Hussain Abdul-Hussain

Since the outbreak of the Syrian uprising five weeks ago, President Bashar al-Assad has been forecasting a civil war should his regime fall. This scare tactic is hardly original and more in line with similar threats from Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi.

Assad suggested the possibility of war during his speech before parliament in late March. Assad apologists, such as academics Joshua Landis and May Akl, followed suit, warning the world that if Assad falls, Syria will be either ruled by radical Islamists, or will turn into another ungovernable Iraq.

Meanwhile, opposition supporters dismiss the possibility of a civil war because Syria, unlike Lebanon or Iraq, is exceptionally homogenous. In Lebanon and Iraq, there are no clear demographic majorities. In Lebanon power is divided between Christians and Muslims, whereas in Iraq the Shia make up 60 percent of the population, while the rest is split between Sunnis and Kurds.

Syria's clear Sunni majority means it is nowhere as diverse, and subsequently as fractious, as Lebanon and Iraq.
Also unlike Lebanon and Iraq, civil strife has no significant historical precedents in Syria. Over the past few centuries, Iraq has been the fault line between the region's Sunnis and Shia. The Arab-Kurdish frontier also passes through Iraq. In Lebanon, inter-communal conflict dates as far back as the sixteenth century. The Druze often took on Maronites and at times raided the Shia of Baalbek and Tripoli. The Sunnis of northern Palestine often invaded the Shia villages in South Lebanon. On the other hand, the Ottoman states that later merged into modern-day Syria rarely saw similar wars.

Lebanon's divisions continued. When the French formed Greater Lebanon, it took Muslims a long time to recognize the existence of their new nation-state. As recently as the 1960s, lawmakers from Baalbek signed a petition demanding cessation from Lebanon to join Syria.

Unlike divided Greater Lebanon, the four states the French created in Syria were quick to merge, despite some reluctance from the Alawite state. While the Syrians created Syria, the Lebanese and the Iraqis were coerced into their states, which they have since been trying to divide.

With a less diverse and less fractious population, the chances of Syria entering into a civil war are slim. So what would a post-Assad Syria look like?  The answer depends on how the ruling Baathist Alawites behave. Being the best-funded and best-trained – although smallest – Syrian community gives them short-term advantages. In the long term, however, the Alawites will be outnumbered and eventually outmuscled if they choose to fight for their position in power.
 
They could learn from the Baathists in Iraq, who embraced Islamism and initially received support from the world's radical Sunnis to fuel a civil war, until the radical elements started calling the shots and alienated their hosts, who in turn ejected them and joined the political process.
In Syria, the Baathists have no international radical network to fall on.

The Alawites might decide to overrule Assad if he decides to fight. Sparing the sect a suicidal adventure might emerge as the most viable option for the Alawites. Assad realizes his demographic handicap. That's why he was swift in trying to co-opt the Kurds, though he ultimately failed.

Post-Assad Syria will not be another Lebanon or Iraq. And while it is difficult to predict what it will end up looking like, there are promising indications that Syria after Assad will neither turn Islamist, nor head into a civil war.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is the Washington Bureau Chief of Al-Rai newspaper