private political dominance not merely from external actors, but from the ways in which they control ostensibly public resources and institutions. These micro sources of power are brought about and then reinforced through largely domestic capital accumulation and coercion—from financial profit and the exercise of violence. I try to capture the ways in which this occurs in Iraq in this POMEPS piece (the entire collection of essays on Iraq is fantastic), and in this ongoing LSE project.

Another reason why the “proxy” label is unfulfilling relates to political Islam. The power of al-Marja‘iyya in Najaf cannot be over-emphasized. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s insistence that his followers mobilize to help rout Da‘ish from Iraq did more to form al-Hashd al-Sha‘bi than Iran’s intervention. These religious actors espouse and promote particular versions of Iraqi nationalism that, while Shi‘a-centric, ultimately reject Iranian dominance. The political actors who receive support from Iran have to contend with these political-religious conditions that suggest popular legitimacy, power, and relevance come from Iraqi religious actors more than from Iranian ones.

This is to say nothing of Muqtada al-Sadr. There are few figures in Iraq who can “move the street” like he can—or at least a significant segment of it. In addition, a great deal of his popular support is derived from lower classes in and out of Baghdad. Some of those same people make up a portion of the revolutionaries in Tahrir Square demanding an end to Iranian (and US) interference in Iraq’s affairs. These intersections are kind of incredible. But they also mean that at the moment “proxy” is doing more to occlude critical details rather than illuminate them.

Stacey Philbrick Yadav (on Yemen): At a public lecture about a decade ago, I was asked why I decided to study “small and insignificant places like Yemen and Lebanon instead of important ones like Iran or Saudi Arabia.” Whenever people ask me about proxy dynamics in Yemen, I think back on that question because I find the discussion of proxies to be underwritten by a similar logic. To describe Yemeni actors as Iran’s proxies seems built on the idea that some countries (i.e., those that have proxies) “matter” more and others become significant only by association. So I have always tried to resist that moral economy, since it does not correspond to my view of what makes something—let alone someone—significant. But that is an affective response.

Conceptually, even though the idea of proxy war recognizes the central significance of sub-state actors (i.e., proxies), it simultaneously reinforces the (misplaced) centrality of states as the core units of analysis in international relations. A conflict is only described as a proxy war when another state or states is involved. In the case of Yemen, the Houthi movement matters to policy analysts (and to a surprising number of political scientists) insofar as it functions as an instrument of the Iranian state. I see several reasons to object to this. First, proxy framing underestimates the actors and forms of agency that shape relationships between allies. It directs us away from the domestic politics of both Yemen and Iran and the way each shapes alliance choices and practices. Second, scholars and policy analysts rarely use the same language to describe relationships between other states and the substate Yemeni factions with which they are aligned. For example, it’s rare to hear the Southern Transitional Council described as an Emirati proxy, even though it depends heavily on the material and political support of the United Arab Emirates. The Islah party and militias aligned with it are more often described as allies of Saudi Arabia, not Saudi proxies. We would be asking better questions if we approached all such relationships between external and Yemeni actors as alliances and sought to better understand what each party does and does not expect from its allies, how these alliances relate to domestic politics on both sides, and how competing interests are managed. The relationship between Iran and the Houthi movement does not strike me as so exceptional as to warrant different language and different analytical treatment.

Finally, this special focus on Iran’s relationship to the Houthi movement has contributed to a very lopsided approach to understanding the conflict in binary terms—a framing concretized by the UN Security Council resolution that authorized the Saudi-led coalition’s campaign in 2015. Whereas there is ample evidence that the war is being fought along several different axes simultaneously. I do not find it farfetched to say that reduction of the war in Yemen to a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran has substantively delayed a negotiated settlement to the war and prolonged the suffering of Yemeni civilians.

Samer Abboud (on Syria): The proxy argument assumes a hegemony and hierarchy between Iran and allied groups in the region that I simply do not think exists. To accept the proxy argument, we need to remove all motivations and capacities of the groups we are referring to, assuming that they simply do what Iranian leadership tell them. However, this removes any agency on the part of the so-called proxies and does not allow us to take seriously questions of negotiation, compromise, and disagreement between parties, which I think exists. A more appropriate analytic may be that of “alignment.” It allows us to understand both the coherency and tensions within the interrelationships that constitute the network of states and armed actors broadly supportive of the Syrian regime. These interrelationships are what we are trying to understand and explain. I see no good reason why we need to elevate the proxy argument whenever we see an overlap of interests and strategies.

Thinking in terms of alignment rather than proxies allows for some nuance in how we see different actors in Syria. Consider, for example, the fourth and fifth military divisions of the Syrian Army. They have been reincarnated with different names and leaderships in recent years. It is nevertheless well known that the fifth division coordinates operations with Iranian officials and receives support and training from them, while the fourth was virtually under the command of the Russian military presence in Syria. How can we account for such fissures within the Syrian army? Are these divisions merely proxies of either state? Or are they competing centers of power that are malleable to battlefield and political conditions? The proxy argument has ready-made answers to questions of power, competition, strategy, and coordination that shift our attention away from how the interrelationships between actors are constituted.

Question 3: What has been the reaction to and/or effect of Soleimani’s death in different sectors of your research country? Has this reaction reaffirmed and/or challenges certain assumptions (and if so how)?

Omar Sirri (on Iraq): Overwhelming fear. Many were right to assume after Soleimani’s assassination that Iraq would become the battlefield on which US and Iranian forces would fight and kill (if it is not already). This meant Iraqis would continue to suffer the most. Had the conflict escalated, some of the worst predictions about the ramifications of his assassination were probably the right ones—just as they were about the US- and UK-led invasion in 2003. Also understandable were the reactions of activists and civil society actors who refused to shed a tear for Soleimani’s demise. He symbolized Iranian intrusions in Iraqi political affairs precisely because he coordinated and supervised them. This is where the earlier proxy argument stems from: Iran’s support for parastatal armed actors in Iraq is real. Most citizens blame these groups for some of Iraq’s worst civil violence, in Baghdad and elsewhere. Iran’s support helped fuel that violence, hence the popular loathing directed at it.

Lost in the media mayhem around Soleimani’s killing was that of Abu Mehdi al-Muhandis. As the deputy head of al-Hashd al-Sha‘bi, his assassination is stunning in its own right. Al-Hashd al-Sha‘bi became an official state institution in 2016 and al-Muhandis is a key power broker and centralising force among the discrete, competing groups that make up the organization. It is still unclear what his killing will mean for al-Hashd al-Sha‘bi, its component groups, and their respective political-economic interests for which they all scrape.

As the geopolitical tensions ratchet down, I wonder how useful it is to suggest that these events are the “death knell” for Iraq’s revolutionary moment. The structural economic conditions that brought about this revolution persist. The political-economic elite certainly benefit from persistent “instability” and precarity; Iraq’s last decade and a half prove this. But the last three months in Iraq also suggest something entirely new and powerful has occurred and been nurtured by Iraqis of various classes and generations. The longevity of this popular mobilization indicates that a radically different political agency is here to stay—one in which its participants have withstood some of the most rank and vicious political violence carried out by Iraq’s ruling class. This is not a prediction but a reflection: The stubborn failure of Iraq’s politicians to address people’s grievances likely means those airing them are not going anywhere.

Stacey Philbrick Yadav (on Yemen): In the context of a protracted civil war, reactions to Soleimani’s death have been characteristically divided. On the one hand, some prominent Yemenis (and Yemeni Americans) explicitly celebrated his killing—which initially surprised me. Many of the same people have been deeply critical of US drone strikes conducted in Yemen. On the other hand, thousands of people turned out for official mourning proceedings in Sana’a. Some observers said this was required by Houthi authorities; it is hard to actually assess these claims from afar, but I can say that some Yemeni friends who have associations with the United States chose to leave the capital for a while to avoid the perceived risk of retaliation.

The most depressing reaction—though not unexpected—has been the policing of independent voices online. Yemenis who have tried to challenge the “celebrators” by pointing to the damage that unchecked US air strikes and drone attacks have caused in Yemen have been shouted down as Houthi “sympathizers.”  In other words, it remains very difficult for Yemenis (and non-Yemenis, frankly) to speak about the war, about Iran, about almost anything having to do with the conflict without it being interpreted in a Manichean, deeply polarized way. The independent center—never an easy place for Yemeni activists or analysts—is shrinking still.

Samer Abboud (on Syria): I think it is reasonable to assume that Soleimani’s assassination will not have a significant impact on Iranian policy in Syria more generally, or the battlefield in particular. Soleimani was indeed an important figure in Syria but he was not active merely as an individual—but as a representative of a state. Nor did he command any specific allegiances in Syria that may disrupt the network of regime-aligned groups. Nevertheless, he was a very public and polarizing figure in Syria as his presence on the battlefield was regularly documented and shared online. Soleimani thus came to personify Iran’s intervention into Syria. As such, like everything related to Syria, the range of responses to Soleimani’s assassination were polarizing and ran the gamut from celebration to mourning.

