After a week of suppression and mass punishment, the Syrian army has regained control of the town of Jisr al-Shughour. It has been a brutal campaign in the classic mode of tyrants. But not withstanding this success, the world should be in no doubt that the oligarchy of Assad sons, cousins and buddies is seeing the rationale that has governed for years turn against them.
The regime has long controlled society through a multi-tier strategy relying on security, sectarianism and dominating the economy. President Bashar al-Assad inherited a functioning security apparatus. The equilibrium maintained between different security agencies was designed to prevent the domination of any one of them. But now in face of the uprising it is leading to an inconsistent response to the protests. So too, while disproportionate brutality in response to dissent was an effective deterrent for years, this time brutality triggered the uprising in the city of Deraa. The repetition of the unrest in other towns is fomenting the insurgency.
Economic planning was always subordinated to sectarian and security considerations. The regime embraced liberal economics, first reluctantly then wholeheartedly as it learnt to pervert its rules to suit its financial appetite. The business empires controlled by the inner circle of the Assad family – banks, insurance companies, mobile phone firms – allowed the regime to breed a new middle class of workers, primarily concentrated in the large urban centres which came to form a new social base for the regime. In the meantime, the traditional middle class, when it was not co-opted or corrupted, sank into poverty.