Syria’s Bashar Assad faces the toughest period of his rule during the course of the 9-year civil war in the country while a collapsing economy, a rift within his family and rising tensions with his key ally Russia cause damage and pose a serious threat to his already fragile regime.
As The Washington Post reported recently, opposition groups in northwestern Syria’s Idlib region have not actively posed a threat since the recent cease-fire, and there appears to be an absence of a serious contender within the regime to challenge Assad's rule. However, Assad continues to tackle fissures in the once-united front presented by loyalists who stood by him throughout his battle to crush the opposition.
In contrast to its supportive approach of Assad since the eruption of the civil war, Russian media outlets have recently started to criticize Assad for his heavy dependence on foreign allies – Iran as well as Russia – for his survival.
In a high-profile critique, a former ambassador to Syria in Russia said Assad’s refusal to make political concessions counter Russia’s interests. That commentary was posted first on the website of the influential Valdai Discussion Club, then by the Russian International Affairs Council think tank and in Russia by the respected Kommersant daily newspaper.
“Judging by everything we see, Damascus is not particularly interested in displaying a farsighted and flexible approach,” wrote former Russian diplomat, Alexander Aksenyonok. “The regime is reluctant or unable to develop a system of government that can mitigate corruption and crime.”
“Russia has reached the limits of compromise” in the Russian-sponsored peace process that Moscow hopes will lead to political reforms," Aksenyonok warned.
Also, a collapsing economy has been driving Syrians into poverty on a scale unprecedented in recent history. A record 9.3 million people are now food insecure in Syria as spiraling prices and the coronavirus pandemic compound the damage of a nine-year war, the World Food Program (WFP) said last month.
"Record high food prices & now COVID-19 have pushed families in Syria beyond their limits," the WFP wrote on Twitter.
"WFP estimates that a record 9.3 million people are now food insecure," it said.
That figure has leaped from 7.9 million six months ago, a WFP spokeswoman said.
Syria's war has devastated the country's economy since 2011, plunging 80% of its people into poverty, according to the United Nations. Despite relative quiet in the country's remaining battlefields, early 2020 has only seen the situation worsen. Much of the economy in regime-held areas shuttered in March to prevent the spread of the pandemic. The WFP said food prices had doubled in a year to an all-time high across Syria. Over the past year, Syrians in regime-held areas have faced a fuel crisis, a plummeting Syrian pound on the black market and steep price hikes. Damascus has blamed Western sanctions for its struggling economy.
Last week, the European Union renewed its sanctions against the Assad regime and his top political officials, military officers and businesspeople over the regime's continued crackdown on civilians in the conflict-torn country.
“Assad has become highly reliant on Iranian and Russian support. He does not have the domestic resources to deliver to his constituents. He does not have international legitimacy, and he does not have the military power he had before the conflict. His toolbox is empty, and he is actually more vulnerable than ever,” Lina Khatib of the Chatham House think tank in London told The Washington Post.
A deepening family rift between Assad and his first cousin Rami Makhlouf is another issue that reveals the deeper problems of the regime.
The regime last month ordered the seizure of assets belonging to Makhlouf, one of Syria's richest men, as well as those of his wife and children. The document, stamped May 19 and signed by the finance minister, said the "precautionary seizure" was aimed to guarantee payment of sums owed to the telecom regulatory authority.
Once at the heart of Assad's inner circle, Makhlouf has quarreled with the authorities over funds they say are owed by his mobile phone company Syriatel. The unprecedented public tussle has uncovered a rift in the ruling elite.
Makhlouf has addressed the dispute in three video messages in which he has appealed to Assad himself to help save his firm. In his last appearance, Makhlouf said he had been told to quit as the head of Syriatel. Makhlouf, in a Facebook post, said the asset seizure was illegal.
He also said the courts had been asked to appoint a legal guardian to manage Syriatel, calling this an attempt to exclude him from the company.
"All of this with the excuse that we hadn't agreed to pay the sum. As you know, that is incorrect ... (they) want the company and the only thing they see is controlling it."
The regime says Syriatel owes 134 billion pounds, or around $77 million, on the parallel market. A separate order has banned Makhlouf from government contracts for five years.
Makhlouf, a maternal cousin of Assad, played a big role in financing Assad's war effort, Western officials have said. He is under U.S. and EU sanctions. Syria experts say the row could mark the first major rift in decades within the family that has ruled the country since Assad's father Hafez Assad took power 50 years ago.