The more consequential impact of Soleimani’s assassination will be in the long-term as we see how, if at all, Hizballah’s declared strategy of ridding the region of US occupation plays out. In Syria, Russian military officials have been successful in striking a confounding balance between different forces and interests on the ground. For example, they permit regular Israeli air strikes and the presence of US military bases while maintaining alignment with Iran, other armed groups, and the Syrian regime. Should there be a shift in the strategies of Hizballah and other armed groups toward direct engagement with the US military presence in Syria, then this delicate balance will not hold and we could see the emergence of a very different conflict.

[This roundtable was originally published by Jadaliyya on 21 January, 2020. Click here to read Part 1 of this roundtable, featuring scholars of Iran reflecting on the place of Soleimani and the IRGC in the political and institutional dynamics of the Iranian state.]

Secularism in Syria: A National and Democratic Need

Secularism in Syria: A National and Democratic Need

*This new roundtable with SyriaUntold and Jadaliyya will pose questions about the prospects for secularism in Syria’s future. The full roundtable in Arabic can also be found here.

A great deal of confusion and distortion have overshadowed our society regarding the concept of secularism, as it has been considered the antithesis of religion and a coequal of blasphemy and atheism. This is a deliberate distortion which the legacy of the Ba‘thist era contributed to, which in turn claims secularism through tools of despotism and exclusionary positions that are hostile to religion, faith, and believers, as well as to all those who are not under its banner, following the suit of totalitarian communist despotic regimes.

This era extended for almost five decades, during which the state monopolized the public affairs sphere and political action. It also monopolized the economy and the country’s wealth. It fenced itself off with security apparatuses and an ideological army that adopted the ideology of the leading party, which gradually replaced loyalty to the nation and citizens’ rights. It also domesticated all manifestations of civil society and unions, which became affiliated to the National Security Bureau under the leadership of the Ba‘th party, the leader of the state and society under the constitutional text.

Regimes that Claim Secularism

Nevertheless, these regimes–which claim secularism–did not hesitate to employ the notion of religious and national particularity and take advantage of the religious emotions of the Muslim public as tools in their conflict with political Islam. So, we had al-Sadat, the faithful president in Egypt, Saddam Hussein who added “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) to the Iraqi flag in 1991, and the al-Assad regime which fostered the huge surge in mosque construction, in addition to the establishment of al-Assad Institutes for the Memorization of the Qur’an. Most importantly, these progressive and secular regimes were keen, in all the constitutions they produced, to stipulate in various forms that “the religion of the head of the state is Islam” and that “Islamic shari‘a is the main source of legislation!”

Based on its position in power, this pragmatism insists on consorting with the crowd of popular Islam through fatwa and endowment institutions and mosque preachers, and through bribing this crowd with some slogans, building some mosques, or allowing some of them to leave their jobs for an hour or so on a daily basis under the pretext of noon prayers!

On the other hand, this pragmatism found no harm in consorting with some secular intellectuals and forces in their societies, motivated by the need to respond to Western pressures or demands of international organizations to modernize laws concerning public freedoms and human rights, especially the rights of women and children.

Laws that Went into Drawers and Never Came Out

In this context, I worked with a legal team of colleagues who worked with the Syrian Commission for Family Affairs, which was established by Decree 42 of 2003, with the aim of modernizing the legal and constitutional structure of the state. I was granted the right to work on amending all legislations leading to promoting gender equality.

We practically completed the Syrian Child Rights Law and the Parties and Associations in Syria Law. We were going to develop a modern family law as an alternative for the Civil Status Law. The completed laws were discussed with a group of Syrian legal experts and then with representatives of the European Union and international organizations in Damascus. These draft laws were then sent to the competent authorities for discussion and endorsement. However, they went into drawers and never came out.

This renaissance was not meant to last for long as the portfolio of modernizing and developing the legal structure in Syria was quickly closed, especially in regards to the civil status law and women’s and children’s rights. Moreover, a new civil status draft law was presented in 2009 that reflected a fundamental tendency that was more backward and discriminatory, and violated women and their rights. This irritated most Syrian intellectuals, so they delved in discussions to refute it, eventually succeeding in preventing it from being passed.

Retreat to a Pre-State Situation

In an atmosphere of Ba‘thist/military tyranny and the great absence of the state from its functions in the domains of services, development, and securing its citizens, new forms of retreat emerged that resembled societal and ideological structures that belong to the pre-modern state, from the family to clans and tribes all the way to sects and even regional and local affiliations. This constituted a suitable atmosphere for the revival of all forms of religiousness, from Sufism to Salafism and all the way to political Islam and jihadist movements which the regime directed toward its historical rival represented by the Ba‘th authority in Iraq–but then they rebounded against the regime itself after the eruption of the Syrian spring uprisings in 2011.

Also, within the context of this uprising, a great number of religious, sectarian, tribal, clan, and ethnic affiliations emerged, which the Ba‘thist tyranny had denied the existence of before the fall of its statues. Therefore, we can say that this spring, despite its current repercussions, has succeeded in exposing the bipolar Ba‘thist and religious tyrannies. The former defended its survival against the people by creating sectarian, ethnic, and regional polarizations and resorted to countries and militias that contributed to the destruction of the country, society, and state structures. Political Islam and its historically outdated powers went in the same direction reversing only the orientation as they adopted a sectarian and divisive rhetoric, resorting to more backward and brutal powers that contributed to the destruction of Syria and the killing and displacement of Syrians.

The Problem of Political Islam

The problem of political Islam is that it refuses to separate between the domains of faith and worship on the one hand and state affairs on the other. It considers that Islam not only covers the faith aspect of the creed, but also regulates the affairs of people in regards to food, clothes, and dealing with people. Its preachers add that during the time of the Islamic caliphate, the caliph or sultan was entrusted with both religious and political powers. Thus, he was both the ruler and the imam at the same time. In their opinion, this is contrary to the norms of other monotheistic religions. That is why they insist on the slogan “Islam is the solution,” ignoring changes over time and the needs of modern times on the one hand, and the problem of plurality and divisions between religions, and even within the same religion, on the other hand.

This explains the animosity and rejection of the radical Islamic discourse toward secularism. The former aims at alienating the incubator of non-radical popular Islam away from the latter and away from intellectuals and social and political powers who call for this concept. Islamic discourse considers secularism as blasphemy and libertinism, a departure from the shari‘a and inherited traditions of our conservative societies, and even a sabotaging and destabilizing factor of these traditions and societies.

Anyone who follows the happenings of the conflict between the military and religious tyrannies in Syria will discover that it is a conflict of interest and the mundane, and that it was never about religion and secularism. This contributed to the formation of a simplistic ideological polarization that left Syrians, and even segments of their intellectuals and political and civil actors, stuck in a bipolar tyranny. This hindered the development and modernization of society because of the need for an atmosphere of freedom and democracy, including the freedom of faith and freedom to exercise religious rituals and rites, which no religious state can provide.

A Religious State is Tyrannical by Necessity

Religious states throughout history have been tyrannical by necessity because they exclude other religions from the state’s political sphere, which they monopolize, as we see in Israel, for example. Not to mention that religions in general, and Islam in particular, are historically divided into doctrines and sects, which would be excluded or persecuted in any religious state, such as in the mullahs’ regime in Iran in all its internal policies and external wars. How do we get out of this impasse then?

Shaykh Ali Abdul Razzaq tried to address this issue in his book Islam and Origins of Rule in 1925. He rejected the notion of Islamic rule, adding that “Islam is a message not a rule. It is a religion, not a state.” He also said, “the caliphate is a religious system, the Koran did not demand it or refer to it. Islam is innocent of the caliphate system.”

Therefore, we need alternatives for the religious caliphate state, which divides the society and does not unite it, destroys the economy and does not make development, and stands against modernity and history and does not develop science and society. We need a modern state that adopts the principle of secularism and a pluralistic democratic system, which ends the era of tyranny, stops the ongoing wars and fighting, and unites all citizens under the constitution and law, rendering them a people capable of making their own future.

Secularism Is Not Against Religion

Secularism is a philosophical, social, and political system that is based on the principle of separating religion from the state, without being against religion or faith. It considers that religion is related to natural or real persons and that its sphere is within the personal conscious of individuals or within intellectual and faith beliefs. It should not be linked to the state, because the state in the modern political thought is a nominal entity–like any other administrational institution–in which residents can believe in a religion or religions or not believe in anything of this sort. The state has to be neutral toward all religions and toward the various sects and beliefs of its citizens.

With a quick look at Western countries, which adopt the principle of secularism in their constitutions, and despite many lapses, one can see that these states maintained their neutrality toward religion or religions in general, without hostility or being against them. Secular states respect all religions and protect them because of their democratic nature. They respect all religious people in all their variations and denominations and defend their right to believe and exercise their rituals and rites, and they also respect those who reject religion. However, they prevent encroachment by any religion or religious people into the public sphere of the state’s administration and regulations, which have no religion.

