History does not repeat itself, according to Mark Twain, but it does rhyme. That observation comes to mind when one compares Syria 30 years ago, ruled by a ruthless dictator, and Syria now, ruled by an equally ruthless dictator. The first, Hafez Al-Assad, enforced his rule with mass murder, was never held accountable for it, and died in bed, of pulmonary problems.

The second, his son Bashar, is faithfully copying his father's methods. But now, unlike then, government brutality is documented by internet-savvy witnesses whose videos provide shocking evidence for all the world to see. That has prompted a rising chorus of predictions that Bashar will be held to account. But every day that sees Syrians dying while the world watches suggests there is a sizeable dose of wishful thinking in forecasts of the dictator's exit.

Before making the case for scepticism, a look at how history rhymes. On February, 2, 1982, an army raid on a hide-out of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood sparked fighting throughout the city of Hama. The government responded by surrounding Hama with tanks and artillery and blasting the densely-populated centre in a 27-day assault that killed between 10,000 and 40,000 people. The operation, led by Hafez Al-Assad's brother Rifaat, ended a four-year campaign of assassinations and bombings by Sunni Muslims intent on breaking the tight grip on power of the Assad family and the Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam. (Alawites account for about 12 per cent of Syria's population.)

In 2012, Bashar is using the tactics of his father to rout dissidents in Homs and other cities. Then, as now, the government labelled its foes terrorists.

Coverage of the 1976-1982 shadow war, which included several attempts to assassinate Hafez Al-Assad, had been subdued. It became more subdued after the Damascus government made clear that Western correspondents based in Beirut would have to pay a price for ignoring threats about the consequences of filing "biased accounts."

I became an object lesson on June 6, 1980, when a man using a pistol with a silencer shot me in the back in front of the house of the BBC's Middle East Correspondent, Tim Llewellyn. He was withdrawn shortly after. He, too, had received death threats.

The 1982 carnage went largely unnoticed by the world. Syria's Arab neighbours remained silent, reaction from Washington was muted. Three decades later, US leaders were slow to grasp how closely Bashar Al-Assad was following in his father's footsteps. It took Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, 106 days and more than 1,300 Syrian deaths to change her description of Bashar from "reformer" to a "leader who has lost legitimacy." That was in July.

Since then, the body count has been rising relentlessly and reports of atrocities have stoked widespread condemnation. But outrage alone doesn't topple dictators, even less a dictator who feels that he has the upper hand militarily. Prospects for a speedy political solution look bleak even though Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General named Special Envoy to Syria, is continuing his peace-making mission.

Now, it requires rose-tinted glasses to foresee an arrangement that would provide for Bashar to step down as a first move towards democratic transformation, one of the key points of a UN Security Council resolution vetoed by Russia and China on February 4. Though both countries have expressed concern about the ceaseless bloodshed, neither has budged from opposition to what they see as a Western crusade, using the UN as a tool for toppling unfriendly regimes.

So what may be next? Reconciliation is not on the table, not after four decades of repression, torture and violation of human rights. Assad and his loyalists in the Alawite-officered military and in the Alawite-dominated security apparatus - set up with the help of East Germany's Stasi - know that agreeing to genuine reforms would lead to trials and executions.

"It would be unrealistic to expect the president and those around him to voluntarily step down," in the words of Nikolaos van Dam, author of The Struggle for Power in Syria, a slim volume first published in 1979, that has become required reading for scholars of the country. "He is not going to sign his own death warrant."

Among van Dam's scenarios for Syria's future: "The continuation of the present dictatorship in ever more difficult circumstances for both the regime and the population..."

(Bernd Debusmann, Reuters World Affairs columnist, was the agency's Chief Middle East Correspondent from 1975 to 1980.)

 

 

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