There Must Be a Democratic System Rooted in the Principle of Secularism

In our observed reality as Syrians, and in a country that witnessed war or wars over its land and the settling of regional and international scores for many years, and after nearly half the population became displaced people or refugees, we are now in desperate need of a massive force to restore the unity of Syrians that was lost due to military and religious tyrannies, neither of which seem capable of achieving this unity now or in the future. There must be a democratic system rooted in the principle of secularism as the only possible solution in this gray portrait. It is a historical necessity for any national and democratic project for Syria’s future: a project for a non-religious state with a mission to control the political sphere and the general administration through a social contract with all its citizens. This social contract is what unites all citizens in the state under the constitution and law and makes them a people, regardless of their beliefs and sects.

Western Secularism as an Example

History is the best proof. Western Christianity went through various bloody conflicts and sectarian divisions that began with the religious reform led by Martin Luther in 1517. Millions of victims paid for these divisions in Europe before the Holy Roman Empire signed the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the era of religious wars between the Protestants and Catholics.

The importance of this peace is that it established a new system in Europe based on the independence of each state within its territorial border i.e., the sovereignty of states in the political and administrative sense inside their geographical border, as opposed to the sovereignty of the church or the holy, which have no border. In other words, it was the separation of the religious institution from the state institution, and not abolishing religion or fighting it. This consequently allowed the development of governance, administration, and economic systems apart from the dominance of the religious scripts and interests of the church.

Absence of Religious Islamic Reform

Unfortunately, Islamic societies have not been through this era of religious reform. The decline of the Ottoman empire in its last days encouraged European colonialism to share the legacy of the ill man. Subsequent independence regimes did not achieve any societal and democratic development in the structures of the state. Successive military coups in Syria contributed to the transition toward Ba‘th tyranny and the one-party dictatorship, which produced a catastrophic failure on all ethical, political, and developmental levels.

It is a sad paradox in Syria–and the region in general–that five hundred years after the religious reform of Christianity and Europe we go back to the worst version of Islamic caliphate in a backward tyrannical form. This was manifested by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which led to the destruction of the political and economic sphere, the general field of administration, and civil society. It showed contempt for the essence of the faith when it brought people back to the nomadism of the desert and the ignorance of princes and clerics who beheaded people, captured women and sold them as bondmaids in slave markets, and conspired against the people in the name of religion and god. This produced the current historical failure of political Islam, which stands in contrast to the world, history, and interests of the peoples.

Yes, the reality is dire, and there is no way to rise except within a national democratic project that adopts secularism as a constitutional framework to build the state.

The state of secularism in Syria, after nine years of destruction

The state of secularism in Syria, after nine years of destruction

*This roundtable with SyriaUntold and Jadaliyya poses questions about the prospects for secularism in Syria’s future. The full roundtable in Arabic can also be found here.

 

Secular discourse in Syria has been one of the victims of the Syrian revolution. Why? The regime, Islamic factions, Gulf countries and Turkey all collaborated to chip away at this discourse, excluding it from the table of discussion. And while the regime used secularism as a political playing-card, a cosmetic decoration without substance; opposition factions marginalized the concept of secularism, considering it synonymous with atheism and apostasy.

But even before the outbreak of the revolution, there was a heated debate between four intellectual currents that addressed the issue of secularism: the Islamic and the regime, majoritarian and minority.

The Islamic current and secularism

The first was the Islamic current, with which there is no appeasement with secular thought. This current was led by intellectual clerics and jurists, in addition to other ordinary people and populists.

All of them took the easy way of citing holy scripture in order to make the claim that secularism is a Western product with the aim of destroying Islam.

Some even went so far as to say that secularism is the product of some Jewish movement that “wants to spread atheism around the world and use secularism as a cover,” as Abdelrahman Hasan Habannakeh once said.

The regime current

The regime current made a historic settlement with the Islamic current—headed by the late sheikh, Mohammed Saeed Ramadan al-Bouti—whereby Islamists would leave alone the political and economic spheres to the regime so long as the regime would leave cultural and social spheres to the clerics.

This agreement gained strength after the international pressure on the Syrian regime that followed the US occupation of Iraq, and Syria’s role in sending jihadist fighters to fight against US forces and to commit some of the most heinous sectarian massacres.

As a result of this international pressure, the authorities responded with a combination of nationalism and religious rhetoric.

Before the revolution, we observed a significant rise in religious discourse in the political performances of decision-makers in Syria—and especially during the crisis following the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri and the subsequent external pressures on the Syrian government—along with an increasing courting between between the government and the pillars of the more closed religious establishment. This preceded radical unrest from Islamist groups, culminating in the burning down and destruction of the Danish and Norwegian embassies in February 2006.

This strong alliance between the regime and the clerics had to clear the way of obstacles that might stand in its way. So, open-minded clerics, such as Mohammed Shahrour and Dr. Mashouq al-Khaznawi, were attacked. Shahrour repeatedly said that “Islam does not contradict secularism,” ans that it “considers people as equal, and are only distinguished by their good deeds.”

He clearly stated: “Putting the article of ‘Islam is the religion of the state’ in any constitution is meaningless, and is a fallacy to control the fate of people. It is better to focus on the state, institutions and laws so that the likes of Merkel and Trudeau can rule through institutions and not through the figures themselves.”

Before he was killed, al-Khaznawi explicitly called for secularism, or what he defined as “ultimately, the separation of religion from the state.” Al-Khaznawi called secularism a “demand that serves both sides,” in that a “distancing of religion from the state and political action serves to protect religion itself, its status, values and higher principles.”

The call for secularism, in al-Khaznawi’s opinion, could be associated with the idea of “no compulsion in religion” and the idea of humanitarian brotherhood, which he considered a key part of the discussion.

Al-Khaznawi worked on “finding commonalities between people of various intellectual, political and social orientations, especially between the people of the same nation.”

In the end, Shahrour had to flee abroad along with his rationalist doctrine, while al-Khaznawi died as a result of torture in the mid-2000s.

The majoritarian current that ‘deifies the people’

The third current, majoritarian in nature, is comprised of a broad spectrum of Syrian intellectuals who deify “the people” and seek to appease the “majority.”

These intellectuals called for a soft secularism, without teeth, that would remain in the upper echelons of the state without descending to the people in society. These people consider secularism to be something that serves dictatorship and deprives the majority (itself mainly Sunni) of freedom of expression because it seeks to separate religion from institutions and considers that that priority should be given to humans and not religion and its institutions, people or sects.

They want rid this gentle secularism to be wrested from the clutches of sour secularists, to instead make it acceptable to the majority. So, they say that secularism does not contradict with Islam and seek its origins in Arab-Islamic history.

The minority current

The fourth is the minority current that calls for a non-ideological state that maintains the same distance from all religions and belief systems, and does not interfere with the content of religious beliefs. It does not regulate religions and has to treat all religions and philosophical doctrines equally, without endorsing any one over another. It does not only guarantee freedom of belief, but also guarantees the freedom to exercise religious rites, protecting individuals and guaranteeing their free choice to have a religion orientation (or not).

This current is also keen that no group or sect is able to impose its religious or sectarian identity or affiliation, and in particular, forcefully divide individuals according to their family origins.

Secularism in revolution

With the rise of the Syrian revolution, the Islamic current gained in strength and power, both in areas controlled by the opposition as well as the regime. Referring to secularism became a hated matter—a taboo, even. It became a charge in and of itself, in areas controlled by the opposition factions, that secularism was somehow equal to blasphemy or apostasy.

Syrian secular intellectuals, or intellectuals friendly to the concept of secularism, abandoned their ideas and started using the term “civil” rather than “secular.” Some even sought to play the role of religious reformers instead of being critics, so, they raised the issue of “Islamic reform,” reverting back to more than a century ago in their thoughts and finding themselves among the likes of Mohammed Abdo and Mohammed Rashid Reda, at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century.

Areas under the regime’s control were no better off. The regime, which often boasts of its secularity, had to respond to this Islamic tide. We can clearly see that in the controversial law regarding the role of the Ministry of Endowments, which was considered by many Ba’athists and regime supporters as something that “reinforces religious divides in the country and allows the ministry to have absolute power over a number of the state’s joints, turning it in to a ministry with no partners in decision-making.”

Not only did the regime bow to this Islamic expansion, it also made concessions to Shia authorities and Christian churches, transforming the country—and even individual cities—into a patchwork of different states and cities.

In Damascus, for example, lifestyles in Qasaa and Bab Touma are different than that in al-Maidan, while the lifestyles in those areas are yet again different to those in al-Amin or Sayeda Zeinab.

The result has been the strengthening of social divisions between various components that make up the Syrian nation.

The state of Syrian secularism today

We can conclude that the state of secularism in Syria today is worse than it was a decade ago, or even before that. Syria has always known some sort of transparent secularism since its disengagement from the Ottoman Empire. Although this was not secularism in name, it was clear and lenient and no one objected to it. However, today Syria finds itself in much worse shape.

Many of those who claim they are secular are in fact in the same ranks with the regime, supporting its libertinism against the Syrian people—whether because of a fear that Islamists will overrun the country, or because they still cling to desperate leftist positions that are based on reaction rather than initiatives and action.

On the other hand, many of the intellectuals abandoned their secularity, claiming that now is not the time for theoretical and philosophical luxuries but for real change on the ground.

We will need a few more years yet before we can raise the issue so it can be discussed seriously and fruitfully. Nevertheless, raising any proposal for Syria’s future that leaves out the issue secularism would be another step toward alienating the country from modernity, democracy and cohabitation.

Secularism is a necessity in order to produce a modern, national state in contrast to a non-state, tyranny, violence and oppression. Secularism is the most important tool for Syrians to establish unity based on plurality and diversity.

Let’s also keep in mind that secularism is not value judgment, but a method of thought and life that considers human beings to be the essence of the issue as opposed to thought, belief or religion. This alone makes societal unity a sound place for life, interaction, production and development.

Perhaps the best epilogue is Syrian intellect Jahd al-Karim al-Jibaai’s claim that secularism is “not an external characteristic that we arbitrarily apply on a state or arbitrarily take away from it.”

“It is not a self-value judgement that secularist use to describe the state, but rather a rule of reality that is related to the foundation of the modern national state and its principles,” he said. “It is not a cultural choice or an ideological bias, except on the individual level. A national state is either secular or not a national state or even a state in the first place. This is not about the reality of difference and diversity religiously and ethnically, but about the essence of the modern state, which is basically a state of rights and law.”

 

 

العلاقة بين الدولة العلمانية والدولة المدنية

العلاقة بين الدولة العلمانية والدولة المدنية

*تُنشر هذه المادة ضمن ملف “آفاق العلمانية في سوريا

يزداد الجدل حدة، في أوساط النخب الثقافية والسياسية العربية ومنها بالطبع سوريا بيت القصيد، حول مفهوم الدولة المدنية، بين من يقول بأن الدولة المدنية لا يمكن أن تكون إلا دولة علمانية، وآخر يقول أن الدولة المدنية ليست نقيضاً للدولة الإسلامية، لأن المعايير التي تقوم عليها الدولة المدنية متوفرة في نظرة الإسلام للدولة.
وفي الوقت الذي يلتقي على الرأي الأول اتجاهان متناقضان ايديولوجياً، أولهما: التيارات العلمانية التي يؤكد منظروها، على علمانية الدولة المدنية. وثانيهما: الاتجاهات الإسلامية الراديكالية، التي تصر على اعتبار الدولة المدنية هي نفسها الدولة العلمانية، لذلك ترفض الاثنتان، هذا لسان حال المنظمات الإسلامية المتشددة منها جبهة النصرة ناهيك عن القاعدة، كما عبر عن ذلك بصراحة شديدة حزب التحرير الإسلامي الأردني.

غير أن أغلب تيارات “الإسلام السياسي” اتخذت موقفا مغايراً، رأت فيه أن “الأصول الإسلامية لا تتنافى في شيء مع مفهوم الدولة المدنية، بل تؤسس لها وتتفق معها. في المقابل  نجد عدداً من القوى والشخصيات العلمانية في سوريا، تبتعد عن العلمانية، بل تتخلى عنها لصالح الدولة المدنية، منهم برهان غليون[i] وحسن عبد العظيم المنسق العام لهيئة التنسيق الوطنية يعلن أنه مع الدولة المدنية بوصفها دولة المدينة وصحيفة المدينة، وهي التي أنشأها النبي العربي منذ 14 قرناً، ويبرر استخدامه لمصطلح المدنية كون العلمانية لها حساسية في القواعد الشعبية. من بين المتراجعين أيضاً، المعارض حازم نهار، الذي كان يقول إن سر نجاح أي ثورة هو منطقها العلماني، لكنه حالياً يسوق للدولة المدنية على اعتبار أن الشارع يملك حساسية تجاه كلمة العلمانية. وأيضاً رئيس تيار بناء الدولة السورية لؤي حسين الذي يعتبر الاستبدال هو في المصطلح فقط وليس المضمون.

وهناك قوى عديدة علمانية أو تدعي العلمانية (كالقوى الشيوعية التي لا تشغلها قضية العلمانية إلاّ في المناسبات)، التي تساهم رغم حسن النوايا في خلط المفاهيم ودعم القوى المعارضة للعلمانية.

ومن جهة النظام في سوريا، بقيادة حزب البعث، فهو لم يكن يوماً نظاماً علمانياً، فالموقف التاريخي لقيادة حزب البعث منذ تأسيسه غامض، ومنذ تسلمه السلطة لم يكن حزب البعث سوى تابع وأداة بيد النظام الديكتاتوري الشمولي العسكري، المسيطر على مفاصل الدولة، ومؤسساتها وعلى المجتمع بشكل مطبق، حيث لا نجد فرقاً بين السلطة والدولة ، بل السلطة هي الدولة في ظل النظام الشمولي.

ورغم قدرة هذا النظام على فرض ما يشاء من قوانين وقرارات، دون رقابة أو معارضة، إلا أنه لم يشأ أن يفرض نظاماً علمانياً، حيث هناك تجارب تم فرض العلمانية فيها بقوة النظام، كما حصل في تركيا والاتحاد السوفيتي.

غير أن النظام السوري استخدم العلمانية، واستفاد من هذه الصورة الملتبسة التي ساهمت فيها أولاً: القوى الإسلامية التي كانت تدعي وتحرض ضد النظام مدعية أنها تحارب نظاماً علمانيا كافراً. واستفاد النظام من هذه الورقة كوسيلة للدعاية له أمام وسائل الإعلام الغربية لينال دعمها ضد الأصولية الإسلامية، غير أنه على أرض الواقع لم يفصل الدين عن مؤسسات الدولة، ويبرهن على ذلك الدستور في نص المادة الثالثة مننسخة عام 1973 وعام 2012 التي تتكون من فقرتين الأولى: دين رئيس الجمهورية الإسلام، والثانية: الشريعة الإسلامية مصدر أساسي للتشريع. ويجدر الإشارة هنا، أن قانون الأحوال الشخصية في سوريا، ليس فقط خاضعاً للشريعة، بليضعه رجال الدين وليس السلطة التشريعية،[ii] حيث يتم بداية اقتراح القوانين من قبل المرجعية الدينية الخاصة بكل طائفة،وتطرح على أعضاء مجلس الشعب لإقرارها و بعدها يتم التصديق والنشر وتصبح قانوناً. وغالباً ما يتم إقرار هذه القوانين دون الكثير من النقاش. إضافة لوجود مواد تجعل من أتباع ديانات غير المسلمين من المرتبة الثانية. كما أن وزارة الأوقاف جزء من السلطة التنفيذية، ويتم تعيين خطباء المساجد بقرار رسمي، و يتم تحديد الخطب الدينية والموافقة المسبقة عليها.

بعد الحراك الثوري الذي شهدته الساحة السورية، والتحول الدامي بعد استخدام العنف المسلح إلى الحرب، وصلت الانقسامات إلى أوجها بين مكونات الشعب السوري، على أساس سياسي وطائفي ومناطقي واجتماعي. وأصبح خطاب الكراهية والانقسام الطائفي طافياً وبارزاً من خلال محاولات الاستقطاب والتعبئة من قبل الأطراف المتناحرة، سواء من قبل النظام أو المعارضة المسلحة، واستطاعت القوى المتشددة في المناطق التي خرجت عن سيطرة النظام، بناء كنتونات عسكرية، تحكم المواطنين وفق قوانين شرعية، شكلت طابعاً مصغراً لدويلات دينية، وفي هذا السياق الاجتماعي والسياسي، حصلت مساومات بين النظام والمرجعية الدينية الفقهية واتخذت السلطة قرارات في خدمة أسلمة المجتمع السوري تحت مسمى دعم التيارالديني الوسطي.

ونحن على أعتاب مرحلة، يُفترض أن تحمل حلاً للأزمة السورية يؤدي إلى بناء مؤسسات جديدة للدولة، وإن كان الدستور المرتقب جزءاً من الحل، من المتوقع أن يتم التوافق فيه على جملة من القضايا، في ظل توافق وتأثير دولي وازن ومؤثر. ولو فرضنا تم الاتفاق على علمانية الدولة السورية، كيف ستكون ردة فعلالفئات الاجتماعية المختلفة والقوى المؤثرة في الواقع السوري؟ وماذا نريد دولة علمانية أم دولة مدنية أمدولة علمانية مدنية؟ هذا ما سوف أحاول الإجابة عليه في هذا البحث.

تعريف الدولة العلمانية

استخدم مصطلح العلمانية لأول مرة، مع نهاية حرب الثلاثين عاماً سنة 1648 عند توقيع صلح وستفاليا.[iii] وكلمة علمانية هي ترجمة لكلمة secularism (سكيولاريزم) المشتقة من الكلمة اللاتينية saculum (سيكولوم) والتي تعني العصر أو الجيل، أما في لاتينية العصور الوسطى، فهي تعني العالم أو الدنيا.

انبثقت دولة الحق والقانون، في سياق التحولات التاريخية الكبرى التي شهدتها أوروبا، بعد صراع طويلامتد ثلاثة قرون، ما بين العقل التنويري العلمي، وبين العقل الديني المسيحي وهذا ما سمي عصر التنوير. وتحت لوائه اندلعت الثورات في الغرب كالانكليزية 1680 والأمريكية 1770 والفرنسية 1789. وتزامن اندلاع الثورات في الغرب مع انتشار الفلسفات العقلانية، والرؤية العلمية والمادية بين الجمهور المتعلم، التي تعود جذورها إلى ما أنتجه فرانس بيكون 1620 في المنهج الجديد، وإلى كتابات هوبز 1679، وإلى عقلانية ديكارت، وإلى حلولية سبينوزا 1670 وإلى امبريقية جون لوك 1726 وأفكار لا بنتس، ومن بعدهم جاء: جان جاك روسو 1787 ، ومونتسيكو 1787. وتميزت هذه الثورات بالقطيعة المعرفية مع التصورالإلهي للكون، وقامت على أساس اعتبار المواطن الإنسان مركز الكون. ومن المتفق عليه أن فكر حركة التنوير هو الأساس الفلسفي التي انطلقت وبنيت عليه الدولة العلمانية، هي ببساطة رؤية مادية عقلانية حول رؤية محددة للعقل وعلاقته بالطبيعة، يكون فيها عقل الإنسان، والمرجعية الإنسانية مصدراً وحيدا للمعرفة وفق قواعد المنطق والحواس والتجريب. فمثلاً اعتبر روسو العقد الاجتماعي هو تعبير عن الإرادة العامة، من خلالها يتنازل الناس أمام الإرادة العامة، عن إرادتهم الخاصة. انطلاقاً من الرؤية الطبيعية التعاقدية، ومن الإيمان بالقانون الطبيعي وبقدرات الإنسان، أكد عصر التنوير فصل الدين عن الدولة، وعن رقعة الحياة العامة التي يمارس المواطن فيها حقوقه وحرياته.

ثمّة مبدآن علمانيان جوهريان ينبثقان من هذا الفصل:
المبدأ الأوّل: تفصلُ الدولة العلمانية بين مجالين مختلفين في حياة الناس: المجال العام مكرّسٌ لخدمة جميعالمواطنين على قدم المساواة، ويضمّ شؤون كالقانون والتعليم، وفي هذا المجال لا مرجعية لأي دينٍ. أماالمجال الخاص فيستوعب كلَّ المعتقدات والرؤى الشخصية، دينية كانت أم لادينية، أوإلحادية.
المبدأ الثاني: الدولة العلمانية تضمن المساواة الكلية، بين كل المتدينين بمختلف مذاهبهم، واللامتدينين والملحدين أيضاً. وتدافع عن حريتهم المطلقة في إيمانهم أو عدم إيمانهم (حريّة الضمير) .

تعريف الدولة المدنية

الدولة المدنية[iv] هي دولة لا عسكرية ولا دينية، ينعم فيها المواطنون بالحرية والمساواة في الحقوقوالواجبات، تسودها قيم الثقافة المدنية: كالتسامح وقبول الآخر والثقة في عمليات التعاقد والتبادل المختلفة. ومن مبادىء الدولة المدنية:

مبدأ المواطنة الذي يعني أن الفرد لا يُعرّف بمهنته أو بدينه أو بإقليمه أو بماله أو بسلطته، أو بجنسه، وإنمايُعرّف تعريفاً قانونياً اجتماعياً بأنه مواطن وعضو في المجتمع له حقوق وعليه واجبات.

مبدأ الديمقراطية والتداول السلمي للسلطة.

ومن المبادىء الهامة  في الدولة المدنية أيضاً، أنها لا تتأسس بخلط الدين بالسياسة. كما أنها لا تعادي الدينأو ترفضه. حيث أن ما ترفضه الدولة المدنية هو استخدام الدين لتحقيق أهداف سياسية، فذلك يتنافى مع مبدأالتعدد الذي تقوم عليه الدولة المدنية.

ما الفرق بين الدولة المدنية و الدولة العلمانية؟

  1. العلمانية والمدنية كلاهما ضد الدولة الدينية. لكن العلمانية ترى أن الدين لديه شكل معين للدولة، وبالتالييجب فصله عن الدولة. بينما المدنية ترى أن الدين ليس لديه شكل للدولة، وبالتالي يتم التعامل معه كقضيةاجتماعية وثقافية.
  2. العلمانية تدعو للمساواة أمام القانون. وتعني المساواة فرض قانون واحد على الجميع. والتشريع والقوانينفي العلمانية يجب فصلها عن الدين. بينما في الدول المدنية تحترم الاستحقاق الديمقراطي. وبالتالي يجوزللأغلبية الفائزة تعديل القوانين مع مراعاة حقوق الأقلية والحفاظ على الشكل المدني للدولة.
  3. العلمانية لا تهتم بشكل نظام الحكم: علماني ملكي عسكري (ككوريا الشمالية) . حزبي (كالصين). المهمهو فصل الدين عن الدولة وقوانينها. أما الدولة المدنية فتشترط التداول السلمي المدني للسلطة. وبالتالي لنتكون دولة عسكرية.
  4. عدم اعتناقِ  الدولة المدنية، للمبدأ العلماني ومنها حق عدم الإيمان بدين أو الإلحاد،  يثير  الكثير من الشكوك  المحقة،  حول إمكانية المساواة الكليّة الحقيقية بين مختلف الفئات الدينية أو العرقية وحول إمكانية القطيعة مع ما يؤدّي إلى تمييز فئة عن أخرى.
  5. من أبرز الإنجازات الحضارية لتجارب الدول العلمانية، الفصل القانوني بين الدين والسياسة والعِلم، وبالتالي فصل التعليم عن تأثير أي دين. كما ألغت بشكل مطلق شرعية أية «فتوى» دينية أو سياسية تمسّحياة عالِمٍ أو مفكِّر، بينما لا تبدو في مشاريع الدول المدنية أية نوايا باتجاه إلغاء الفتاوى المعادية للحريةوالإنسان.

الإسلاميون والدولة المدنية 

يُعرف زكي بن أرشيد (الأمين العام السابق لجبهة العمل الإسلامي في الأردن) الدولة المدنية من وجهة نظرإسلاموية[v] بقوله “إن المعايير التي تجعل الدولة مدنية خمسة هي: تمثيلها إرادة المجتمع وكونها دولةقانون، وانطلاقها من نظام مدني يضمن الحريات ويقبل التعددية وقبول الآخر، وقيامها على اعتبار المواطنة أساساً في الحقوق والواجبات لجميع المواطنين فيها، والتزامها بالديمقراطية والتداول السلمي على السلطة”.

أما كون القوانين تستند إلى المرجعية الإسلامية، لا يمنع تحولها بفعل الآلية الديمقراطية إلى قوانين مدنية،ويفيد هذا الأساس النظري في التمييز بين الشريعة والقانون على أساس أن الشريعة أحكام ملزمة دينياً للفردالمؤمن، بينما القانون فهو وضع بشري ملزم دنيوياً.

غير أنه ومن التجارب العديدة على أرض الواقع إن الديمقراطية لم تشكل سوى صباغ تتجمل بها الحركات الإسلامية شكلاً بأنها تقبل الديمقراطية والتنوع.

حيث رفض الأخوان في مصر أن تشارك قيادات غير محسوبة عليهم في تشكيل الحكومة رغم افتقارهمللقدرات الفنية لإدارة دولة. لكن عندما تكون العلمنة راسخة في المجتمع، فإن القوى الدينية سوف تتلاءم مع مستوى تطور الوعي الاجتماعي، حتى لا تفقد رصيدها وتحافظ على وجودها، مثال: حزب النهضة فيتونس. والسؤال يدور عن الشكل الذي سوف يتخذه التنافس السياسي بين الأحزاب الدينية والأحزاب العلمانيةأو اللادينية ؟ نظرياً يجب أن لا يكون الدين حزباً سياسياً، لأنه يتحول إلى عامل انقسام بين مكونات المجتمععلى أساس طائفي. ولو اتفقنا جدلاً على وجود أحزاب دينية، تقبل التعددية وتلتزم بمبادئ الديمقراطية،والتنافس السلمي للوصول إلى السلطة، من المعروف أنه خلال الصراع السلمي على السلطة في الدول الديمقراطية، يتم استخدام وسائل النقد وربما التجريح والتشهير بين القوى المتنافسة، فإن التوظيف السياسي للدين سوف يؤدي إلى استخدام أوصاف تكفير العلمانيين والتشهير بهم كونهم مرتدين والتركيز على حياتهم الشخصية وأمورهم الخاصة. وهذا ما يدفع العلمانيين بالمقابل للتشهير، والإساءة للأديان، ما يفقد الدين مكانته العقائدية، ويثير حساسية عالية لدى الجمهور، ويبعد الناخبين والمرشحين من التركيز على البرامج الاقتصادية والاجتماعية للمرشحين لصالح قضايا لا تخدم حياتهم بشيء، بل التلاعب بعواطف المتدينين ومناقشة قضايا تركز على الدين والأشخاص.

يقول الباحث د. نصير العمري[vi] إن تيارات الإسلام السياسي هي أحزاب سياسية يميزها عن غيرها أنهاتلعب لعبة مزدوجة، فمن ناحية تقدم نفسها للرأي العام من جمهور المتدينين على أنها أحزاب دينية إصلاحية “زاهدة” في السلطة. وفي نفس الوقت يقدمون أنفسهم بين الحزبيين وأمام الحكومات على أنهم مجرد أحزابسياسية لها برامج يعرضونها على الناس الذين لهم حق قبولها أو رفضها.

وبناء على هذه الازدواجية، يحق لمن ينافس الأحزاب الإسلامية أن ينزع عنها صفة “الإسلامية” لأنهاتستخدم الدين كغطاء وأداة سياسية.

والنتيجة: من غير المقبول وجود أحزاب دينية في الدولة المدنية لأسباب كثيرة كعدم قبول الفكر الديني للحرية بمفهومها المعاصر، وعدم قبول الفكر الديني للمساواة ومنها مساواة المرأة للرجل، والمساواة بين الأديان، كل هذا يقوض مبادئ الدولة المدنية المنشودة.

المجتمع السوري بين العلمنة والأسلمة

إن التمايز بين الفئات والمكونات المجتمعية على أساس الانتماء لطائفة، تخدم عملية تزرير المجتمع، وهذاالوضع ساعد و يساعد النظام في السيطرة على مكونات المجتمع وبث الفرقة بينها.

المجتمع السوري مجتمع حي، لعبت الأحداث التي مرت بها سوريا من الانتفاضة الشعبية ضد النظام إلى الحرب المكشوفة السافرة، في تغيير الكثير من أنماط وسلوك حياة الناس، وعلى الأخص دور المرأة في الأسرة والمجتمع بعد أن دخلت المرأة إلى المجال العام كمشاركة في التغيير المجتمعي. فقد دفعت الأحداث شريحة واسعة من الفئات المهمشة التقليدية من النساء إلى دخول المعترك العام، حيث اتجهت النساء للعمل وأصبحن معيلات وحيدات لعائلاتهن. بل أن عمليات النزوح والتشرد والهجرة الواسعة، أثرت كثيرا على أنماط السلوك في المجتمع وعلى كسر التقاليد والعادات المتخلفة التي تقيد مشاركة المرأة في الشأن العام، كل ذلك أثر على إمكانية تقبل النساء والرجال لأفكار جديدة وعادات وتقاليد جديدة فرضتها عليهم الحرب ومانتج عنها من عمليات النزوح واللجوء الفقر والتشرد، التي أدت إلى تفكك الأسرة سواء بسبب الموت أو الاعتقال والتغييب القسري أو بسبب تشتت العائلة الواحدة في أماكن متباعدة. كثيرة هي الظواهر التي أثارت الرعب في أوصال المجتمع المحافظ حتى  صارت الخطب في الجوامع تتناول لباس النساء وتحررهن وتطالب رجال العائلة بالتدخل. وهنا نخلص إلى أن المتغيرات المجتمعية وخروج فئات عن سيطرة العائلة البطريركية والقوى التقليدية تشكل رصيداً لعلمنة المجتمع وتقبله أفكار المساواة والحرية.

هذا الرصيد تم دعمه بفشل القوى المتشددة في إدارة المناطق التي وقعت تحت سيطرتها، حيث استخدمت مختلف وسائل العنف وقمع الحريات الشخصية للمواطنين، من تدخل في لباسهم وشرابهم وطعامهم وتنقلاتهم تحت ذريعة الشريعة. وطبقت القوى المتشددة القوانين الشرعية بشكل قسري ليس على مستوى قوانين الأحوال الشخصية فحسب، بل إن المحكمة الشرعية هي المحكمة الوحيدة المتواجدة في هذه المناطق وتحكم في كل القضايا وفق الشريعة الإسلامية. هذه السياسات أدت إلى ردود أفعال مناقضة لها عند المواطنين تمثلت بطوقهم للتحرر والانعتاق خاصة في أماكن سيطرة داعش، وجبهة النصرة.

من جهة أخرى، شكلت سيطرة قوات سوريا الديمقراطية على مساحة واسعة من الشمال الشرقي في سوريا (تحت مسمى مناطق الإدارة الذاتية) حيث فرضت قوانينها العلمانية تجربة إيجابية وقبولاً عند شريحة واسعةمن المجتمع السوري.

إضافة الى ذلك تشكل الأقليات الدينية والعرقية سواء من دافع منها عن النظام أو من التزم الحياد أو منعارض النظام، رصيداً لدعم العلمانية حتى لو كانوا متعصبين لطوائفهم وحتى لو كان وعيهم للعلمانيةمحدوداً، غير أن الجميع يرفض استلام أغلبية دينية للحكم.

في المقابل اتخذ النظام السوري (الذي لا يعينه من أمر الدولة والمجتمع سوى الحفاظ على سلطته مهما كان الثمن) في فترة الأزمة عدة قرارات تصب في خدمة أسلمة المجتمع، حيث منح النظام رجال ونساء الدين سلطات وميزات تحت سقف الولاء للنظام، ما يُشكل على مستقبل المدنية والعلمانية المنشودة في سوريا،وتفضح وتكشف الهوة بين العلمانية والنظام السوري. نسلط الضوء في هذا السياق على:

1 ـ القبيسيات: قيل الكثير من الكلام عن حركة القبيسيات النسوية بعد أن سجلت حضوراً واسعاً في الشارعالسوري حيث تجاوزت أنشطة الحركة العمل الخيري، والدعوي التي بدأت به،  فالجمعية على سبيل المثالتشرف على 40 من أصل 80 مدرسة لتحفيظ القرآن في سوريا بناء على تراخيص رسمية. ويُقدر عددالمنتميات إلى الجمعية حالياً بأكثر من 75 ألف عضوة. كما أن عضواتها تقلدن مناصب رفيعة في وزارةالأوقاف السورية، وهو أمر سمح لهن بالمشاركة في صنع القرار .

وعلى صعيد الممارسة تتبع القبيسيات طريقة تمجّد الشيخة أو الآنسة القبيسية، وتفرض عليهن تقاليد طاعةمبالغ فيها ، تتعارض مع قيم الحرية الفردية.

ويبدو أن القبيسيات نجحن أيضاً من خلال علاقاتهن مع صناع القرار في الحصول على تراخيص رسميةلإنشاء مدارس ابتدائية تابعة لهن مثل “دار النعيم”، و “دار المجد”، يتم فيها تخصيص دروس إضافية لتعليمالدين.[vii]

إن خطر القبيسيات على مستقبل العلمانية ينبع من تدخلهن في شؤون التعليم (وهو شأن عام)،  حيث لم يقتصر عملهن على النشاط الدعوي في المساجد، بل امتد لتأثيرهن لمنع إصدار أي قانون لا يتوافق مع الشريعة الإسلامية كحال قانون الأحوال الشخصية. ويجدر الذكر أنهن المنظمة النسوية الوحيدة التي نالترخصة وشرعية في النشاط، في الوقت الذي منعت الجمعيات النسوية العلمانية من الترخيص، وتم حلالاتحاد النسائي التابع لحزب البعث.

2 ـ قانون الأوقاف رقم 31 لعام 2018 مواده ملغومة،  لها تأثيرات سياسية واجتماعية واقتصادية، و تشكل خطراً على العلمانية والمدنية في سوريا حاضراً ومستقبلاً نخص بالذكر المادة 8 الأكثر تأثيراً بل خطراً، فهي توسع قنوات إشراف الوزارة على الشؤون الدينية، وتمنحها فرصة الرقابة على أي منتج فكري أو إعلامي.

فقد أصبحت وزارة الأوقاف أحد أذرع النظام في الرقابة وقمع الحريات، حيث يحق لها وفق القانون مراقبة الكتب، ويرى الدكتور محمد حبش “أنه ستتوسع صلاحيتها بما يشمل كل ما ينشر ويطبع، وليس فقط الكتب الدينية والمتعلقة بالقرآن والتفسير، فلا يصدر أي مقال أو كتاب له صلة بالشأن الديني إلا بإذن الأوقاف“ا[viii] وبالتنسيق مع وزارتي الإعلام والثقافة للإشراف على البرامج الخاصة بالعمل الديني في وسائل الإعلام كافة، وكذلك المطبوعات الدينية.

وقد أثمرت هذه السياسة بمنع الكتب النقدية للدين من التداول في الأسواق “ككتب الباحث نبيل فياض” وبالمقابل أغرقت السوق بالكتب الدينية الأصولية.

ويمكن الاستنتاج هنا أن العلمانية وحدها تجعل الدين وحرية الاعتقاد شأناً خاصاً وللمتدين حرية ممارسة اعتقاده الديني دون أي تدخل من السلطة وبموجب قانون الدولة.

بالمقابل المؤسسة الدينية عليها أن لا تتدخل على الإطلاق بالتعليم والصحافة والنشر والإعلام، فهذه حرياتعامة يجب أن تكون مكفولة بالقوانين.

إن سوريا المستقبل تحتاج إلى دولة علمانية تفصل الدين عن المجال العام الذي يتضمن شؤون القانون والتعليم والحريات العامة إضافة إلى الاقتصاد والسياسة. نشير هنا إلى أن قوى الإسلام السياسي لن يكون لها مستقبل في الدولة العلمانية إلا إذا خرجت من عباءة الدين وتحولت على سبيل المثال إلى أحزاب على غرار حزب العدالة التركي.

 ونحن أيضاً بحاجة إلى دولة مدنية ديمقراطية، تقوم على أساس المواطنة المتساوية. غير أن القوى التي ترسم مستقبل سوريا قد تبتعد كثيراً عن حاجات الواقع، بل عن الوزن الواقعي للقوى المعبرة عن مصالح مختلف الفئات الاجتماعية، تحت وقع الضغوط والمصالح الدولية المؤثرة في عملية التسوية التي يعملون على تمريرها عبر الدستور، الذي سوف يكون أشبه بعقد بين الدول، وليس عقداً بين السوريين. فالدستور الذي يصنعه السوريون\ات هو الدستور الذي يخلق أكبر مساحات للحوار والنقاش والجدل والخلاف بين مختلف فئات المجتمع السوري، في ظروف تتوفر فيها فرص التمثيل الصحيح لتنوع كفاءات المجتمع. وأهم نقطة خاصة بالدستور المأمول هو كيف سيطبق دون حل سياسي شامل، ودون بناء الثقة بين مكونات المجتمع. فهل سيفرض بموجب وصاية دولية؟ وأي سلطة ستطبقه؟ النظام أم سلطة الشعب الذي يعبر عنهاالدستور!  يكتنف مستقبل سوريا الغموض، لكن كل الأمل في العمل على إنشاء دولة علمانية مدنية رغم كل التحديات.

هوامش:

[i] العلمانية في سوريا بين المجتمع والسلطة تقرير وسام العبدالله  نشر في موقع اليوم الثالث  تاريخ 27/8/2017

[ii] قانون الأحوال الشخصية في سوريا بين الواقع والطموح بحث سحر حويجة منشور في المنتدى القانوني السوري تاريخ 2018.

[iii]  د. . عبد الوهاب المسيري  العلمانية الجزئية والعلمانية الشاملة  المجلد الأول .

[iv]  وكييديا الموسوعة الحرة .

[v]   ازكي بن ارشيد  مقال  على موقع  الجزيرة نت  ا تحت عنوان  الدولة المدنية هل تشكل نقيضا للدولة الإسلامية

[vi]  د. نصير العميري مقال معضلات الصراع السياسي بين العلمانيين والإسلاميين  موقع المواطن  23/ 10 /2019

[vii] حركة القبيسيات شكوك عقائدية ومخاوف سياسية تقرير عفراء محمد  D W

[viii]   نور دالاتي عنب بلدي  مقال قانون الاوقاف الجديد سم في عسل الديمقراطية .

Syria, between civil tyranny and a religious state

Syria, between civil tyranny and a religious state

*This new roundtable with SyriaUntold and Jadaliyya will pose questions about the prospects for secularism in Syria’s future. The full roundtable in Arabic can also be found here.

There have been plenty of questions in recent years regarding the possible social, political and cultural futures of the Syrian state. But here, we will focus the discussion on a subject that is inextricably tied up with these questions: the structure and nature of that future Syrian state. Will it be secular? Religious? Or will it remain in its current form, a hybrid state?

To properly explore these questions, one has to extensively review the early roots of secularization in Syria, its connections to the Levant, and the reasons behind its failed implementation.

Why did Syria’s secularization fail?

The secular nationalist mentality started to emerge in the Levant in the mid-19th century, during the Ottoman occupation. At the time, intellectual and cultural associations were formed on the ground. And the main hub for these activities was Beirut (Syria and Lebanon were still united at the time).

The first Syrian association to revive this secular nationalism was the Syrian Scientific Association (formed in 1857), which was influenced by the values and ideas of the French Revolution as a result of study, interaction and missionary visits. Ibrahim al-Yazji, Mohammed Arslan, Boutros al-Boustani, and Francis al-Morash—these intellectuals, among others, constituted the most important pillars of nationalist and secular thought. They were (later) joined by officers who’d served in the Turkish army, and were influenced by the French Revolution and German nationalist thought, as a result of the compulsory “Turkification” policy after the 1909 revolution and the rise of Turanism. All of this fuelled the nationalist renaissance by joining up with the 1916 Great Syrian Revolution when Levantine countries—including Syria—gained their independence, However, after just two years of independence between 1918 and 1920, Syria became a French mandate. Beginning in the mid-19th century, the French had dealt successive blows against local industry and the accumulation of capital, the negative impact of which manifested itself in the rise of a liberal bourgeoisie. At the same time, there were some manifestations of political modernity: elections, for one, along with rather more humble additions—roads and such.

With the era of independence came the falsely named “liberal” elite, which went on to rule Syria while failing to accomplish any real national or modernist missions (including secularization). This was due to a combination of historical, social, economic and religious factors, the most important of which being a structural incompetence emanating from the fact that the elite were closely affiliated to the global market and, therefore, dependent on it; in addition to the weak commercial structure of the cities and their alliance with clerics (many of whom were themselves traders and property owners); as well as a feudalist system that dominated both the urban and rural economy. This trio would become rooted in Syria’s economic and political make-up for decades.

In turn, this produced industrialists and businessmen who were conservative, by their nature and their relationships. This weak alliance controlled the joints of the state as well as the authorities in Syria—with its multitude of religions, sects, doctrines and nationalities. The resultant state was disorganized in terms of economy, politics, geography and modernity. It was a tangle of contradictions, caught between modern and medieval structures. All these elements became a major reason for the sluggish materialization of a social class or group that adopted the concepts of secularization, modernity, freedom and plurality.

The structural incompetence of Syrian liberalism—the offspring of feudalism—and its failed economic policies paved the way for the countryside to overtake the prominent joints of the modern state. This led to the partial isolation of the city itself from secular ideas and political democratic movements. It also led to the marginalization of the countryside, whose sons found a safe haven in secular parties that promised them equality and equal citizenship. They also found the army to be a motor for social progress. All these factors worked jointly to bring the army to power, in parallel with the Palestine war and the establishment of Israel, which in turn exposed the incompetence of the ruling elite. This elite was then overthrown by Hosni a-Zaim, who adopted a constitution that was closer in nature to secularism—for example, it did not mention the religion of the state or the president. This constitution was subject to amendments during the rule of Adib a-Shishakli after a long battle over the articles concerning the state’s religion and the religion of the president. Those involved agreed to mention the state abstractly, whereas the religion of the president was specified as Islam.

Personal status laws remained subject to Islamic shari’a, and so the hybrid state persisted (as it has until the present day), despite the rise of actively secular parties during that time. However, their action was limited to the political domain and governance, having postponed all enlightenment and modernization projects until they came to power. Perhaps the most prominent of these elites is the Syrian Nationalist Party, which struggled to achieve modernity and secularization, and the Communist Party.

The Ba’ath Party, meanwhile, was not secular as it was a combination of nationalist thoughts, with a secular dimension, connected to Arab Islamic history.

Under Ba’athist rule

When the Ba’ath Party came to power in Syria after the 1963 military coup, it tried to undermine the social and economic positions of urban capitalism through nationalization, and feudalism through agricultural reform laws along with their clerical allies. It maintained the old structures that were able to reproduce traditional concepts along with their social and cultural pillars.

When the Ba’ath Party enacted its (three) provisional constitutions, it did not dare separate religion from the state. It did not invoke a revolution or reform on the legislative level with regards to personal status (religious) laws. It did not fight the battle of modernity and secularization—as Bourguiba did in Tunisia—but rather it entered in a struggle for power, influence and resources in order to weaken any potential opposition.

This was done in stages.

Even when the Ba’athist extremists were in power (between 1966 and 1970), their radical actions were limited to nationalization and other political positions. They did not wage the battle of secularization due to the weakness of their social base and the fragile pillars of modernity and secularization. They also feared that opposing forces might rebel against them and accuse them of blasphemy.

And so, the “state” maintained its hybrid form.

Hafez al-Assad: A strong relationship between state and clergy

When Hafez al-Assad (who himself came from a minority) reached power, he needed to consolidate the foundations of his authoritarian regime within a changing political context—which is why he made changes in the already limited secular environment.

The regime worked on fostering a close relationship between the state and the clerics, especially the Institution for Fatwa and Endowments, and formed a close alliance with them for what they represented. This formula constituted the basis of his rule. Assad maintained a secular touch to sustain political harmony under his rule. That remains in force today.

This contract of alliances produced the constitution of 1973, which redrafted the 1950 constitution in the wake of protests in the city of Hama, and the refusal of clerics there of the version that did not mention the religion of the president of the country. During this stage, the building of mosques flourished and religious discourse thrived with it. This was to satisfy the new allies of the regime and its popular base, and also to confront the radical left.

The essence of the 1973 constitution continued, and so it was the case for the 2012 constitution as well. There were no modernizing amendments with regards to secularization, let alone the personal status affairs and legislation based on Islamic shari’a.

As for the political parties, the regime established an alliance as a formality with five parties that made up the National Front. The parties were secular and civil in nature. Despite this, the Syrian government issued a law that regulated the work of political parties in 2011. The law did not mention secularism in its articles, but referred to the conditions of establishing a party, which included that the party should not be based on a religious, tribal, regional, group or professional basis, or on the basis of discrimination against one’s gender or race.

The mistake of characterizing the Syrian state as secular

The above history makes it clear why it would be a mistake to characterize the Syrian state as one secular in nature. The same can be said of Syrian society, as well, which coexisted innately until religion entered politics.

One should also remember that mosques and churches still have the upper hand. The personal affairs law is still within the context and frame of religious shari’a. Educational institutions have been unable to scrap religious education and replace it with subjects on citizenship. Any neutral observer will also notice that religious elements have recently become more prevalent within both state and society: the number of Quran Memorization Institutes, Islamic groups (such as al-Qobaisiyat) and charities has increased; while the powers of the Endowments Ministry have been extended.

It is as if we are seeing a renewal of the regime’s alliance with the clergy, after the major changes in Syria that began with the 2011 Syrian revolution.

Did the uprising hinder secularization?

The popular explosion that took place in 2011 carried with it great prospects for radical projects that could be democratic and secular in nature. Unfortunately, traditional political Islam became one of the uprising’s most active driving forces, on both a political and popular level, whereas the Marxist and nationalist left had lost its legitimacy and (neo-)liberal forces were weak.

So, no developmental projects were put forward. The struggle was limited to a struggle for power (and the importance of the ballot box).

This coincided with some of the secular elite theorizing in favor of a “civil state” rather than secularization, a step backwards from what had been proposed in past decades. In this context, there followed Borhan Ghaliyoun’s abandonment of the secular state in an interview with the television channel LBC, in which he favored the idea of a civil state after a deal with the Islamists. This retreat was meant to circulate the concept of a civil state in order to pave the way for Islamic rule, as in the Turkish model.

The Arab uprisings failed to achieve what was expected of them—democracy, modernity and social justice—in most countries, including Syria. Instead, they paved the way for civil wars in Libya, Yemen and Syria, which are continuing until now.

This war led Syria to extremism, sectarianism and, perhaps, division. Syria, and other countries in the region, missed a historical opportunity to form a project of modern democratic enlightenment, or to present a serious project of reform—as happened in the 19th and 20th centuries through individuals like Rafaa al-Tahtawi, Mohammed Abdo, Qasem Amin, Taha Hussein, Ali Abdul Razzaq, Abdul Rahman Kawakibi and many others.

The reason (as mentioned earlier) goes back to the nature of the political and social actors that made up the movement, as well as their traditional and religious structures. They were forces without a project or program. All they aspired for was political power, wealth and the introduction of capital with an Islamic tone (as capitalists from political Islam). There is an evident similarity between Islamist parties and authoritarian ruling powers (that are civil only at the surface) in terms of capitalist structure, a central objective of taking power, and their lack of a project. This all in addition to the fact that both are undemocratic.

Recent conflicts led us to retreat further from the project of development. In this context, one cannot forget the role of foreign interventions and their project of “moderate” political Islam—the Muslim Brotherhood—although they backed down from the alliance with Brotherhood after their overthrow in Egypt in 2013.

What prospects are there for a solution?

After years of destructive civil war, and the bloody struggle for power and wealth that took on the form of a multi-faceted sectarian conflict, we should dare to say (in order to be precise) that the conflict had a sectarian form and dimension. It was not the first conflict of its kind—there had been armed conflict between the regime and Islamic fundamentalists in 1979 and 1982. Rather, it was a result of the nature of opposing, warring powers in terms of their demographic, sectarian and intellectual compositions.

The Syrian regime, authoritarian as it is, has sectarian and doctrinal features. These were bolstered by some of the regime’s alliances in the region (such as the one with Iran), which only appeared to back up the position of popular and Islamic opposition groups that related toward the regime on a sectarian basis.

After that came the 2011 uprising, which was met with brutal force by the regime. The conflict was characterized by forces that were working to break up with the regime and fight against it under sectarian slogans pushed to the forefront of the fighting. These slogans mobilized supporters and formed the tools for violent militias on both sides. The regime used all violent tools at its disposal, transforming the conflict from a horizontal one to a vertical conflict (in terms of society and politics) and paving the way to grave sectarian divisions. Both sides of the conflict lacked a program or a vision; their only project was power. The regime defended its existence by any means necessary—bloody or otherwise—and took advantage of claims that it was defending minorities and the ideals of resistance.

Armed opposition forces active on the ground, mostly Islamic in nature, demanded their (supposed) rights to rule Syria, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Other opposition forces, on the other hand—be they leftist, secular or liberal—turned out to be the weaker link.

The uprising could have opened the door for a developmental, modernist project in Syria, but that same door was quickly slammed shut by the nature of the regime’s response. It used all types of violence to confront demonstrators, whereas those subject to that violence increasingly turned to Islamization (in addition to the fact that political Islam was already something found in Syrian society). These internal factors, combined with regional interventions pumping money and weapons into the opposition with the aim of overthrowing the regime and challenging the so-called “Shia Crescent,” turned the Syrian conflict into one pitted between two tyrannical, extremist sides.

Syria lost its opportunity for a national, democratic and secular state because of the absence of popular groups with their own tools to see it through. Traditional Islamic forces were able to control the movement and lead it where they wanted, helped by support from regional and international powers.

After nine long years of blood, destruction and displacement, during which time people’s priorities shifted from the dream of enlightenment to a dream that the status quo persist and the war end, there’s a need for a national reconciliation based on a political solution and power-sharing agreement between the regime and the opposition (who have failed to overthrow the regime).

Of course, questions remain. Which political opposition are we even referring to? What would its role be? What role might traditional and extremist forces play within the structures of the future state? And with it, how will Syria’s identity be rebuilt?

How will secularization materialize?

Another question following on from this might be: how will secularization materialize? Will it be through a top-down or bottom-up approach? Will it be socially introduced to the minorities as a kind of self-defense?

If this is the case, the whole issue will be repeated again: a limited social base acting as a lever and the traditional financial, religious and social forces thwarting the implementation of secularization.

In its current state, Syria is unwell, in need of treatment. That treatment presents two options: the first, the survival of a tyrannical regime with a secular appearance on the surface; and the second, a possible extremist religious state that abolishes what remains of the country’s civil institutions and state structures.

Given the current balance between internal and external powers, secularization is not on their respective agendas. Therefore, the solution will not materialize without a secular democratic state based on equal citizenship. The state will remain hybrid (because of that balance of powers) without power-sharing. The two tracks (secular and hybrid) might break apart and we could find ourselves in the realm of sectarian quotas. This will be the most dangerous road for Syria because it paves the way for future civil wars.

And yet, a new elite could arise from the rubble and convince Syrians of the need for secularization and a state of law.

Until then, we are faced with an urgent mission: to pressure the newly formed Constitutional Committee to draft a secular and democratic constitution that preserves the rights of all citizens in a torn country made up of a mosaic of sects, doctrines, nationalities and religions; a constitution that is based on the principle of equal citizenship.

I am not optimistic because religious powers will try to inhibit this, especially because the United States and other countries are working on a sectarian constitution, as in Lebanon and Iraq. This was set clear by leaking some of the proposals discussed in a meeting of the United States, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other western countries in 2018, along with proposals from western envoys regarding a “harmonious democracy.”

And will the Syrian people and its elites accept proposals like these?